"The Akedah"

2 Tishri 5769
October 1, 2008

by Shevach Lambert

Our portion this morning is the account of the Akedah, the binding of Yitzchak, in which G-d asks Avraham to offer as an olah, an elevation offering, the very son whose birth was to redeem all of G-d’s promises to him. G-d has seemingly asked him to destroy the very means by which his life’s purpose was to be fulfilled.

We are tempted to view Avraham’s act as simply crazy – on a par with the delusions of those who commit acts of terrible violence because ‘G-d told me to’. But I do not believe that the Akedah would have achieved its iconic status as the quintessential act of faith were it simply a result of delusion, confusion, or fanaticism. There’s a deeper meaning to be explored here, one that I believe touches on the very essence of teshuvah.

We have learned that teshuvah means ‘turning’. At heart, though, teshuvah is a returning, a return to who we are when seen through the eyes of G-d. It is an attempt to realign our self with the Divine’s purpose in bringing us into this world. We try to quiet the clamor of the ego in order to hear the sound of our soul. We seek to let go of the physical, emotional, intellectual, even spiritual baggage that weakens our connection with the true meaning of our existence. In the words of Arthur Waskow, “Life’s meaning is to be found in discovering the One, and that means realizing the ultimate unity of all being. It is in the yichud, discovering and proclaiming the underlying Oneness of all existence, that our humanity is fulfilled.”

But it’s hard to reach outside the boundaries of the self and embrace this Unity, this limitless One. We work hard. Perhaps we can transcend the ego oriented, materialistic sense of self, and get in touch with our highest spiritual aspirations, and yet we remain rooted in the self. We can even sacrifice our selves’ physical existence for the sake of another, or for the sake of a higher principle, but even this sacrifice, however sublime and meaningful, remains at heart an act of selfishness. We can sacrifice our life, but we cannot sacrifice the self, for it is for the sake of the self that such sacrifice is undertaken.

Avraham was the first to sacrifice his self to the sake of G-d. We cringe at the enormity of the G-d’s request, because the love of one’s child resonates with the deepest chords of our being. It touches us on all levels of the self: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Most parents would willingly give up their own lives to save that of their child, yet Avraham was asked to do the opposite. Avraham had to rise above every vestige of self-hood to comply with G-d’s request. The words G-d uses to make this monstrous request –et binecah, et yechidecha; asher ahavta, et Yitzchak – your son, your only, whom you love, Yitzchak – can allude to the nefesh, ruach, neshomah, and chayah – the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of his soul that had to be transcended in order to comply with this request. Every element of the individual self cries out against it, and yet Avraham was prepared to do it anyway – because G-d had asked him to.

This is what G-d referred to when G-d said ‘ki atta yadahti ki yireh elokim attah ‘Now I know that you are yireh elokim – you are filled with divine awe’. Avraham was prepared to sacrifice his deepest sense of self to the Yirah, the Awe that occurs when the boundaries of the self touch upon the Oneness from which the self arises. The Akedah demonstrates that Avraham’s integrity – fully demonstrated when he argued on behalf of Sodom – was rooted in his understanding that all his actions were meaningful only when undertaken to realize G-d’s purpose in the world. The Akedah requires us to sacrifice our expectations of G-d, and reorient our lives around G-d’s expectations of us. We have to sacrifice the self to make room for G-d.

This kind of sacrifice is what lies at the heart of teshuvah, a surrender of the individual self into the Unity – the yichud- of the Divine. Teshuvah at this level does not mean substituting blind obedience in place of moral responsibility. It is rather a realization that the foundation of our morality, the root of all that is meaningful, is found only in our particular role in the unfolding of Divine Unity within creation.

We, of course, are not asked for so profound a sacrifice as was Avraham in the course of our teshuvah. Yet every act of teshuvah, however small, is ultimately rooted in the recognition of and connection to this Divine Unity. The Akedah bequeaths to us the profound realization that the core of one’s being lies not in the individual self but in the commitment to the Creator, to the underlying unity within creation. Every act of teshuvah is at heart a response to that commitment. Every turning is a reflection, however dim, of that divine spark of unity within; for it is there that our truest self may be found.