Vayeyro / וירא

This is a weekly series of frum, trans, anarchist parsha dvarim [commentaries]. It's crucial in these times that we resist the narrative that Zionism owns (or worse: is) Judaism. Our texts are rich—sometimes opaque, but absolutely teeming with wisdom and fierce debate. It's the work of each generation to extricate meaning from our cultural and religious inheritance. I aim to offer comment which is both true to the source material (i.e. doesn't invert or invent meaning to make it say what I want it to say) and uses Torah like a light to reflect on our modern times.

Content note: This parsha includes long descriptions of familial abuse, and brief mentions of rape. As usual, the text also includes misogyny, and arguably homophobia.

This is a parsha that really makes you go, "That's fucked up." Hashem is willing to destroy the entire city of Sodom with no regard for the innocents there. When a roving mob of Sodomite men threaten to gang rape Lot's guests—who we know to be מלאכים [angels]—Lot offers them his two (unnamed) virgin daughters instead. Lot's wife (who also doesn't get a name) is turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying the divine command to not look back at the destruction of the city. Lot's daughters get him drunk and take turns raping him in a cave. But arguably, the most fucked up part of the parsha is the עקידה, the binding of Yitskhok: ⊕ Bondage; transforming the body into a beautiful ritual object; the threat of the knife; obedience beyond reason; violence; death; sacrifice. It's fucked up but it is also, admittedly, sexy. Avrohom is instructed by Hashem to sacrifice his younger son as a burnt offering, or an "ascent offering", and Avrohom agrees without protest, going so far as to tie Yitskhok up on an alter and raise his knife to him with intent to kill—but another מלאך [angel] stops him at the last moment.

In last week's parsha לך־לך, Avrohom argued with Soray for the welfare of his first son Yishmoel when she wanted to banish him and his mother Hogor (who Avrohom is not too concerned about). This week Avrohom advocated for and bargained with Hashem on behalf of the wicked of Sodom, negotiating down from 50 to only 10 righteous people (which, ultimately, were not to be found; the city was destroyed). This is the tone set for Avrohom as a character: he embodies חסד [loving-kindness] and is not afraid of conflict even with Hashem on behalf of other people (read: men), be they strangers or kin.

But when Hashem commands Avrohom to sacrifice Yitskhok as an offering, Avrohom doesn't argue. Hashem makes a point of calling Yitskhok "your son, your only one, the one you love" as though we're supposed to forget about—or at least devalue—Yismoel because Yitskhok is more important. Yet despite this great importance, he doesn't take issue with the news that he's supposed to kill him. Why not? His faith and love for Hashem is greater.

And why does Hashem make this demand of Avrohom, his first devoted servant? To test Avrohom, and potentially to test Yitskhok too. Hashem is omnipotent, so knows whether or not they will meet the challenge—just as He should know if you and I will meet our challenges or fail—and yet He challenges us because the process is important. By meeting the challenge, we're supposed to become closer to Hashem. Maybe I'm not like Avrohom, but what little faith I have is only diminished by my pointless suffering: immigration difficulties, poverty, domestic violence, trans medical neglect, survival sex work. None of that made me stronger, built "character", or made me closer to The Highest One, Blessed Is He. Rather it depressed me and made me less able to participate in the shared work of creation, in improving the world and enjoying its beauty. My faith and closeness to Hashem is strongest when I'm happy. My faith is even lesser when I witness others suffer.

The עקידה is considered one of Avrohom's greatest tests of faith. It is a cruel test. All tests for the sake of testing are cruel. There is no acceptable reason for intentionally increasing suffering. The ends do not justify the means. And because he did not protest, I believe that Avrohom failed.

Avrohom is 137 years old. Yitskhok is 37. We don't get any explicit reactions from Yitskhok in the text, but it's no stretch of the imagination to think that he would be unhappy to be murdered by his father.

Rashi says that Yitskhok understands that he is to be the sacrifice, and he goes willingly. (If he goes willingly, then why does he need to be bound?) If Rashi's right, I think that makes it worse. Yitskhok coerced into accepting violence against himself, consenting to his own death—with enthusiasm! Do we see no problem with Yitskhok's suicide-by-faith? Do we place no value on life?

In Torah, Avrohom and Yitskhok never speak again; maybe the עקידה was a breaking point in their relationship. Then again, they aren't ever shown to speak before the Binding either.

Rashi and Rabbi Abba are suggesting that Hashem wasn't actually commanding Avrohom to sacrifice his second son. This strikes me as strange at best and manipulative at worst, on the part of both Hashem and the sages. We know that Avrohom truly believes he's supposed to kill Yitskhak, because the whole point of the trial is that he proves his willingness to follow through. Hashem's alleged lack of seriousness here in Rashi's reading is a piece of fine print designed to absolve Him of responsibility should it all go wrong and Avrohom really did bring down the knife. He didn't technically say that even though it was heavily implied. It's gaslighting.

