Rabbi Eliana's Divrei Torah

Rabbi Beroka Ḥoza’a was often found in the market of Bei Lefet, and Elijah the Prophet would appear to him. Once Rabbi Beroka said to Elijah: Of all the people who come here, is there anyone in this market worthy of the World-to-Come? He said to him: No. In the meantime, two brothers came to the marketplace. Elijah said to Rabbi Beroka: These two have a share in the World-to-Come. Rabbi Beroka went over to the men and said to them: What is your occupation? They said to him: We are jesters, we make people laugh. 

— Talmud Ta’anit 22a

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If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

— Emily Dickinson

—

From today's Torah reading: 

וַיִּקַּ֨ח אַבְרָהָ֜ם אֶת־עֲצֵ֣י הָעֹלָ֗ה וַיָּ֙שֶׂם֙ עַל־יִצְחָ֣ק בְּנ֔וֹ וַיִּקַּ֣ח בְּיָד֔וֹ אֶת־הָאֵ֖שׁ וְאֶת־הַֽמַּאֲכֶ֑לֶת וַיֵּלְכ֥וּ שְׁנֵיהֶ֖ם יַחְדָּֽו׃

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. He himself took the firestone and the knife; and the two walked off together. Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “It is God who will see to the sheep for this burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

***

Every Rosh Hashanah we read the story of the Akeidah, the binding of Isaac. And then a couple of months later, we read it again when that weekly portion comes around. This gives me not one but two chances every year to choose not to speak about this story.

You might be wondering why I try to avoid speaking about such a beautiful and inspiring part of our tradition… so let me tell you. 

It is not because I find it tiresome how the rabbis try to justify Abraham’s act of betraying and abandoning his son. How they present it as a great act of faith from which one should learn what an amazing believer Abraham was. Though I do [find it tiresome that is]. 

It is not even because it highlights the qualities of God that people sometimes define as “the God of the Old Testament” — a near demonic being with little compassion or care for creation. If you will, this is the God who is the complete opposite of the God we invoke when we recite the thirteen attributes of mercy at services on the High Holidays. 

No, I usually choose to not speak about the story because it hurts to imagine Isaac’s trauma. And it hurts specifically because even though it seems that Isaac was spared, which in some people’s book is a happy ending, I don’t really feel that he was spared. He survived. Sure. But not fully intact in any functional way. So to me, as someone who lives with trauma (like we all do, by the way), this is not a good story – it does not offer me hope or practical advice. It is more of a cautionary tale – look what can happen if the trauma is bad enough. And it is an unhelpful cautionary tale because it is cautioning about things we have no control over, so again: no applicable use. 

Look, we are told in the Akeidah: something really bad that you have no control over might happen to you, and if that thing you cannot control happens you might really be done for, practically speaking. What can possibly be the moral of the story? Be afraid? Be very afraid?

This year, several traumatic things that were out of my control took place. I won't name them again because we pretty much spoke about it enough yesterday. But these things highlighted how little control we have over traumatic events in our lives. And it made reading the story of the binding of Isaac this year even more infuriating.  Over the High Holidays, our liturgy repeatedly asks God to spare us from death because collectively, historically, we proved ourselves by allowing the unthinkable to happen to Isaac: this is just a no-go for me.

Not this year. I want God to spare us this year because we did not let what happened to Isaac happen to us. I want God to spare us this year, not because we learned from Isaac how to be such a good sacrifice, but because we learned from this story how not to be a good sacrifice. 

The midrash, using stories as commentary, usually comes to fill in gaps in the biblical story. The more midrash we see about a story, the more it points out that the biblical narrative fails to address something that the rabbis felt needed addressing. We have midrash about the Akeidah – it tries to justify the unjustifiable. It tries to fill in the gap of how Sarah felt about the whole thing. We do not have enough midrash about Isaac's resilience in the aftermath of trauma. We do not have that narrative because the rabbis found no way to fit it into the story. Because despite the absence of specifics about the life of Isaac, it *is* clear that he did not make a miraculous mental or physical recovery. 

We can let this story go, like some in the Reform movement have done, by reading the story of creation in its place on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. (We are not really going to do that.) *Or* we can write our own midrash. We can fill in the gaps, in a way that will allow us to learn something useful for the new year when we read this story. Because trauma is an ongoing part of life. For all of us. 

If you’ve experienced personal hardships— a job loss, illness, bereavement, divorce–you’ve experienced trauma. If you were in an abusive relationship, you’ve experienced trauma.¹ If you experienced a physical assault of any kind. If you are living with someone with addiction. If you are battling one yourself. If you lived through the Trump presidency, through January 6th, through the reversal of Roe v. Wade, through the pandemic, through the rise in antisemitism. If you were alive this past year, you’ve experienced trauma. 

