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Chumash Series

Teaching Materials

Goal: Explaining the meaning of love of G-d.  This is the ultimate pleasure available to a human being.
Secondary goal: Communicating the understanding that everything we have is a gift.  This is the secret to happiness and the permanent antidote to bitterness.

I. Beginning to learn: Ask someone to read Genesis Chapter 22. 
People are liable to have such strong reactions to the story it will interfere with your ability to teach anything. Before you get started give them a chance to vent by asking them: "What do you think of this story."  When they've settled down ask them: "Why do you think G-d asked Avraham to sacrifice his son? They will say (a) to test him (b) to see if Avraham trusted him.
You will want to point out that G-d already knows who Avraham is and that the point of a test is not for G-d but for Avraham, giving Avraham the opportunity to grow and realize his potential. This is very important because it underlines the idea that G-d loves us and everything that He does is for our good.

Then ask "Fine it's a test, but why test him in this way?  Remember, this is Avraham’s tenth and final test.  It is the purpose of the entire journey."

II. Demonstrate in multiple ways that G-d is asking Avraham to completely transcend self-centeredness.  Avraham is being lifted into a G-d centered reality.  (Part of accepting the story on its own terms is that there was no question in Avraham's mind that it was G-d speaking to him. He knew he wasn't hallucinating.)

1. Sacrificing Yitzchak meant that Yitzchak did not exist for Avraham and that Yitzchak did not belong to Avraham.  (In class three, we suggested that parents relation to their children is often self-centered.  They have enormous ego wrapped up in their children: e.g. I want you to go to college because I never went to college etc.)  Avraham appreciated that everything is a gift.  Very often Jews write on the inside jacket of their books a line from the Psalms: "The world and everything in it belongs to G-d. This book is temporarily in the possession of John Doe." That is the proper attitude toward our possessions, toward the people that we love, toward our own bodies and toward our own lives.

Ask them: "How would it affect you if you considered that everything you have belonged to G-d and had merely been leant to you?

1. You'd never be bitter because whatever you didn't have was not something taken from you. It was a gift you weren't given.  Illustration: Rebbe Meir had two children who died the same day--Shabat, without his knowledge. His wife, who did know, asked him, "how would you feel if you were given a precious jewel for safe keeping and returned it to it's owner in perfect condition?" "I would feel very pleased," Rebbe Meir answered her. "We had two jewels," she told him, "and we have returned them to their owner."
2. You'd view everything you do have as a gift, which is the secret of happiness. Illustration: I met a man who was terribly depressed so I asked him, "if you had all the same problems that you have now and additionally you had no eyes, would it lift you out of your depression if I gave you eyes?" "Of course." "Guess what," I told him. "You have eyes." "Yeah but I've always had eyes and everyone has eyes." "My friend," I told him, "you have learned the secret of misery. Stay focused on what you don't have and take for granted everything you do have and you will always be perfectly miserable."

2.   Another aspect: Sacrificing Yitzchak meant giving up the Jewish People, since Avraham understood that the Jewish People would come from Yitzchak. Ask your class why G-d wanted Avraham to be willing to sacrifice the vision of creating a Jewish People. Point out it tested whether Avraham was using the Jewish People as a way of promoting himself or whether it was truly selfless. Illustration: You can help people because you care about them, or you can help people because you want to be famous. If you do it because you want to be famous it robs what you do of its real meaning.

3.   Another aspect: Sacrificing Yitzchak went against Avraham's understanding of morality. Ask your class why G-d would ask Avraham to "go against his conscience." Point out that it teaches Avraham to subordinate his own moral judgment to G-d's.

Punchline: Point out that G-d asks a tremendous sacrifice of Avraham: The son he loves, his future, and his own independent conscience. What he gets in return is that he knows himself as an expression of the will of G-d.
III. The pleasure of the transcendental (Love of G-d) 

The point of this test was not for G-d. G-d knew what Avraham would do. G-d wanted Avraham to understand that his love and longing for G-d were so passionate that he was prepared to sacrifice everything else--everything else seemed to Avraham a small price for that intimacy with G-d. Everything we have and love, we will eventually lose. The people we love will die. Our possessions will become lost and decay. Someone who has a relationship with G-d has something that they can never lose, something that is not subject to the fluctuations of time and fortune, and something that suffuses their whole life with meaning. Even an atheist would agree: If there is a G-d, intimacy with Him is the ultimate.  G-d asked Avraham to sacrifice Isaac so he would understand that his relationship with G-d was more precious to him than everything else in his life.
Illustrations:

1. There is a book called Holocaust and Halacha, recounting questions asked of rabbis during the holocaust. In the first question in the book someone came to a rabbi to ask the following question: "The Nazis have imprisoned 100 children who they plan to murder in the morning. My son is among them. I can bribe the guard to free my son but if I do that the Nazis will grab someone else's son to replace mine. May I bribe the guards to free him?" The book records that the rabbi refused to answer and that the man concluded from the rabbis refusal to answer that it was forbidden him to free his son. The book records that the man said he was prepared to "make the sacrifice of Avraham." Why did that man feel compelled to ask that question? Didn't he love his son? Of course he loved his son. But he loved goodness more and he knew he couldn't be evil to save his son.
2. A friend from yeshiva (Michael Weinberg) was on the Suez Canal when the Egyptians attacked in 1973. Their commanding officer told them: "We have a choice. We can withdraw or we can stay here. If we stay here we will probably all die but we will gain time for the army to mobilize behind us." What would you do if your child were on the line at that time and they were able to call you and ask you for your advice. What would you tell them to do?
3. There was a rabbi named Weissmandel who knew of the extermination camps. He tried desperately to get the information out to the allies and persuade them to act, and simultaneously to rescue whatever Jews he was able to save. Weissmandel was finally captured and deported with his wife and children to Auschwitz. Weissmandel had a wire-cutters and managed to cut the barbed wire over the window. He tried to get his wife and children to jump off the train but they were frozen with fear and refused. He had to choose whether to jump off the train himself and continue to try to alert the world to Auschwitz, or whether to accompany his family to Auschwitz. He jumped. What would you do? The only reason you consider the question is because you know there are greater things than love--even the passionate love for a child. Punchline: G-d asked Avraham to sacrifice his son so he would discover what he loved more than his son.

IV. Questions likely to be asked:

1.  What about Jonestown (a place in S. America where the leader of a cult told all his followers to drink poison--which they did.) You're absolutely right. Fanatics do terrible things. If you think you hear a voice telling you to sacrifice someone, check yourself into a mental hospital. Part of accepting the story on it's own terms is that their was no question in Avraham's mind that it was G-d speaking to him. He knew he wasn't hallucinating.

2.  When G-d told Avraham that he was going to destroy Sedom, Avraham argued with G-d. Why this time does he go along without argument. In the story of Sedom G-d was explaining to Avraham how He runs his world. It was in fact, an invitation to a discussion. Here He's giving Avraham an order.

 

Rabbi Nachum Braverman studied philosophy at Yale University. For many years he served as Educational Director of Aish HaTorah Los Angeles, and is now Executive Director of Aish HaTorah's Jerusalem Fund for the Western Region. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children.