By Rabbi Gershon Silins

For the Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah morning, our High Holiday prayerbook, Machzor Ruach Chadashah, provides two readings, either of which might be read at that service. You might think that in giving us the choice, the editors of our Machzor, and the traditions from which these readings are chosen, wanted to give us the choice of a difficult reading or a less difficult one, and we would be able to choose the less challenging one if we wanted to. But no. Both readings are morally challenging and impossible to read without discomfort, and neither shed a positive light on our biblical ancestors.

The first story is known as the Binding of Isaac, a recounting of God’s demand that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac, a demand that God later withdraws via a divine messenger. Because of Abraham’s willingness to carry it out, this near-sacrifice is described as a sign of Abraham’s faith and his willingness to do God’s will no matter what. It is a story that has generated debate for millennia, not just among Jews but also among Christians and Muslims.

The second story is the Expulsion of Hagar. Sarah, who had not yet given birth to a child, offered her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to provide an heir, and Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Later, after Sarah had borne Isaac, Sarah discovered Hagar’s son Ishmael mocking Isaac. She demanded that Abraham send Hagar and her son away. Abraham was greatly distressed but God told Abraham to do as his wife commanded, because God’s promise to him would be carried out through Isaac; Ishmael would become a great nation as well, because he was Abraham’s offspring.

Abraham gave Hagar bread and water then sent the two into the wilderness. They wandered until their water was gone. In despair, Hagar burst into tears. God heard her son crying and rescued them. A divine messenger opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw a well of water. The messenger told Hagar that God would “make a great nation” of Ishmael.

After their father’s death, Ishmael and Isaac buried Abraham together.

No one behaves well in either story, not even God. And we read these stories with all their moral ambiguities on one of the most significant days in the Jewish year, when we are to begin to weigh up our own moral reckoning. Both stories are instances of neglect or abuse of children by exactly the people for whom they should have an expectation of trust – their parents.

Each year, I re-read these stories, and each year I find something new in them. This year, I noticed a commonality in the two stories: in both, there is a message carried by a divine messenger. In the first, it is the divine messenger that opens the eyes of Abraham, who sees a ram caught in a thicket, which he offers as a sacrifice instead of his son. In the second, the divine messenger opens Hagar’s eyes to see the well of water which saves her and her son.

The ram was there all along, as was the well of water. But neither Abraham nor Hagar could see these things until their eyes were opened. These stories of familial dysfunction have many lessons for us as modern people, but perhaps the most important one is that we may not always realise that our eyes are closed to the most important things, which may be in front of us, and which may be the very things that could save us from the worst of our own impulses.

May this New Year bring to all of us much sweetness and delight, and may our eyes be opened to the blessings we may not at first be able to see.

Recent Commentaries