Personally, my trauma guru is Viktor Frankl.

Viktor Frankl lived through the unimaginable trauma of the Holocaust. He teaches that while suffering is inevitable, our response to it is within our control. Though we can't always choose what happens to us, we can choose how to respond to these circumstances. We can find meaning in life, even in the midst of extreme suffering. Even in Auschwitz. To quote him: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”²

Here is my extreme summary of Viktor Frankl on one foot. I imagine if the Viktor Frankl society had a Twitter account, it would go something like this: “Life always has meaning. Always. We should search for it.” Searching for meaning is, in some cases, a life-saving activity. But in any case, it is not a privilege. I am not saying you should all go meditate on a mountaintop in Tibet. But that a part of our soul is ניצוץ אלוה ממעל, a spark of the Divine. That spark needs as much feeding as our body, and so even if you treat yourself as a survival machine – your brain will still have an existential thought from time to time. Let these thoughts help you, direct them towards planning for the future. We say “Man plans and God laughs.” Let God laugh. It's healthy. Keep on planning. Take agency where you can. It Is not always possible but where the choice is there, choose it. Go beyond your own pain to seek to help others. And helping others can really take any form.

I opened this sermon with a quote from Emily Dickinson and from the Talmud. Mind the difference. Both teach us that going out of ourselves to do something good, to help others, makes life worthwhile. Whether it be saving a life (albeit of a baby bird), or alleviating people’s sadness for a mere moment.

But our ability to tell our narrative sometimes trips us up. 

At some point earlier this year, when preparing for TBB’s Wise Aging group, I listened to a podcast about types of family narratives. How we construct our family stories. How we construct our stories of our own life. They spoke of three main types of narratives:

• First, an ascending narrative – like the American dream. Our beginnings were humble or harsh but we made it through these hardships and succeeded greatly. Indeed, look how far we’ve come. 

• Second is a descending narrative – one in which the story is about how bright our future looked initially and how much trauma befell us since – It is like telling ourselves a personal version of the Job story, minus the end…

• And then there is the oscillating narrative – a narrative that oscillates between moments of strength and vulnerability, despair and hope. 

Researchers found that those who think of their life in terms of an oscillating narrative were more resilient than those who stuck with a descending *or* ascending narrative. Oscillation builds resilience. When we revisit our traumas from different perspectives—whether through personal reflection, relationships, or even rituals like Rosh Hashanah—we find new ways to integrate these experiences into our lives. 

Mind you, the research found that having moments of feeling defeated by past trauma interwoven with our moments of feeling hope and strength is more resilience-building than the ascending narrative that is a linear overcoming of trauma. In an ascending narrative we believe that our life right now is good. That we succeeded. That we healed. And yet it is not as beneficial a story to tell ourselves about trauma. 

We do not have to gradually force our way out of trauma and consider any setback a failure. We are not tied up on a mountain from which we have to go down and go on with our lives as if nothing happened. We might get the feedback from society that this is exactly what we need to do. I don’t think that is true. There is a tendency in Western society to prefer linear trajectories. I will be as bold as to say there is a tendency in patriarchy to prefer linear trajectories. 

But there is value also in the idea of רצוא ושוב, in going back and forth. We must allow ourselves the space to recognize that we have been hurt. And then we need to heal from it bit by bit. With every bit we process, we change, and with every change, we might gain a new perspective and recognize something else about being hurt. And then we need to acknowledge that and then we need to heal from that part a bit. We should allow ourselves time. We should be compassionate with ourselves, and with others, when experiencing setbacks. 

And perhaps the best tip you might get from me is that even if we cannot fire the God of the Old Testament, it is the God of liturgy we most often are in a relationship with. It is a God that is a loving parent, a forgiving parent. It is a God that is עימו אנוכי בצרה, is with us in times of trouble. A God, not of strict justice but also of compassion. A God who rises up from the seat of pure judgment and moves to sit in a seat of mercy. אל רואי. A God that sees us, with all our brokenness and fragility and finds all of it beautiful and loveworthy and precious. 

We’ve gone through so much lately. Without trying to be prophetic in any way, we are also walking towards the unknown regarding the upcoming elections and so much more.

Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Be well.

Shanah tovah.

1. If you think you might be in an abusive relationship right now, please reach out to me or to someone else you trust so we can get you support and help.

2. Viktor Frankl does not ask us to find meaning in the trauma, but rather find meaning in life, and use that meaning in our life to help us process the trauma and live with it.