This week’s Torah commentary, written by Hebrew Seminary Professor of Biblical Literature Rabbanit Dr. Devorah Schoenfeld, has been sponsored by Rabbi Jonah Rank.
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The oft-told story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, or the Akedah (עֲקֵידָה, “Binding”) of Isaac ׁ(appearing in Genesis 22), goes something like this: God commands Abraham to go to mount Moriah and offer his son there. Abraham and Isaac journey there together. Once Isaac is bound on the altar, God tells Abraham not to do it: don’t kill him; don’t hurt him; don’t do anything bad to him.
According to Genesis Rabbah 56:8, after Isaac was no longer fated to a sacrifice on the altar, Abraham and God relitigated the whole happening:
אָמַר רַבִּי אַחָא הִתְחִיל אַבְרָהָם תָּמֵהַּ, אֵין הַדְּבָרִים הַלָּלוּ אֶלָּא דְבָרִים שֶׁל תֵּמַהּ, אֶתְמוֹל אָמַרְתָּ (בראשית כא, יב): כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע, חָזַרְתָּ וְאָמַרְתָּ (בראשית כב, ב): קַח נָא אֶת בִּנְךָ, וְעַכְשָׁיו אַתְּ אָמֵר לִי (בראשית כב, יב): אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל הַנַּעַר, אֶתְמְהָא. אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אַבְרָהָם (תהלים פט, לה): לֹא אֲחַלֵּל בְּרִיתִי וּמוֹצָא שְׂפָתַי לֹא אֲשַׁנֶּה. כְּשֶׁאָמַרְתִּי לְךָ קַח נָא אֶת בִּנְךָ, לֹא אָמַרְתִּי שְׁחָטֵהוּ, אֶלָּא וְהַעֲלֵהוּ, לְשֵׁם חִבָּה אָמַרְתִּי לָךְ, אֲסִקְתֵּיהּ וְקִיַּמְתָּ דְּבָרַי, וְעַתָּה אַחֲתִינֵיהּ.
Rabbi Aḥa said: Abraham began to wonder, [saying to God]: “This is strange. Yesterday You said, ‘For it is through Isaac that your descendants will be named’ (Genesis 21:12). Then You said, ‘You, take your son […and offer him up]’ (Genesis 22:2). And now, You are saying to me, ‘Do not extend your hand against the lad!?’ This is bewildering!” The Holy One blessed be He said to Abraham, “‘I will not violate My covenant nor alter the utterance of My lips’ (Psalms 89:35). When I said to you, ‘Take your son,’ I did not say, ‘Slaughter him,’ but rather, ‘take him up.’ I said this to you in affection. You have taken him up. Now take him down!”
It’s a joke. You can laugh. At least I laughed when I first heard this midrash. I thought God was making a joke to Abraham, playing on the two meanings of the word olah (עֹלָה). It can mean to go up, like when you go up to the Torah for an aliyyah (עֲלִיָּה) or when you make aliyyah and move to Israel. Olah is also the name of a kind of sacrifice. It’s the classic joke structure of making someone think you mean one meaning of a word when you mean another. (How do you make a slow horse fast? Tell him it’s Yom Kippur. Groan.)
Of course, God was also being absolutely serious.
This week’s Torah reading, Beha’alotekha, presents another case where someone is raised up but not killed, in describing the consecration of the Levites:
וְהִקְרַבְתָּ֙ אֶת־הַלְוִיִּ֔ם לִפְנֵ֖י אֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֑ד וְהִ֨קְהַלְתָּ֔ אֶֽת־כׇּל־עֲדַ֖ת בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
You shall bring the Levites forward before the Tent of Meeting. Assemble the whole Israelite community. (Numbers 8:10.)
The word vehikravta (וְהִקְרַבְתָּ֙), like the word olah, has a double meaning. Vehikravta means “bring close,” and it also means “offer as a sacrifice.” So are the Levites being brought close to God or being offered as a sacrifice? Is it both? The ambiguity is stronger in the next verse:
וְהִקְרַבְתָּ֥ אֶת־הַלְוִיִּ֖ם לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֑ה וְסָמְכ֧וּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־הַלְוִיִּֽם׃
Bring the Levites forward before the LORD. Let the Israelites lay their hands upon the Levites… (Numbers 8:11.)
Here the language is even stronger. The Levites are brought close to God/offered to God. The Israelites then lay hands on them, just as they laid hands on the sacrifices they offered.
