Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Shabbat Va-yerah
October 29, 2004
The Silence of Sarah
I would like to combine two efforts this evening, friends. First, I want to deal once more with this most troubling story known as Akedat Yitzhak – the Binding of Isaac. Secondly, at least once a year I like to share with you writings of female scholars which shed new insights into our sacred texts, insights uniquely formulated by women but not just for women, rather for all of us. So tonight I want to bring you a message which is primarily the work of Rabbi Sharon Sobel, utilizing a modern Midrash by one of the outstanding teachers of our time, Ellen Umansky, who was one of our Temple Israel Scholars-in-Residence.
Shhhhhhhhh – silence. Please close your eyes for a minute and listen to the silence in this sacred space. (pause) What can you hear in this silence? Do you hear your heart's private longings for God? Do you hear the heartbeats of your family, friends, fellow congregants sitting next to you? Or, do you just hear silence, an empty space that can seem very heavy?
Silence can be extremely powerful. Just think of some moments in your life when silence spoke louder than any sound or any words could ever speak. The silence of your newborn child as she or he peacefully slept, breathing rhythmically in and out. The silence of anticipation as a teacher paused to tell you your grade on an important exam or paper. The silence of love that envelopes you and your partner when words are unnecessary to communicate feelings. The silence of pride and joy as you watch your child achieve some accomplishment and you know that if you were to say anything, he or she would just say "Oh, mom" or "Oh, dad." The silence of guilt when we have done something wrong and we are too ashamed to face up to it and admit it. The silence of grief when we remember a loved one who has died, and no words can adequately express the loss that we feel. Or the silence of anger when we know that words will not accomplish anything.
Silence can be very powerful, and there are many different types of silence – some beneficial and others which leave something to be desired. This evening we heard another type of silence, the silence of omission, the silence of a missing voice.
Think about the Torah portion we just read. This story is both compelling and disturbing – compelling because it tells us about a man of faith, a man who would do whatever was requested of him by his God. It is disturbing for many reasons. How can Abraham be so quick to fulfill God's command without questioning God's motive, especially since this is the same Abraham who confronted God directly when God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? How can we feel comfortable with the role model who is so quick to sacrifice his son for the sake of his religion?
And this story is disturbing because there is a silent voice, a voice that we do not hear – the voice of Sarah. Sarah, Isaac's mother; Sarah, Abraham's wife; Sarah, a person in her own right, one of the Arbah Imahot – one of our four matriarchs. How can the Torah text omit Sarah, her voice, her feelings at such a crucial moment in her son's life?
When Sarah first married Abraham she was barren; she could not have children. Sarah realized that in order for God's promise to Abraham to be fulfilled, the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heaven and the sands on the seashore, Abraham would have to have children, heirs. Since Sarah was unable to conceive, she decided to give her handmaid – Hagar – to Abraham as a concubine. This was the usual custom of the time. Hagar would conceive a child with Abraham, and Sarah would adopt it as her own. Hagar was the prototype of a surrogate mother.
But Sarah's plan backfired. When she saw that Hagar was pregnant with her husband's child, Sarah grew very jealous and bitter; she no longer wanted to have anything to do with Hagar or her child. So Sarah grew old and lonely with a great emptiness and bitterness in her heart. She had resigned herself to this empty, achy feeling, the feeling that she was unfulfilled and perhaps feeling she was not an adequate wife to Abraham. And then a miracle happened.
The Torah tells us that Sarah was "old, advanced in years and she had stopped having the periods of women." And yet she conceived a child. Isaac was the son of Sarah's old age. For years she had hoped and prayed that God would grant her a child and, finally, God gave Sarah the one thing that meant the most to her – a child. Not only to carry on Abraham's legacy, but a child who would carry on her legacy as well.
Isaac was Sarah's life. He brought laughter to her ears, love to her heart, contentment to her soul. He also brought her companionship. It must have been difficult being married to someone who was so wrapped up in his mission of finding God that he had very little time for his wife and children. In fact, the longest sentence that Abraham ever says to Sarah in the Torah takes place when the three messengers of God visit Abraham after his circumcision to tell him that he and Sarah will have a son. Abraham says to Sarah: "Quick, three measures of choice flour! Knead and make cakes!" Not a very meaningful discussion – do you think? – especially for a husband and wife who have been through so much together. So we can understand just how special the mother-son bond was between Sarah and Isaac. Isaac must have filled some of the gaps that Abraham left in Sarah's life.
