Artistic representations of the Akeidah, Genesis 22:1-19, number in the thousands. And although the binding of Isaac is perhaps not so frequently highlighted in children’s bible books, it is discussed in countless literary works.  Of course, this in part reflects the deep significance this story holds in not just the Jewish, but in the Muslim and Christian traditions. In the Quran, it is told with Ishmael, rather than Isaac, as the son God chooses for the sacrifice.  And of course in Christian tradition the story is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus.

But there is no question that the story has a special reverence in the Jewish community, particularly as we read it on Rosh Hashanah.  In many congregations that only celebrate one day of Rosh Hashanah, the Torah reading for that day is the Akeidah, because they want to make sure it gets read. The irony is that I have heard from multiple Jews that hearing the Akeidah is one of the reasons they turned away from Judaism. How could they possibly subscribe to a religion that glorifies a God who wants people to sacrifice their children?

When I hear this I realize that although the Akeidah is perhaps one of the most well known biblical stories, in my opinion, it is also one of the most commonly misunderstood.  Yes, it is terrifying to imagine that God would ask a father to kill his son, horrifying that Abraham would hasten to do so, and disturbing that Isaac would willingly go along with the plan.

But as we take each of those objections in turn, it becomes clearer to me that God never wanted Isaac to die, that Abraham’s choice reflects a reality of parents throughout history, and that perhaps it is Isaac whom we need to hear.

God did not want Abraham to actually sacrifice Isaac.  The story is called the Akeidah, because it is the binding of Isaac, from the Hebrew verb la’ah’kod.  The text makes clear that Isaac’s death is not really what God wanted. God had to send an angel to intervene at the last minute and say “Abraham! Abraham! Do not stretch out your hand against the lad nor do anything to him.” There is an urgency to that Avraham! Avraham! and I wonder if there is also some disappointment on God’s part that Abraham didn’t object to killing his son.

There are times when I have wondered whether Abraham actually failed God’s test.   Although God says that Abraham will be rewarded, he is also severely punished. Abraham and Isaac do not return together from Mount Moriah. The text states that Abraham goes back with the servants, but does not mention Isaac.  In fact, after this event, dialogue between Abraham and Isaac never appears again in the Torah. The next time Isaac is reported to be with his father is at the time of Abraham’s burial. Sara doesn’t speak to Abraham either, and in fact, the next Torah portion begins with her death. Some interpreters have suggested that learning of the Akeidah was what killed her.  A midrash suggests that the sound of the shofar mimics Sarah’s anguished cry when she hears of the near-death of her son. The Akeidah marks the end of Abraham and Sara’s relationship and the end of her life. And last but not least, God does not speak directly to Abraham again. In choosing to nearly kill his son, Abraham destroyed his relationships with those he loved the most.

Taken in a larger sense, this story is, perhaps, a polemic against child sacrifice.  It was a common pagan practice to sacrifice one’s first born to the gods. This was done in order to appease the Gods and protect any other children.  Human sacrifice, of course, was not part of the Israelite religion. The Akeidah provides a vivid example of this change—here is the story of a father who tried to sacrifice his child but God intervened, and an animal was sacrificed instead.  These 19 verses show a major transition in early religion from human to animal sacrifice.

But if the Akeida was simply a symbolic polemic against human sacrifice, it probably would not have the power it holds today.  Sadly, part of its staying power is that it was the lived experience of so many in Jewish history. We may look at Abraham’s choice as completely outside our experience or understanding, but tragically, it really isn’t. During the Roman period, during the Crusades, and sadly even in the 20th century, Jews have watched their children die, and sometimes been the ones to kill them so as to spare them the torture of those who sought to destroy them.  The Akeidah was both a source of comfort, since Abraham himself was willing to sacrifice his son, and of agony, as Jews asked why God was willing to spare Isaac but not their own children.

An aggadic text speaks of a mother of seven sons who, during the torturous reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century, chose to sacrifice her sons to the sanctification of God’s name, rather than allowing them to be persecuted by the Romans.  She cried, “Go and tell father Abraham: Let not your heart swell with pride! You built one altar, but I have built seven altars and on them have offered up my seven sons.  What is more: Yours was a trial; mine was an accomplished fact!”

This type of tragic story is repeated over and over again in our history.  Parents have chosen to kill their children mercifully before they fell into the hands of Crusaders or Cossacks or Nazis. And Jewish parents have sent their kids off to war. In December 1947, Chaim Weizmann responded to the UN decision to partition Palestine by warning “The state will not be given to the Jewish people on a silver platter.” His words inspired poet Natan Alterman who, in his poem The Silver Platter, vividly described young Israeli men and women, still dressed in battle gear. His poem continues: Then a nation in tears and amazement will ask: "Who are you?"And they will answer quietly, "We Are the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given."

Anyone who sees a loved one go off to war, or protest against an oppressive regime lives with the reality that, in the words of our Torah portion, “yehidcha, asher ahavta”—their precious one, the one they love, may not return.

As I mentioned yesterday, scholar Judith Plaskow identifies in parashat Vayeira a cycle of abuse and separation. The scene of Hagar, tortured by the seemingly impending death of her son Ishmael in the wilderness of course has parallels to Abraham participating in Isaac’s seemingly impending death as he and his son walk through the wilderness. My focus yesterday was the moment at which Hagar is able to see an alternative, and of course that moment occurs in the Akeidah as well. Just after God cries from heaven to stop Abraham from killing Isaac, we read that “Abraham lifted his eyes: he now could see a ram just after it was caught by its horns in a thicket. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt-offering in place of his son.”

The question of what we see can make all the difference. And so I want to shift from the story from God’s perspective, or a parent’s perspective, to the perspective of Ishmael and of Isaac. Because we often don’t listen to their voices, and perhaps those are the voices we really need to hear.

I learned this from my own child. My daughter Rebecca has a doll named Charlotte. Charlotte is a part of our family, so just as my mother is Rebecca’s Savta, I am Charlotte’s Savta. My husband told me that he heard Rebecca talking to Charlotte while I was on the bima. She said, “Charlotte, you can’t talk to Savta right now. She’s leading the services.” When I heard this, at first my heart froze. I wondered if Rebecca felt that she was making an unfair sacrifice—she was unable to talk to her own mother because her mother was busy caring for other people. But then I learned that Rebecca was saying this with pride. She was proud that her mother is a leader in this community, and  she was teaching her “daughter” about it.

In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had targeted Birmingham as the key to ending the segregation throughout the South.  But the protests weren’t working. And so his advisors suggested a shift in strategy--have the children protest. King understandably hesitated, and then agreed. And so on May 2, 1963, it was 800 kids--children as young as first graders—who walked out of school and into the streets. Over the next two days they were holding hands as they were pummelled by fire hoses and threatened by dogs. We know this story. And we know how it changed history.

It was not until this year, however, that I saw something different. Some of those children held signs that said, “I’ll die to make this land my home.”

We live in a time, as I said yesterday, when we are looking for hope. Perhaps it is as close as the younger people around us who have vision, who have idealism, who have pride in that for which they are willing to sacrifice everything.

It was Ishmael’s cry to which God responded in the wilderness. It was Isaac’s willingness to stand by his father that is deeply remarkable.

We are now surrounded by those voices—from Parkland, from Flint, from right here in Detroit.

We need to listen. We need to be inspired. And we need to let them help us to change the world.