וְהֵנִיף֩ אַהֲרֹ֨ן אֶת־הַלְוִיִּ֤ם תְּנוּפָה֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה מֵאֵ֖ת בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְהָי֕וּ לַעֲבֹ֖ד אֶת־עֲבֹדַ֥ת יְהֹוָֽה׃
and let Aaron designate the Levites before the LORD as an elevation offering from the Israelites, that they may perform the service of the LORD. (Numbers 8:11.)
The translation here is from the New Jewish Publication Society translation, but the verb translated as “let [Aaron] designate,” vehenif (וְהֵנִיף֩), more literally means “let [him] wave.” The Israelites are here asked to lift up the Levites and to wave them. This waving was performed for sacrifices in the Temple, with the Omer (ֺעֺמֶר) sacrifice of grain in Leviticus 23:11 and also for other offerings, such as the guilt offering of the metzora (מְצֹרָע, often translated as “leper”) in Leviticus 14:12. The French commentator Rashi (c. 1028-1105) points this out in his comment on 8:11; to him, the multiple meanings of vehenif demonstrate that the Levites really were an offering brought by Israel, just like these other offerings.
But what was actually happening to these Levites? Did anyone think that there was any chance someone would go and slaughter them for sacrifice? Of course not. The Levites were not to be harmed in any way. Beyond that, there are many mitzvot that require tending to the Levites. Leviticus 27:30 and Numbers 18:21 assign them a particular tithe of ten percent from the Israelites’ produce; Numbers 35 assigns towns to the Levites; and Deuteronomy 12:19 adds a special command that we not neglect the Levites. What being offered means, in this case, is becoming consecrated into a leadership role for the Jewish people.
We can see a parallel to this in another classic case of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible, in the beginning of I Samuel, when Hannah promises to give her future child to God. When Samuel is old enough, she brings him to the priest Eli to learn from him, and Samuel grows up to be one of the greatest of the prophets. She continues to visit him when he is living with Eli, and Samuel wears clothes that she made for him. As Kate Rozansky has pointed out, in 1 Samuel 7:15-17, Samuel returns to Ramah, the place where Hannah is from, because that is still his home, and Samuel builds an altar there. (See her 2023 article “Akedat Hannah” in Jewish Review of Books.) Hannah raises up Samuel and brings him up to God. He comes back as a leader of the Jewish people.
Some commentators come to a similar conclusion about another notorious case of child sacrifice in the Bible, that of Jephthah’s unnamed daughter from Judges 11. Jephthah promises that if he returns victorious from battle, he will offer to God whatever he sees first when he gets home. Upon returning home, Jephthah’s daughter is the first to meet him. He tells her of his vow, and she agrees that her father has to make good on his word. Although the text tells us he does exactly what he vowed, we must wonder: what did he actually vow? Some commentators think that Jephthah actually killed his daughter and consider him guilty. On the other hand, an interpretation taught by the French commentator Ralbag (1288-1344) on Judges 11:31, the Iberian writer Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) on Judges 11:36, and the Spanish Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1167) as quoted by the Spanish commentator Nachmanides (1194-1270) on Leviticus 27:29 point to a happier ending: Like Samuel, the daughter of Jephthah was dedicated to serve God. She became a leader who would lead the women of Israel in their fasts and prayers.
In the Jewish community people often talk about the life of the rabbinate and other forms of Jewish leadership as a kind of self-sacrifice. But what does sacrifice of people mean in the Torah? It means raising them up without causing them harm.
The life of a community leader can ask a lot of them. They face the challenge of holding onto their faith and conviction in a world that doesn’t always support either. These leaders must stay focused on the good of the community even when the community is struggling. What communal leadership doesn’t, or shouldn’t, ask of its leaders is to be harmed.
If the life of a rabbi is a life of sacrifice, let’s go back to this Torah portion and ask ourselves: What does sacrifice mean when a person is involved in it? What is human sacrifice? What sacrifices should humans be part of? That is what God asks of Abraham in relation to Isaac: to lift him up, which also means to offer him, but also not do him any harm. That’s what God tells the Israelites in Beha’alotekha to do with the Levites: to lift them up, to bring them close, and then to care for them. In a community that lifts each other up, being lifted up for the sake of God and the community isn’t something that harms you.
As a leader I find that’s something I need to keep in mind. The Torah asks a lot of us, and so does leadership. It takes trust in both God and the community to believe that, when we are lifted up to serve, we are lifted up with care.
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