All of which makes this 22nd chapter of Genesis so terribly disturbing, because Sarah is not even mentioned once. Here Abraham is going to take his son – and Sarah's son – to offer him as a sacrifice to God. And we must remember that Isaac is not only Abraham's son; he is Sarah's son as well – her only child. So why doesn't God include Sarah in the instruction to Abraham? Why doesn't God say to both Abraham and Sarah: "Take your son – your only one, the one whom you love – and offer him as a sacrifice to me at the place where I will show you"?
Wouldn't it have been just as much a sacrifice for Sarah as it was for Abraham? Perhaps even more so, since this was Sarah's only child, while Abraham had another son, Ishmael. Was Sarah just a vessel who gave birth to Isaac, thus fulfilling her mission in life and, now that Abraham has an heir through Sarah, she can be disregarded altogether? Even if this command to sacrifice his son was only incumbent on Abraham, doesn't Sarah at least deserve an explanation of where her husband and son were going? We know that they were gone for at least three days. Didn't they wonder what Sarah would think when they did not come home for dinner the first day they were gone? Her heart must have been aching with grief and anguish.
Friends, the silence of Sarah's absence speaks louder than anything else in this sedra. Those of us who are parents surely can relate to how Sarah must have felt at being excluded from making decisions about her child and about the loss of her child. As a parent we need to have input into our child's life. And as a parent we never expect to lose a child before we die; that is not the natural order of things. The rabbis in the Midrash say that Sarah was so grief-stricken at this moment in time when she feared that she would never see Isaac again that she died right then and there. And the very next portion in the Torah begins with Sarah's death.
So why is our Torah portion silent as far as Sarah is concerned? Why don't we hear her voice? Or even if we don't hear her voice, why don't we at least hear some concern expressed for Sarah and her feelings? Why, when it comes to our People's first Matriarch, do we only hear silence? Perhaps it is because the Torah as we know it was largely fashioned by generations of men who decided what values they believed were important to impart to future generations of Jews. And "yet even the rabbis of the Talmud admitted that the covenant established at Sinai was given to both men and women. Perhaps some of our foremothers were content to live out their membership in the Jewish People vicariously, through the rituals and prayers of their fathers, husbands and sons." Perhaps people felt uncomfortable challenging the words of the Torah and filling in the gaps and voids left by the original authors. Perhaps people were too afraid to break the silence; after all, who are we to add words and ideas to the Torah?
And yet, "3,000 years ago, Moses stood at Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God. When he came down the mountain and saw the Israelites worshiping a golden calf, he broke the tablets in anger." Professor Ellen Umansky suggests that "perhaps Moses did so not only to warn us against idolatry, but also to make it clear that not even God's words are irrevocably carved in stone."
Some silences are perfect as they are, and any words or sighs would mar the beauty and meaning of that silent moment. But the silence of tonight's Torah text is a silence that we need to shatter. We need to give voices to our foremothers. We need to consider how they felt, how they thought, how God impacted on them. Had it not been for Sarah, there would have been no Isaac for Abraham to take and offer as a sacrifice to God. The Torah reading for this Shabbat would not have been the same. So now is not the time for silence. As Rabbi Sobel says, "We need to speak out for the women who were silenced so long ago."
This is not really such a radical idea. For centuries women have been giving voices to our foremothers. It is just that these texts were often disregarded and never published or even taught to us or to our children. But the times, they are a'changing, and these texts are being gathered together and published so we can study them. One book called "Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality" contains writings from the 16th century through the present. Two of the texts in this compendium release the bonds of silence that choked Sarah's voice and feelings in this week's sedra. The first is a modern, 20th century text, a midrash on our parasha, written by Professor Ellen Umanksy. We had the privilege of her reading us her midrash from this very bima in 1990. Professor Umansky called it "Re-visioning Sarah:"
It was morning. Sarah had just awakened and reached over to touch her husband, Abraham, to caress him, but Abraham wasn't there. Neither, she discovered, was Isaac, her only son. Isaac, whom she loved more than anyone or anything in the world. Sarah quickly dressed and went outside, hoping they'd be nearby. But they were gone, and so was Abraham's ass and his two young servants. It wasn't unusual for Abraham to take Isaac somewhere, but never this early and never without saying good-bye. And so she waited, and wept, and screamed.
