Lech-Lecha 5770: Questions of Brotherhood

Lech-Lecha opens the story of Abraham. I have argued before that Abraham represents a sort of proto-American character: iconoclastic, willing to break with the molds of the past, setting out for a new land and leaving behind family and tradition. At the same time, the life of Abraham, like his descendants, is about family–specifically brothers. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers–these brotherly narratives form the basis of most of the book of Genesis, emphasizing the illusory nature of brotherly love.

Abraham too deals with a brother, Nachor, whose story is continued in his son Lot in this week’s Torah reading. At a crucial point in the story, Lot is taken captive during the war of the kings (ch. 14). Abraham organizes a posse to rescue Lot, and in the process helps to win the war for the King of Sodom, which leads to a blessing from Malkitzedek and ultimately frames the Covenant of the Pieces in chapter 15.

Looking more closely at the story, we find that the way that Abraham hears of Lot’s capture: “And Abram heard that his brother was taken captive.” (14:14) While the term ach, or brother, is used to denote a more general sense of “kinsman” (see Lev. 25:39, for instance), here the Torah could just as easily have referred to Lot as simply “Lot,” or “Lot the son of his brother.” Instead, Abraham hears that his brother has been taken captive, and this leads him to immediately put together a rescue operation.

Vladimir Jankelevitch once referred to brotherhood as “the hatred of the almost-same.” Siblings share chromosomes, facial features, upbringings. They are united in a common bond. And yet they are also individuals, with their own aspirations and personalities, as the earlier narrative of Lot and Abraham’s division of the land reminds us. What distinguishes Abraham in this moment is that he hears–whether by choice or by habit–not that Lot, some distant person unconnected to him, was taken captive, but that Lot his brother–to whom he has an obligation–was taken captive.

We talk a lot today in the Jewish world about meeting people–particularly young adults–where they are, playing to their individual interests, customizing Jewish life to respond to their tastes and desires. And we do need to do this, because we need to engage people in Jewish life. But as I told a good friend who gives away millions of dollars for a Jewish philanthropic foundation, I view part of my charge as a rabbi in the world of Jewish communal institutions as making sure we never let go of words like responsibility, duty, and calling.

We cannot make Israel, or service, or Shabbat or Jewish holidays simply an expression of our “authentic selves.” These cornerstones of Jewish life need to be expressive, but they also need to remind us of our place in the world, of the smallness and finitude of our existence, of the ways we depend on one another. In hearing that his brother was taken captive, Abraham reminds us all that we feel responsibility towards those who are not ‘other,’ but to those in whom we see–by choice or by habit–kinship and sameness. Abraham had a generous view, he saw kinship with many, and he thus felt responsibility to many. That tradition of hesed is something we should never lose.

Shabbat shalom.

 

Vayera: How We Are Bound

The story of the Binding of Isaac is one of the most difficult in the Torah. Yet it is a central part of our people’s story–recited every year on Rosh Hashanah and by some every day as part of morning services. And it is the final dramatic episode in this week’s Torah reading, Vayera.

Theologians and philosophers often look at the story from the point of view of Abraham. The Binding of Isaac is Abraham’s big test. As the angel at the end of the story tells him, God now sees that he has not withheld anything. Abraham would go the distance, would sacrifice that which is most precious to him, in order to serve God. In this usual view of the story, the question we ask ourselves is “Would we do the same thing?”

But we can also look at the story from the point of view of Isaac. And when we do, we see something different. From Isaac’s point of view, the question becomes how to make sense of the fact that his father has done this. Isaac is passive and accepting. He goes along, and he becomes literally and figuratively bound by his father’s decisions. His father has formed him, and this event will resonate throughout the history of their family for generations to come. When we identify with Isaac, the question we ask ourselves is, “How do we accept this inheritance?” 

In my work with students, it is the Issac view that seems most salient. For many young adults, the big question is how how to come to terms with the decisions their parents have made for them. How do they accept–or reject–their inheritance: their parents’ financial support, their parents’ dreams of their careers or spouse, and, frequently, their parents’ religious and ethnic identities. Particularly in a world in which we so value individual choice and self-authorship, the image of a passive Isaac who blindly accepts his father’s actions, seems jarring.

Yet as we grow older, we often discover a bit of Isaac in ourselves. As we will see next week, Isaac recapitulates his father’s story in multiple ways. Like Isaac, we frequently find ourselves reliving parts of our parents’ lives. When they have children of their own, young adults often find comfort and strength in the traditions of their ancestors, traditions which only a few years earlier they found anathema. 

It is important to take this longer view, especially in the heat of young adulthood. Development and maturation takes time, as evidenced by Abraham himself, who goes from being the iconoclastic son of Terach to becoming the father of many nations.

 

Lech Lecha: Leaving and Going Home

At the heart of the story of Abraham is a particularly Jewish conundrum. On the one hand, Abraham is the paradigm of breaking from the past, as the opening lines of his story suggest: “And God said to Abram, Go, get yourself from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, and go the land I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1) The story of Abraham, and the story of the Jewish people, could not happen without this moment of shattering individualism. Abraham leaves behind everything he knows in order to found something new.

And yet God’s promise to Abraham is that his biological descendants will inherit the land God will give him. Heaven forbid that one of Abraham’s progeny would choose to leave the fold, to go from his own promised land, his own father’s house! If the beginning of Abraham’s story is marked by a radical break with the past, his children’s story will be marked by a deep engagement, and formation by, their history. Thus the conundrum.

This paradox exists in every generation, of course. But it is particularly pronounced in the American setting. One of the central narratives of the American story is that of the rugged individual who comes from a distant land, boldly breaking with the past, often taking a new name. Yet these same immigrants also often want to perpetuate the traditions of their ancestors, they want their children to walk in their ways. And the working out of each generation’s engagement with the traditions of its forebears becomes the stuff of psychology and literature (see ‘The House of Ramon Iglesia’ being produced by the Jewish Theater Ensemble this weekend, for one example).

Of course the American story is on all our minds this week. (If you’re interested, see this letter of mine to my kids about how Election Day moved me to tears.) We can plainly see that we have broken with the past, and boldly set out on a new chapter in the story of our nation and the world. We sense that we are entering a moment in which new challenges and possibilities of identity–conversations and intersections of races, ethnicities, and religions; and, we hope, a new dynamic in the relationship of religious and secular culture–these possibilities are tantalizing and challenging, even threatening, at the same time.

It is this dynamic sense of possibility that Abraham represents. Yet we must remember that as much as Abraham sets a new course, he does so in a way that demonstrates integrity and a deep understanding of who he is. Abraham’s tent is open to all–it is symbolized today in the huppah, the Jewish marriage canopy, which has four open walls. But even when packed with hundreds of guests, there is no question that it is Abraham’s tent. Though Abraham is a man who leaves home, he is our paradigmatic host. And as my own Hillel Rabbi, Jim Ponet, taught me, one of the definitions of feeling at home is being able to invite guests. Abraham leaves one home, but he creates another.  That challenge is a human one, and Abraham’s example speaks to us all.