Five weeks ago, I was invited to a multi-faith Eid Al-Adha dinner at Baitur Rahman Mosque in Delta, to socialize and to speak on the topic “Sacrifice in My Tradition.” My words from that day are relevant also to this week’s Torah reading, Parshat Vayera, the story of Abraham’s attempts to sacrifice his sons.

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Condolences to those who died on the pilgrimage to Mecca. May their families find comfort. May they be rewarded in the world to come. May their passing lead to needed improvements in infrastructure for future pilgrims.

The word “sacrifice” connotes giving something up to a greater cause. But the roots of the word “sacrifice” have a different meaning. “Sacrifice” comes from a Latin word meaning “make holy.” “Making holy” is closer to the sense of sacrifice in Jewish tradition.

Our holiest Jewish book, and our source of information about early Jewish practice, is the Torah. Sometimes, Torah is called the “Five books of Moses” because Moses is a main character, and because traditional Jews believe that Moses wrote the first version of the Torah, combining the revelation he received with knowledge of his people’s history.

Torah claims to describe religious practices from 3,000 years ago, approximately 1,000 BCE. In Torah we often read about a person who wishes lihakriv korban. This nice alliterative phrase is a play on a word root that means both “to come close” and “to go inward.” A person who wishes lihakriv korban seeks to approach the sanctuary to make an offering that will bring them closer to God.

The offerings described in Torah are appropriate to its social world, where most people were ranchers, shepherds or farmers. Wealthy people offered a cow; middle-income people offered a sheep or a dove; poorer people offered grain. Offerings were ritually cooked and used to feed people working at or attending the sanctuary.

Torah says that people chose lihakriv korban, to approach God, for many reasons: to celebrate a joyous event and give thanks; to atone for a crime and seek forgiveness; to celebrate healing from illness or rising from childbirth; to seek emotional release from an upsetting event; to gather as a community to reflect on communal events both great and terrible; and to give thanks to God at harvest and holiday times, which were great pilgrimage events.

In Torah times, bringing a food offering to the sanctuary and feeding others was a key technology lihakriv korban — to approach and get close to God. This technology was practiced for at least 1,000 years in the portable desert sanctuary built in the time of Moses, at the central Temple in Jerusalem built by King Solomon, and at local shrines all around ancient Israel. In the year 70, the Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Roman army. Most of the priests were murdered. It became impossible to continue the spiritual technology of food offerings.

At that time, Jewish spiritual teachers re-examined the Torah, identified other spiritual practices important to our ancestors, and began to emphasize new ways lihakriv, to approach and get close to God. They emphasized prayer, acts of loving kindness, and study of Torah. Torah would help us learn our how our ancestors practiced prayer and kindness, and thus discern spiritual guidelines for the practices.

It was taught: in order to get close to God and make an appropriate offering in times of celebration, healing or atonement, one should practice tzedakah, donating money to charities, and gemilut chasadim, giving back to the community through acts of loving kindness.

It was also taught: to get close to God, we can talk directly to God as our ancestors did, in words, thoughts, feelings or dreams. If we are not skilled in finding our own words, we can offer words written by our great poets, and music written by our great composers. This practice of prayer brings us back to the original meaning of the words lihakriv korban, which mean both “to approach God” and “to go inward.” We can approach God by going inward. Our mystical tradition of Kabbalah teaches that God is everywhere, including in our thoughts and feelings.

I would like to speak about Abraham and his famous sacrifice. People often say that according to Jewish tradition, Abraham was moved to offer his son Yitzchak (Isaac) on the altar, and according to Islamic tradition, Abraham was moved to offer Ismail — Yishmael in Hebrew. This, however, is a deliberately polemical and oppositional reading. It is not a correct presentation of the plain text of the Torah. According to Torah, Abraham was moved to offer both of his sons, believing the offerings would bring him closer to God.

Abraham, a solitary seeker, lived without the guidelines of the monotheistic religions he later inspired. To discern God’s will, he had only his own thoughts, feelings, and visions as guides. Sometimes his discernment was a winding process: moving forward, second-guessing, changing direction. Abraham’s imperfect reaches towards God affected both his sons.

Yishmael was first. Abraham’s wife Sarah came to believe that Yishmael’s presence interfered with God’s prophecy to create a great nation from her son Yitzchak. God told Abraham to listen to Sarah. Abraham sent Yishmael and his mother Hagar into the desert with one loaf of bread and one bottle of water. Just as Yishmael was dying of thirst, an angel called to Hagar and showed her a well of living water.

Later, Abraham heard the voice of God instructing him to offer Yitzchak as a burnt offering in an as-yet-unknown place. Abraham journeyed with Yitzchak, set up the altar, and placed Yitzchak on it. Just as Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son, an angel called to him and said, “Don’t do it.”

In the Torah, there is no enmity between Yitzchak and Yishmael. As children, Torah says explicitly, they laughed and played together. In middle age, they lived in the same settlements. As older adults, they arranged their father’s funeral together. Both of them suffered from their father’s uncompromising spiritual quest, including his flawed attempts to discern what God wanted. And both of them healed together, helping one another.

It is my prayer and my hope that we can continue in the path of Yitzchak and Yishmael, laughing, playing, and healing together.

Image: nthci.org