What we can say with certainty is that Hashem didn't command Avrohom to bind Yitskhok. Yitskhok's father decided to employ bondage on his own, and we find the image of father-son bondage so evocative that we named this piece of holy text for it.

The depth of these early Jews' faith is revealed, and Hashem rewards Avrohom and Yitskhok for passing the test: both are promised not only strong bloodlines with military victories, but that the entire world will benefit from the merit of their faith.

Is this a positive outcome? Is it healthy to have so much faith that we are willing to do hurt and kill people? Are we supposed to hand wave the violence that [we believe] Hashem demands of us, only arguing for justice when it suits us?

Three times in the parsha does Avrohom reply הנני [Here I am]: first to Hashem, then to Yitskhok, then to the מלאך [angel]. This isn't just a statement of location, but a declaration of his spiritual presence: he's not just here, but open, obedient, prepared to act, and humble. This does not suggest, to me, that he knows that the demand to sacrifice his son is not real.

Avrohom's readiness with Hashem and the מלאך (as Hashem's intermediary) make sense, but what about his readiness for Yiskhok when Yitskhok asks where the lamb is for the offering? Avrohom tells his son that he's here; not as a servant, but as a father. I'm here. I'm listening. You don't have to worry. I have an answer. I am prepared. How much more troubling is this when the answer from father to son is Should there be no lamb, I will sacrifice you.

Jews have always felt uneasy about this parsha; sometimes so much so that we refuse to engage with how troubling it is:

Isaac's death was never a possibility – not as far as Abraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. God's commandment to Abraham was very specific, and Abraham understood it very precisely: Isaac was to be "raised up as an offering," and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. This is precisely how the sages of the Talmud (Taanit 4a) understood the Akedah. Citing the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation against child sacrifice (Chapter 19 [4–5]), they state unequivocally that such behavior "never crossed God's mind," referring specifically to the sacrificial slaughter of Isaac. Though readers of this parashah throughout the generations have been disturbed, even horrified, by the Akedah, there was no miscommunication between God and Abraham. The thought of actually killing Isaac never crossed their minds.

—Rabbi Ari Khan, c.2013

⊕ An aside: the chapter of Yirmeyohu (Jeremiah) that Rabbi Khan cites also includes the punishment for such people evil enough to sacrifice their children: "And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend" (19:9). This is not what one would call restorative or transformative justice. It's all very nice to look at a text we find uncomfortable and say "actually, it means the opposite". I think this is a disingenuous, never mind illogical, reading: commanding Avrohom to kill his child is not a sensible means of teaching us not to kill our children.

Inverting the text in order to wash our hands of its problems is cowardly: it is our obligation to wrestle with it. This is supposed to be the divine and perfect word of Hashem; if the lesson was as straightforward as to not do this type of violence, it would simply be forbidden. Instead, I think one of the lessons of the עקידה is that our relationship with Hashem is disturbing if not outright abusive, and our relationship with our fathers and children are full of fucked up power dynamics.

Further, we shouldn't always listen to Hashem. We shouldn't be complacent, obedient, and uncritical. We should argue.

⊕ Update: I'm happy to say that my friends won't have to endure a trial, nor will they have felonies—or anything—on their records, and nor will they do any prison time. But they are on probation for a year, and both have to pay a fine and do a few dozen hours of community service./ It's not especially relevant to the parsha, but I'm writing this from a court house in New Jersey, supporting two friends in a pre-trial hearing. Allegedly, my (Jewish) friends removed a "Bring Them Home" lawn sign; they're being charged with property damage aggravated by an "antisemitic" hate crime. One of them is facing a felony charge. We're hoping that the case gets dismissed entirely. I could say that this week's text is about (in)justice, advocacy vs. complacency, or about having faith that things will turn out alright—and while that's true, the truth is I just wanted to include this detail for posterity because it so clearly exemplifies the hypocrisy of Zionism in the West. I'm angry at Avrohom and I'm angry at Hashem and I'm really angry at the prosecutors and snitches. To be an antizionist Jew in this moment is to be angry, and to hold our comrades close.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs, a poetic retelling of one of the most moving, distressing, iconic stories in Tanakh:

You who build these alters now to sacrifice your children you must not do it any more

A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a God

You who stand above them now, your hatchets blunt and bloody you were not there before when I lay upon the mountain and my father's hand was trembling with the beauty of the word.

—"Story of Isaac", Leonard Cohen, 1969