Vayera (Parsha) Akedah (chapter 22)
September 17th 2004 second day Rosh Hashana
At this time Avraham is over 100 years old and Sarah is close behind at over 90, and they have only one son together ? Isaac. They have been promised by God a nation that will be exceedingly numerous ? as the stars in the heavens and sand in the sea. It seems to me that this Parsha should have been called Viagra not Vayera.
When Ed Alexander asked me to give this Dvar Torah I wish now, in retrospect, that I would have answered instantly and unequivocally ? hinayni. Instead I doubted my ability, thought of all the preparations necessary and all the other projects of my chaotic life. ? And told him I would call back. Well now I am here, inspired by this passage and the greatness of my great great ? so very great grandfather Abraham and I want to share with you the hinainis of Avraham ? and why he was chosen to be the leader of our people rather than someone like me.
The centre of our Judaic culture is the pursuit of faith in God. The epicenter of this Parsha is the story of the Akedah which exemplifies the ultimate faith of the father of our fathers and the grandfather of our grandfathers ? Avraham. Faith is demonstrated in its complete essence in the only word that Avraham says to God in this chilling episode of Vayera ?- Hinayni ? here I am
Vayomer ay-luv Avraham and he said to him, Abraham?
Vayomer Hinayni ? and he said ? here I am
With this word hinayni, Avraham bears his naked soul to God and in all humility is able to rapidly cross the boundary of his earthly existence to the highest level of spirituality ? atonement. It is a very easy switch for him ? no thought no deliberation no procrastination ? no I?ll call you tomorrow
AND THAT?S what it is all about. You are called ? and you respond by taking yourself out of your own space and activity and needs and you completely put yourself in the command and hands of the entity that needs you ? without concern for your own self.
When Adam and Eve were called by God they were unable to make this transition ? instead they hid.
And so the word hinayni in this instance crystallizes Abraham?s faith. I have always admired the sounds shapes and implications of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and have been inspired by Rabbi Michael Munk?s book: The Wisdom of the Hebrew alphabet. The root letters of hinayni ? hay nun, nun and yud have significant implication ? The yud is inarguably a symbol of Godliness, and the nuns are intimately involved in the word ne- eman and emunah ? amen ? all words of trust and faith
For Avram he received the hay when God promised a great nation to come after him affording him a God-given destiny
For Sarai (soon to be Sarah) the soft sounding hay endowed her both with a Godliness and with the femininity she needed to eventually give birth to Isaac (The hay imparts the female gender to nouns in the Hebrew language)
The hay is made up of a daled and a yud
The daled has a very definite association with the word delet ? a door. The daled resonates both in shape and sound of a delet, with its vertical and horizontal components. A door very clearly puts a distinct boundary between two spaces, both physically and metaphysically. The hay with its daled and yud is thus the door to Godliness. When Abraham was called ? he instantly recognized the Godliness on the other side and was able to make the transition through the metaphysical door
Hinayni is spoken for a second time when Isaac, under the burden of the firewood he was carrying for the Akedah, calls to his father
Vayomer Yitchak el Avraham aviv and Isaac called to his father
Vayomer Avi ? and he said My Dad?
Vayomer HinEEnni ? and he said ? here I am (I am here for you my dear son).
And the last time we hear the hinayni is in the heat of the drama when an excited and impassioned angel, on seeing Abraham about to sacrifice his son, says Abraham, Abraham ? and in what appears to be almost a spiritual and humanly uncharacteristic response superceding the emotioanal call of the angel ? Abraham says once again ? quietly and humbly ? hineini.
Vayikra aylav malach adonai min hashamayim vayomer Avraham Avraham
Vayomer Hinaini
The idea of faith is central to this portion and to the high holidays ? atonement ? if only we could truly experience it like Abraham did.
So what about faith for us mere mortals ? the Adam and Eves of the world?
My return to Shul every year on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur brings a little fear, trepidation and a deep seated hope that this year will be the year of my renewed inspiration. It is however my usual, each year to return from Neilah with a recurring sense of disappointment, and still a sense of an emptiness in my soul. The deepest feelings of faith could not and were not fully aroused and have eluded me once again. Feelings which once seemed easier to attain have become so difficult. I must say that the closest I come to the depth I seek is when our Chazan Steve Ebstein exposes his humility as he walks slowly across the isle with his hinanni in his beautifully angelic voice.
This difficulty with faith ? emunah, is a difficulty not only for me but recurring difficulty in the history of our people ? despite the fact that faith is so central to our doctrine ? the pursuit of faith now in its 5,765th cycle ? and promises for a never ending pursuit till the time of the Mashiach.
Two small personal stories elucidate just how difficult faith can be, and a third where hope may lie for us.
1st Story
The rabbi of my youth and early adulthood for 25 years in Johannesburg South Africa ?was instrumental together with my family in molding my earliest ideas of God ? God is everywhere and all powerful. Toward the end of his life I had occasion to speak to the Rabbi in a less formal and more intimate way and I asked him about faith. Although he did not directly speak of his own belief, he said that true faith (as true love) is so ? so very rare ?that if you see it? you will cry
?I realised from that conversation that he had grappled with the concept of true faith as well.
2nd story
While on vacation last month in the mountains of New Hampshire, I posed the question of faith to a psychologist friend of mine while we were taking photographs over a misty lake at 5 in the morning. We watched the loons swimming in an expanse of water with a blinding ray of the rising sun spreading over the water. This was a godly moment (at an ungodly hour for most) .
Well I got an unexpected reaction ? ?stay away ?from that subject? I was told. ? I can?t go there . I just don?t want to go there ? I just cannot? he said. I was stunned ? the Godly peace of the morning was shattered ? I had touched something very sensitive ? and I could not return. I had brought up a frightening subject and some bad memories ? a tormented crevice in his memory.
3rd story our hope
On the other hand I have been inspired and brought to tears by the vicarious pleasure of seeing the true faith of my children. Since it is our need and responsibility,- to hand over the torch to our children and our children?s children ? in this relay that is the pursuit to enlightenment, ? we have to make sure that the torch that we hand over is as bright and enlightening as it was 5765 years ago.
This is how we have tried to keep the candle bright
It is the custom in our home to make Shabbat a time to search our souls. The two brachot of lehadlik neir and hamotzi give each child the opportunity to close their eyes and dig deeply into their souls. We have asked them ever since they could open their eyes to the beauty of Shabat to learn to close them during the brachot, and to seek the deepest part of their souls and to pray from their hearts. Each gets his or her own turn and unabashedly they close their eyes and give each word of hamotzi its utmost due ? slowly and deliberately blessing the bread.
And when we observe this inwardness ? we truly feel like crying and something in us is renewed and a yearning returns. And we believe we have planted the seeds for the yearning and searching that will be the pursuit of their lives and the generations thereafter
And so somebody like Abraham comes once in a cultural generation, and for us this is now 4000 years old. We have such difficulty in this buzzbuzz world to give the hinaini that brings true atonement. Last night as our family sat around the dinner table and we spoke of personal goals for the New Year, I committed to start to try the hinaini miracle ? when called upon ? to be able to recognize the moment ? to have it in my wherewithal to be able to cross the delet with godliness ? to leave the frenzy and enter a realm of sanctity.
Shana Tova