Hours passed. It was hot and Sarah thought about going inside to escape the heat of the sun. But what if I miss them, she thought. I want to make sure that I catch the first glimpse of them, even if they're far away. And so she stood and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. She felt anxious, nervous, upset. "Where could they be?" "Where has Abraham taken my son?"
The sun began to set. She started to shiver, partly from the cold, mostly from fear. Again she cried, and wailed, and moaned. Isaac had been God's gift to her, a sign of God's love and continuing bond between them. She had laughed when God told her she was pregnant. She was old and no longer able to bear a child. But God had given her Isaac and filled her breasts with milk and for the first time in her life Sarah was happy.
Three days went by. Sarah sat outside, looked around her and saw the fields, now empty, and in the distance saw the mountains, sloping upwards into the sky. And then she saw them . . . Abraham walking with his ass and his servants and Isaac far behind, walking slowly, his head turning from side to side, his hands oddly moving as though he were trying to make sense of something, and Sarah knew in that instant where Abraham and Isaac had been and why they had gone. Though she could barely make out the features of Isaac's face, she could tell from his movements and his gestures that he was angry, that he wanted nothing to do with his father who had tried to kill him.
Abraham was almost down the mountain by now and soon would be home. He'd try to explain, to make her understand his side of the story. But Sarah wanted no part of it. She was tired of hearing Abraham's excuses and even more tied of hearing what he thought God demanded. And so Sarah turned and went inside and prayed that if only for one night, Abraham would leave her alone.
The second text is a tkhine, a private prayer, that was written by a woman named Serel Katz sometime in the 1600's. In this tkhine, she calls upon all four of our matriarchs to act as intercessors for us on Rosh Hashanah, for only these foremothers can understand certain longings of a woman's heart, since they had the same longing. I'll share with you just the first part of this tkhine, that which deals with Sarah.
Lord of the world, merciful father, have mercy on us and accept our prayers. For You have commanded Your people Israel to blow the shofar in order to confuse Satan so that he may not accuse us. . .
Today I stand at my judgment, today you reveal Your tribunal. Lord of the universe, if I must stand trial, may Your attribute of mercy overcome the attribute of justice, and forgive us our sins . . . And especially now, when we have heard the sound of the shofar, may the merit of the four matriarchs . . . stand by us in this judgement, for they have arisen [to plead for us].
First we ask our mother Sarah to plead for us in the hour of judgement, that we may go out free from before this tribunal . . . Have mercy, our mother on your children. And especially, pray for our little children that they may not be separated from us. For you know well that it is very bitter when a child is taken away from the mother, as it happened to you. When your son Isaac was taken away from you, it caused you great anguish. And now you have the chance to plead for us. For he is now blowing the shofar, the horn of a ram, so that God will remember for us the merit of Isaac, who let himself be bound like a sheep on the altar [Gen. 22]. Therefore, Satan will be confused, and cannot at this moment accuse us. So Sarah you have a chance to plead for us, that the attribute of mercy may awaken toward us.
Let the voices of these two women who ended the silence that was imposed on Sarah inspire us. As we tonight look at the Torah text with new eyes, so do we listen with new ears. Let us remember that the story we read this evening is also a modern story, a story of all those people who cannot speak for themselves, whose silent cries of pain and anguish leave a void in our world. We must be their voices. We must help end their silence.
The wise Kohellet, author of Ecclesiastes, taught us "for everything there is a season, a time for every experience under heaven. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak." Help us, O God, to hear both the sounds and the silences, and give us the strength to speak out. Amen
I am deeply and humbly grateful to Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel from whom I learned this lesson.
