October 24, 2005

Isaac Bound at the 92nd Street

Genesis 22 presents what may be the most important event in Abraham's life, the Binding of Isaac. Only the Covenant between the Parts and the circumcision can match its drama and repercussions throughout the ages. At the 92nd Street Y the presentation of “Isaac Bound,” a musical and textural commentary on this biblical passage, produced equally passionate responses. “Downright diabolical” lamented the well known lecturer and writer Judith Hauptman. Thane Rosenbaum, also a noted writer and professor at Fordham Law School, indignantly fumed that the text was a capitulation to religious fanaticism. I know what they mean, I can even agree in some way with what they say. Yet they are tragically off the mark. They misunderstand the Jewish God.

The 92nd Street Y presented on Sunday, October 9th the second annual program addressing issues of the Days of Awe. Last year Kol Nidrei was explored, using exclusively Jewish musical sources. This year the artistic director, Sanford Sylvan, utilized four musical presentations and four noted individuals to comment on the Binding of Isaac. Sylvan presented his reflections in the form of poems by Amir Gilboa, Yehudah Amichai and Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Dr. Helen Evans, curator of Medieval Art from the Metropolitan Museum, tackled the visual arts and presented a quick survey of ancient and medieval art that represented the Binding, emphasizing the universal nature of the story.

Without doubt the music, presented by Blue Heron Renaissance Choir and soloists directed by Scott Metcalfe, and the two textual commentators commanded the most attention in the afternoon's presentation. The last musical selection was of Psalm 128 by Salamone Rossi, 17th century Jewish composer from Mantua. While David's text makes no direct reference to the Binding, twice in the short psalm fear of God is emphasized. “Praiseworthy is each person who fears Hashem, who walks in His paths....For so blessed the man who fears Hashem...” In Rossi's subtle way the closing music of the program signals that fear is a central motif in the days of awe.

Fear and awe of God dominates the works by Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) and Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1645-1704). Carissimi, the leading Roman composer of the 17th century, created an oratorio, “Historia di Abraham et Isaac” in Latin in which the narrative unfolds from obedience to anguish and finally to triumph. When Isaac asks his father where is the “victim for the burnt offering” the narrator responds that “grief overwhelmed the father's bowels, his blood raged, his spirit shuddered, and groaning, the father said: “My son, alas, my son!” Abraham's anguish is soon extinguished by the angel's intervention, prompting a long, happy duo of Abraham and Isaac, exclaiming, “The child lives, the father lives. O' happy news, O' sweet joy!” The triumphant final chorus demands all to “Praise God, all peoples, all nations, all generations, all peoples, and adore the Lord.” The happiness felt is in direct proportion to the fear and grief of a father torn between submission to God and love of his son. These emotions, though outside the text, are fundamental to grasping Abraham's incredible courage.

Even more pronounced is the terror in Charpentier's “Tentavit Deus Abraham,” similarly set to a Latin text. Here also Isaac questions his father, “where is the victim” and, paraphrasing the Torah, Abraham responds, “My son, my only son, God will provide himself a victim for the burnt offering.” The father's poignant sadness cannot prepare us for the ending that immediately follows; “and they came to the place...he bound Isaac...stretching forth his hand, seized the sword to slay his son.” The End. That's it. No angel, no “Abraham, Abraham.” No reprieve. Instead Charpentier, one of the most renowned Parisian composers of his day and probably a student of Carissimi, left his audience with the ultimate terror that Abraham may have in fact slain his son. This treatment is remarkably similar to midrashim that state as much and tell us that Isaac was resurrected, the source of the second brocha of the Amidah, “Blessed are You...Who resuscitates the dead.”

Benjamin Britten's Canticle II, Op. 51, “Abraham and Isaac” concentrates on the father and son dialogue utilizing a tenor, counter-tenor and solo piano. This evocative work was composed in 1952 and stresses obedience to God's will. The soloists initially sing face to face to create the additional role of the angel that first commands and finally reprieves. For Britten the story of such extreme obedience is an object lesson that leads the believer to “....dwell with Him in great glory.!” Faith is triumphant.

In each of these musical works spanning three hundred years the underlying tension is between a God capable of demanding inconceivable sacrifice and a human being willing to do what most people would find impossible. The narrative articulates terror as an accepted part of the moral universe, postulating that mere mortals can not comprehend Divine will. At times we must simply accept what we cannot know. And if we can, obey.

Unfortunately the two speakers failed to understand how central a role fear plays in our relationship with God. Rabbi Dr. Judith Hauptman, professor of Talmud and rabbinics at The Jewish Theological Seminary, opened her remarks by saying that “I dislike the chapter and wish it were not in the Bible.” The chapter presented her with an insolvable quandary; Abraham's “willingness to offer the one he loves, to the One he loves more...” Her understandable discomfort with Abraham was mitigated by the midrash she quoted (along with Rashi) that details a conversation God had with Abraham, “Your son...he said to Him, “I have two sons...Your only one...both are the only one of their mother...the one you love...I love them both,” until finally God demands... Isaac.” Here God forces Abraham to take Isaac, absolving Abraham of full responsibility. Still profoundly uncomfortable Hauptman quotes the midrashic conversation between Isaac and Ishmael in which Isaac bravely offers his entire body to God to prove his greater piety. Nonetheless, even if Isaac is a willing participant, she is “horrified by Abraham's passivity” in allowing the drama to proceed. For Hauptman the “midrash grows out of angst” and she is completely correct. In fact all of her unease and revulsion is exactly the point of the narrative. We must feel horror as this story unfolds in order to fully understand the gravity of Abraham's action and the subsequent terror of a God that would demand it. It is not for nothing that we implore God to remember this awesome trial on the Day of Judgment. A lesser event would not do.

Thane Rosenbaum presents a “humanist perspective of the moral dilemma.” He has published essays, articles and theater reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times and teaches human rights, legal humanities, law and literature at Fordham Law School. He sees the Binding as a vivid contrast between faith and morality, effectively “outside of God or in spite of God.” Within his worldview the story is a “bizarre episode” that is “absurdly frustrating” because it is a “complete capitulation to faith.” Rosenbaum asserts that we should be guided by a moral compass that must not be compromised by irrationally faith driven actions. It would seem that we can believe what we wish, but our actions must conform to a priori morality. The problem with this type of bifurcation is that what we call Western morality is at least partially based in religion, especially Judaism, the same Judaism that celebrates the Binding of Isaac. Additionally “Western morals” have multiple philosophical sources; Hume's human emotions, Kant's rationality and Bentham's maximization of human emotions. Morality is not at all a fixed constant but rather an array of options that attempted to impose order on the disarray of human behavior. Rosenbaum is at an impasse at understanding the Binding. He cannot countenance that what Abraham did provides immeasurable merit for future generations of Jews struggling with their sins and yearning to do repentance. Simply put, Rosenbaum, and to some degree Hauptman, cannot imagine a God so terrifying and distant and yet central to Jewish belief. But that is in fact at the core of Judaism, it is the challenge Job faced, it is the struggle of the two thousand year Diaspora and the silence of God in the horror of the Holocaust. The tragedy of these two commentators is that they have lost touch with the reality of a tradition that did not flinch from a God who seemed a terror and his servants who could find faith in that which is unknowable.   

Richard McBee

October 24, 2005