What's Our Story?

I want to address a question that I believe we all think about, a question which, for me, emerges out of the stories in the Torah in general, and an especially complex story about Abraham in particular.

What do we do when life is an unpredictable mess?   The answer is, we tell stories.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

“After these things, God tested Abraham.” (Genesis 22:1)

You might think that it’s clear what things took place before God tested Abraham, or that the nature of the test was clear.

It seems that many scholars who commented on this had differing opinions. 

Rashi – master teacher and vintner from medieval France, brought two different traditions. 

First tradition – that Satan said to God, this Abraham of yours has been given so much, yet every time he sits down to a meal, he hasn’t offered you anything!  And God says, “I bet you that if I asked him to offer his son, he wouldn’t refuse.”

Second tradition – Ishmael and Isaac were chatting.  Ishmael says to Isaac, I’m superior to you because I was circumcised at age 13 and didn’t refuse. And Isaac responds, “If God asked me to offer my entire self, I wouldn’t refuse."

Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, said that God was punishing Abraham for getting too close to the Philistines by establishing a treaty.  You are prepared to integrate your children with their children?  I’ll show you.  And then, God demands that Abraham offer his son.

Ramban, a Spanish philosopher with a mystical bent, wrote that God only tests people who can handle the test.  The tests yield positive results for those who are tested.

Was the test a punishment for Abraham or a means of educating him?  Was it part of a larger story, and if so, what was the story?  Satan at work?  Two brothers arguing?  Abraham not keeping his eye on the prize?

Maybe Abraham needed to go on that walk with his son because he lost perspective, or because Isaac had something to prove, or because he needed to be “birthed” into the next phase of his life, or who knows?

The Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac, has generated a huge amount of commentary, much of it mutually contradictory.

If Rashi and Rashbam and Ramban, not to mention Kierkegaard and modern Israeli poets, all have vastly different things to say about this story, then what can any of us say?

Here’s what I’d like to say.  We don’t know why God tested Abraham.  The story of the Akedah says “darsheini!”  It calls out for some explanation.  Or, to put it differently, the story invites other stories.

This happens to us all the time.  In many instances, we don’t know why something occurs to us. 

Why did we meet this person instead of that person?

Why did a loved one pass away at this point in his or her life, and in our lives?

Why were we born short or tall or brilliant or less so?

We often tell ourselves stories about why things happened.  As I said on Yom Kippur, I feel that I know less about God as my life progresses, rather than more. 

Lately, I’m finding I believe that God gives us the capacity to tell stories about our lives that, ideally, can give us direction.

I’ll give you a personal example.  When I was working as the assistant rabbi at the Shelter Rock Jewish Center, my father died after a long illness. 

During that period, I also determined that I would be leaving that position to go to West Hempstead. 

I intuited at the time, and later considered more explicitly, that I was becoming more independent – that the death of my father and the opportunity to serve as solo rabbi in a new community were somehow connected.

Mind you, had he lived, I would have quite happily told a different story.  But what are you going to do?

When we deal with loss, when we deal with situations that fall short of our dreams, when we simply confront the passage of time, we tell ourselves stories.  It’s not that we are lying to ourselves, or denying the depth of the disappointments – it’s part of our makeup. 

And it can give us a framework that helps us wake up each day and act with sense of purpose.

I experienced this, and now I have a better sense of what to focus on.

I experienced that, and now I have the courage to speak out, or to say no to an unhealthy situation.

My child went in a different direction than I intended, and here’s what it taught me.

All religious traditions provide master stories as frameworks. 

I’m about to generalize, but I believe each statement I’m about to make has sufficient basis.

If you read stories about the Buddha, for example, you’ll see that he taught people how to approach a state of oneness with their environment, to transcend envy and anger by positing, as a larger story, the limitations of the physical world and the supremacy of the spiritual world.

Christianity tells a story about individual redemption through belief in the saving power of God’s son.

Judaism tells a story about partnership with God to bring blessing to this world.  Brit means partnership.  It’s central to the Jewish story.

Of course, God isn’t always predictable and we’re not always predictable.  So we wake up every day, we say “modeh ani,” thank you for another day, and we give it our best shot – navigating the complex realities we are handed, our ever-aging bodies, our uncertainties about God and humanity.

First, we need to find our own stories in the context of that larger story. 

We wake up in the morning – with or without living parents, in or not in a loving relationship, with or without a solid economic situation, and we have to tell a story. 

I’m going to persevere despite this or because of that.

I am going to figure out what I do well, and do it to my benefit and to the benefit of others.

Second, sometimes it’s helpful to collaborate on these stories.  It’s painful to watch people suffering separately, which can happen in a family, particularly when they are enduring a loss.

Each one thinks he has to be strong for everyone else, and that can place an added burden when that’s the last thing anyone needs.

It’s really hard in those situations to open up to other people, particular those who are also closely involved. 

Again, to share the personal – when my sisters and I talk about our parents, both now deceased, it can be helpful.  We each had different relationships with them, but just the talking can give comfort and even direction. 

Could Abraham and Isaac have talked to each other?  Could Abraham have consulted with Sarah?  Would it have helped?  Possibly.

But you get the sense that there’s a fair amount of isolation in these stories, people living alongside, but not necessarily in consort, with one another.

We partner with God, such as we are and such as God is.  Each day, we give it our best shot.  We make ourselves part of a story that we only partly control.

The story of the Akedah suggests that Abraham learned to see more clearly by virtue of the ordeal.  He sees the place from afar; he sees, and behold a ram is caught in the thicket; he names the place of his ordeal adonai yir’eh, God sees. 

Following this ordeal, Abraham takes two bold steps toward ensuring continuity for his people:  he purchases land in which to bury his wife and he arranges a wife for his son.  It appears that, following his experience, he has chosen to commit himself to a particular story which exemplifies the human-divine partnership.

Back in the 1970’s, the British band, Jethro Tull, wrote a song about someone unsure how to conduct himself, buffeted by changes beyond his control, wondering if everyone around him is looking at him like he’s strange.

The chorus, with appropriate flute and guitar accompaniment, goes like this: “skating away on the thin ice of a new day.”

Here’s what Rashi might have said about this passage by Jethro Tull. 

Skating away – not plodding away, but skating, to indicate joyful response.  Thin ice – not firm ground, but thin ice, to indicate life’s vulnerability.  New day – to indicate that every day is a chance for us to live our story.

I urge us to wake up tomorrow and say, “what’s my story?”  Am I bitter or bold?  Alone or connected?  Paralyzed or energized?  And do I have more control over each of those questions than I might realize?

Some days we’ll crawl, some days we’ll walk.  Some days we might even skate.  If, at these times, we feel the Divine wind urging us along, how much the better.

Originally delivered on November 12, 2011 at Temple Israel of Great Neck