Memo on Judaism: Abraham, God & Reason -- By Payman Akhlaghi (Draft 1) -- NB: The author is neither religious nor observant. Its been the Rosh Hashanan, and quite naturally, I have been rethinking the story of Isaac and the sacrificial lamb. I was about 20 and still quasi-observant when I gave a speech on it at a synagogue in Tehran. My reading of the text concluded that Abraham had no intention of harming his son, knowing in advance, as the two climbed the mountain, that an alternate solution would be found. After all, he had been promised earlier in the text that his multitude of descendants would be known through Isaac; thus making the new command from his God a paradox awaiting a resolution. In the process, he races against God, patiently and courteously, and God allows him to win the bet by providing a ram to be sacrificed in place of his son. To me, it was a story abbout more than faith, obedience, and rewards; rather, I saw it as an evident expression of the humanistic aspect of Judaism, already apparent in that ancient text. (1) Of course, the most salient message of the story remains quite clear, -- as the late Chacham Ouriel Davidi, chief rabbi of Tehran, once put it in 1980s, and I paraphrase: to ban for once and all the ancient rituals of harming human beings in the name of sacrifice. Later on, as he also mentioned, Judaism would go even further to sublimate the concept and replace animal sacrifice with the words of prayer, thus, getting rid of the absurd violence of the practice altogether. Especially, in the context of the ancient history, this stands out to me as quite a momentous move forward for empathy, compassion, reason, and ethics.(2) Today, however, what stood out for me in the story is the roles of reason and reality, as opposed to emotional zeal and idealism. Combined with the face to face humanism of it, I may read the story as both God and Abraham coming to admit the sheer absurdity of the practice, and to offer a pragmatic and rational solution, a compromise dictated by reason, that would fit the reality of the time. If so, the story not only affirms human niche in a humanistic cosmos allowed by God, but that even God himself by will, desire, or necessity, had to comply with the rules of compassion but especially reason if any sense or order were to exist in the world. (1) At the time, I didnt know of the related Kabbalistic concept of tzimzum, that is, the notion that god had to contract himself to let space open for the world to exist; and I was delighted recently to be reminded of this concept in passages from Prof. Harold Blooms Jesus and Yahweh, The Names Divine. Mr. Blooms insightful analysis of the story further brings it into the context of modern times; no summary would do justice to the eloquence of the authors ideas and prose. (2) The erudite Iranian American scholar, Ms. Shirin-Dokht Daghighian, wrote a major volume on the history of Judaism (in Persian, ca. 1998) titled, A Ladder to the Sky: A History of Temple in the Jewish Tradition. The book has been highly and widely praised. (Note: The books awaits my reading.) (*) The author, Payman Akhlaghi, is a musician by inclination and educaiton. (*) NB: The author is neither religious nor observant. © 2014, Payman Akhlaghi. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 02:46:27 +0000
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