From Genesis to Annapolis

From Genesis to Annapolis

November 9th, 2007

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor


I have been to Annapolis, Maryland once in my lifetime. While serving as
Rabbi in Gaithersburg, Maryland, I was invited to given the invocation to
the legislature in Annapolis. I have never been back. The Naval Academy
there now has a beautiful Jewish chapel, and one of our children, Rebecca
Wolf, daughter of Gini and Franklin, studied there. It is difficult for me
to imagine that it is possible if not probable, that Jewish destiny,
certainly immediate Israeli history - of which we are very much apart - will
be influenced if not determined by events that will take place in the near
future in Annapolis. I was not a political science major in college, but
history and historical memory is at the core of being a Jew. Embodied in
that core identity is a passionate dedication to insure our existence here
and everywhere, and an equal yearning for peace. The word "Shalom" is at the
apex of many of our prayers. As I think about the current scene and
contemplate Annapolis and the meeting of Olmert, Abbas and Bush, and the
context of the set pretenders to their thrones (of the
presidency/premiership of all three), my vision/our memory begins in this
week's sedra.



There is no Torah portion with more pain and pathos than the portion of
Toldot, fortuitously/ominously named "The Generations." Patriarch Isaac is a
bachelor for forty years. He and Rebecca are childless for the next twenty.
Her pregnancy is painful. God tells her that she is not only carrying twins,
but she is going to birth two peoples, two nations. They are both her sons.
They are both Isaac's sons. They are both "Jewish." And they shall be
antagonistic to each other. While earlier in patriarchal history the
antagonism is between two half-brothers, Isaac from Sarah and Yishmael from
Hagar, both fathered by Abraham, now they are full brothers, both having
Isaac and Rebecca as their parents. After an indeterminate time, Esau will
divest himself of the birthright to satisfy his hunger. Jacob will induce
him to do so. This is not pretty. Later, again after an indeterminate length
of time, Isaac will dispatch Esau to prepare a meal so that Isaac can give
him the most sacred blessing - namely - to inherit the mantle of patriarchal
leadership, and even more so, the blessing of the land. This is the original
and core blessing of God to Abraham and then Isaac, now to be passed on:
that God wants this specific person and his family to inherit as theirs for
all time the land of Canaan soon to become Israel. As we know, Rebecca will
intercede; Jacob will preempt his brother and receive the blessing of land,
leadership and domination. This is not nice.



Because the Rabbinic eye will see the evil Roman Empire as the
personification of Esau, we always learn about him negatively. The same is
true of Yishmael. As the Rabbis retroject upon him an identity of being
"bad," that is how we think of Yishmael without giving him a chance. In
doing so, the Rabbinic tradition, appropriate for their time and
circumstances, colors and even closes our eyes to Yishmael and to Esau. And
yet they are both our family. And even though the Torah is our religious
story, even though it is our nationalistic myth, the story of our founding,
our mission, our first fathers and mothers, I dare anyone to read these
passages without sympathy and empathy for both of them. It is probably
easier to identify with Esau that with Jacob. He is the one duped, He is the
one defrauded. He is the one, entitled to the first blessing and for no
reason of his own, has to settle for second best. According to the plain
Torah text, did Yishmael do anything so terrible that warranted him be
evicted from the family? Did Esau do anything to deserve the loss of the
blessing, which Isaac is entitled to rightfully bestow? Isaac is the pivotal
person in the narrative and yet he is the most superficial. What did Isaac
think when Yishmael was evicted? How did he think about his half brother in
the years of separation until they buried Abraham their father together? We
don't know. When his mother Rebecca tells Jacob that she has overheard Isaac
telling Esau to prepare the meal in advance of the blessing and she hatches
the plot to get it for Jacob, Jacob's response is not about Esau his brother
but rather that maybe Isaac will recognize the switch and curse him instead
of blessing him! What is he thinking about his brother? The Torah is silent.



The Torah is our text. The Torah has been and is our treasure of three
thousand five hundred years. We have died for it. We read it cyclically.
While the text is maybe silent, we its readers hear the pain of Esau's plea:
"He burst into wild and bitter sobbing, and said to his father, "Bless me
too, Father!" The Torah text is a difficult and intricate weave that leaves
us with many questions and few answers. It is clear that Isaac is to inherit
Abraham's mantle and Jacob is to inherit it from Isaac. Jacob becomes Israel
and we inherit Jacob's mantle and are his direct descendants. We have not
relinquished our yerusha, our inheritance, our antiquity, our blessing. In
this sedra Isaac is blessed with the land. We have not relinquished that
direct divine gift. Isaac is the only patriarch that does not leave the land
of Israel. That is why, at the Zionist Congress, when Herzl proposed Uganda
as the Jewish national home it was utterly rejected. It was
Israel/Palestine/Canaan or bust! In continuing reading the Torah we realize
that Jacob's life, from this point forward, is a life filled with pain,
anxiety and separation. He will part from his parents, be duped by Laban,
struggle with an angel, believe his beloved son Joseph dead and come to
realize the duplicity of his other children. He, too, will cry bitter tears.
He will live a life limping, which will never be repaired.



We the Jewish readers of our sacred text realize that the two ancestral
brothers in Rebecca's womb have shared painful lives. It is not relevant
whether or not the DNA of Yishmael and Esau is carried in Arab blood, just
as we can't show that we carry Abraham's. Whether the historical eye is
three millennium or three centuries, the current bearers of the story have
cried like Esau and Jacob, like Isaac and Yishmael. None of them deserved
their pain. None of them are responsible for their tears. Their descendants
cry and are pained and are caught in world events which they did not create.
Hagar, Sarah, and Rebecca must look down from heaven and history and also
cry for their children.



If I was at Annapolis I wouldn't begin with talking about walls, boundaries,
refugees and Jerusalem. There is no common ground. I would teach them this
sedra and that of Vayera of two weeks ago. I would want them to cross
boundaries, leave their skin for the other's, and feel the perplexity, the
pathos, the sadness and suffering of the other, recently and historically. I
would want them and their followers, their defense/security people, to cry
together over the tragedy that Yishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau could have
normal, decent, peaceful, loving lives as siblings. I want them to cry that
their descendants have continued to bury their dead children needlessly.
Maybe when they finish wiping away their tears they will realize that
boundaries on a map won't fix the problems of water shortage and air
pollution; that nuclear bombs from Iran would obliterate the difference of
being Palestinian and Israeli, Jewish and Muslim. Maybe when their eyes are
cleared by their tears they won't be myopic and instead realize how much
they have to give each other, skills, markets, technology, medicine, beauty,
music, art and knowledge. Why does the Biblical description have to be the
political proscription?



And I would teach them one more thing, Psalm 126. We recite it before Birkat
HaMazon on Shabbat and festivals. In it we read:



hazor'im b'demah, b'rinah yiktzoru - those who plant with tears will reap in
joy;



ha-loch yay-lech u-va-cho - those who go forward in tears,



no-say meshech ha-zorah - bear the measure of the seeds;



Bo, Yavo b-rinah, no-say alumotav - Come, come in joy, the bearer of the
sheaves.



May the tears of the centuries and the present be gathered up in a jar and
placed in the center of the table at Annapolis. May all of them feel the
deep wells of pain that brought them forth. May in turn those tears be used
to water the ground of peace, and not lose another chance.



Shabbat Shalom