Looking up, and looking deep – Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg
I am always deeply affected by reading the Akedah. But it speaks to me differently every time.
This year I’m struck by two names and the similarity and difference between them. The first is what Abraham calls the site where he bound his son on the altar. The relevant verse, Bereishit 22: 14, is not easily translated. Both the Authorised Version and the JPS translations keep the Hebrew ‘And Abraham named that site “Ad-nai-yireh.” (God sees)’ But then the versions differ. The King James reads: ‘as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.”’ The JPS has: ‘whence the present saying, “On the mount of the Lord there is vision.” In rabbinic tradition this is Sinai, or Mount Moriah, subsequently Jerusalem. But, whatever the case, this is a place where one looks up, where one directs one’s gaze heavenwards to the great beyond, seeking in that infinitude the presence and revelation of God.
The other name which strikes me is the well. Isaac does not come down from the mountain with his father. In fact, the next we hear about his location is two chapters later when he’s about to meet his wife-to-be, Rebecca: ‘Isaac came from going to the well of Chai Ro’i, ‘the Living One who sees.’ (Bereishit 24:62) This is the well where Hagar found relief and insight after being driven from Abraham’s household, as she then says: ‘Have I not further seen, after God saw me.’ (Bereishit 16:13). She and Isaac both had trauma and PTSD.
The two names have in common God, seeing, and the experience of being seen. But the latter refers to a well, where one looks down and deep. After the experience of being bound on the altar, this is where Isaac chooses to go. Indeed, the verse in chapter 24 implies that Isaac went there repeatedly. Sometimes, especially in periods of anguish, one cannot look upwards and outwards. One has to travel down, deep within, to find restoration, not with the presence of the Almighty who fills all the worlds, but through the consolation of the divine sacred spirit that, so often hidden from us, nevertheless dwells within our hearts.
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg
