Kitniyot Revisited

Last year shortly before Pesach I was asked during a Kiddush Konversation about an article which had been published in Voices of Conservative Judaism which summarized a responsum by Rabbi David Golinkin permitting the consumption of kitniyot during Passover. My response was that Rabbi Golinkin was an Israeli Conservative rabbi writing for the Israeli community and that I was not prepared to endorse the practice unless and until it was permitted by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative Movement (CJLS or Law Committee.)

A quick review of the term kitniyot. Often translated as “legumes,” kitniyot are foods which Ashkenazi Jews have traditionally avoided during Pesach even though they are not chametz, leaven. Sephardic Jews have always eaten them. Among the products considered kitniyot are beans, rice, peas, corn, and mustard. Although Ashkenazi Jews have refrained from consuming them during Pesach, it was permitted to possess them and thus they were not sold before Pesach or disposed of as chametz is. Knowledgeable Ashkenazim knew that it was even permitted during Pesach to eat from utensils which had been used to prepare or serve kitniyot as long as one avoided the kitniyot themselves.

At the end of December 2015, the Law Committee passed (by a vote of 19-1 with 2 abstentions) a responsum by Rabbis Avram Reisner and Amy Levin permitting all Jews to consume kitniyot during Pesach with certain guidelines. It’s important to understand what those guidelines are because this responsum is not a blanket permission to eat any product that seems not to contain chametz just by glancing at the ingredients.

Rabbis Reisner and Levin go through the history of this practice and the various reasons that have been adduced as to why it has been followed. (It should also be noted that throughout history there were a number of great sages who viewed this as a mistaken custom and tried to eliminate it, while others said that while there was no real basis for it it should nevertheless be observed out of deference to previous generations.)

No one is absolutely sure why Ashkenazim originally prohibited kitniyot but the classic halachic literature has adduced three possibilities:

1. kitniyot were either stored or cooked in the same manner as chametz and people might accidentally eat chametz thinking it was only kitniyot;
2. kitniyot were harvested, stored and transported together with chametz and there was a possibility that the two would become mixed together;
3. kitniyot and wheat (the most common chametz grain) were usually cooked together and it was considered impossible to permit one without dragging in the other.

Rabbis Reisner and Levin point out that these reasons are no longer cogent. Our marketplace is not like those of previous generations; we buy our foodstuffs in discrete packages, produced and labeled with both governmental and market oversight. We need not be concerned that permitting one will perforce lead to the accidental consumption of the other.

And yet, we are generally careful not to override centuries of precedent without very good reason. In my words -- not theirs -- the burden of proof is on the one who wishes to change previous practices. We don’t have to justify why a certain practice should be maintained; we need to justify why a certain practice should not be maintained.

What then is the justification for overturning this custom?

Rabbis Reisner and Levin cite two: increasing the joy of the holiday and the inflated cost of products under Pesach supervision.

Some years ago the Law Committee had already approved consumption of kitniyot by vegetarians who feared that they might not get enough protein over the holiday. This reasoning is now extended to all of us; many Jews who are not vegetarians are nevertheless seeking to cut down on their consumption of meat and of other animal products, for both health and ethical reasons. Beans in particular serve as a good source of protein in the absence of meat and permitting all Jews to consume beans on Pesach will increase our ability to eat a healthy diet without a lot of meat or dairy.

Similarly, we are all aware of how incredibly expensive kosher-for-Passover products can be. Permitting kitniyot will allow for a more balanced diet with less reliance on pre-packaged, expensive foods, and Rabbis Reisner and Levin point out that keeping the cost of Jewish observance reasonable has been cited as a halachic principle going back as far as 3rd century Babylonia.

The CJLS thus rules as follows:

In order to bring down the cost of making Pesah and support the healthier diet that is now becoming more common, and given the inapplicability today of the primary concerns that seem to have led to the custom of prohibiting kitniyot, and further, given our inclination in our day to present an accessible Judaism unencumbered by unneeded prohibitions, more easily able to participate in the culture that surrounds us, we are prepared to rely on the fundamental observance recorded in the Talmud and codes and permit the eating of kitniyot on Pesah.

However, this is not a blanket permission to rely on ingredient lists to determine if a product is acceptable for Pesach. While such a procedure might be justifiable during the rest of the year (given that prohibited food is nullified by permitted food which is 60 times its volume) it is not permitted during Pesach because there is no nullification of even the smallest amount of chametz which might have become mixed in during the manufacturing process.

These are the particulars of what is now permitted:

1. Fresh corn on the cob and fresh beans (such as lima beans in their pods) may be consumed and purchased before or during Pesach like any other fresh vegetables.
2. Dried kitniyot (beans, rice, legumes) can be purchased only before Pesach and must be sifted before the holiday to remove any grains of wheat or other chametz which might have gotten mixed in. Because of similar concerns of mixtures, they should only be purchased in boxes or bags and not from bulk bins.
3. Frozen kitniyot can only be purchased before Pesach and the consumer must either ascertain that the product is not produced on the same equipment as chametz (a real issue for frozen vegetables since the advent of bagged vegetable mixtures containing pasta) or else sort through the contents beforehand to remove any possible chametz.
4. Processed foods including canned beans still require Pesach certification due to the possibility of admixtures of chametz during production.

The good news regarding processed foods is that products from Israel with reliable certification “for those who eat kitniyot” are increasingly available, and the O-U has started certifying a small number of kitniyot-containing products as well for their Sephardic constituents. These products may now be consumed by all.

I want to also point out that just because something is permitted does not mean it is required. Failure to do everything the law allows you to do is not a violation of the law. I have no doubt that many of our people will be uncomfortable changing practices which they and their families have observed for centuries if not millenia; if this is you, you are of course free to continue refraining from kitniyot.

Similarly, since the synagogue kitchen should follow practices which allow as many Jews as permissible to feel comfortable with what they are eating or drinking, current practice for the Pesach seder and for kiddushes during Passover will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.

If you have any questions or concerns, or would like a copy of the full responsum by Rabbis Reisner and Levin, please feel free to be in touch.

Some Brief Thoughts on Jewish Values and Public Policy

A recent article in the New York Times discussed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ statement that his father was a “Polish immigrant” without noting that his father was specifically a Polish Jewish immigrant. My friend Rabbi Michael Paley, who knew Sen. Sanders while serving as the Hillel Rabbi at Dartmouth College, stated that “nobody in Poland would have considered Bernie a Pole.” This is precisely so; my paternal grandmother was born in Warsaw but she was not Polish in any meaningful sense. She was not so much a Polish Jew as a Jew who lived in Poland.

American Jews, however, are American in ways that diaspora Jews have historically not been. This is not unique to the United States; it applies to Jewish community in other democracies as well but the American Jewish community is much larger both numerically and as a percentage of population than any other diaspora community. We have a significant impact on public policy. There are currently ten Jewish senators and 19 Jewish members of the House of Representatives. Three of the eight current Supreme Court members are Jewish, as are two of President Obama’s former Chiefs of Staff and the current and previous chairs of the Federal Reserve.

While Jews as individuals take all kinds of positions on issues of the day, I have always been intrigued by how to determine what Judaism per se has to say about a particular issue. I think this is not always a simple task, because the Jewish tradition never anticipated that Jews would be equal citizens in a pluralistic democracy. Jewish texts were written either for Jewish polities which were of course governed by Jewish norms; or for Jews who lived as at best a tolerated minority in a non-Jewish polity and had no voice in how they were governed. So the situation of American Jews is something which heretofore was unknown.

Our recent Kiddush Konversation about “Assisted Suicide in Jewish Law” was very interesting in light of the above. It is clear to me that halacha does not allow a Jew to commit suicide nor does it allow a Jew to assist another Jew to perform a forbidden act -- so that a Jewish physician could not assist a patient to commit suicide. But I went on to say that while I was quite certain that Jewish law forbids assisted suicide, it was not at all clear to me that it necessarily follows that Jews were obligated to oppose the so-called “Death with Dignity Act” now being considered by the Maryland legislature. After all, we Jews consistently tell our Roman Catholic friends that just because their religion forbids abortion is no reason for the state to enshrine their particular view as law for those of other religions or of none. That being the case, why should we ask the General Assembly to enshrine our particular view as law? How is this any different?

One of the things which I love about our Kiddush Konversations is that they are truly conversations. It is not a lecture or a sermon, there is real give-and-take. And in our discussion, I think we arrived at a methodology that might help sort some of these questions out.

While Judaism is clear that non-Jews are not required to observe halacha, there are certain values which Judaism posits are valid for all human beings, not just Jews. So it seems to me that a first step in arriving at a legitimately Jewish position on an issue is to ask, first: what are the values at stake. And second: are these values for everyone or just for Jews?

Let’s take a less controversial example than Assisted Suicide. No one doubts that Judaism permits non-Jews to eat non-kosher meat. But one of the values associated with keeping kosher is tza’ar ba’alel hayyim, avoiding cruelty to animals -- and thus the requirements of kosher slaughter which is designed to be quick and relatively pain-free. And this value is not just for Jews, so that while we would never seek to require non-Jews to keep kosher, it seems perfectly legitimate for Jews as Jews to back legislation which seeks to ameliorate the suffering of animals.

This methodology doesn’t solve all our dilemmas, of course, but I believe it is the start of some clearer thinking about the role of Jewish values in our public lives.

I'm Tired

I’m tired.

I’m tired of figuring out what to say in a sermon, in a Friday message to the congregation, or in a prayer after yet another incident of mass murder in our country. I’m tired of praying for the families, friends, and neighbors of those who were killed or injured. And I’m tired of parsing whether the latest mass murder was “terrorism” or “anti-abortion zealotry” or “workplace violence.” And I’m tired of interviews with friends and neighbors of the murderers who say that they were quiet, regular people, perhaps a little odd but “no one could have expected this.” We have to expect this as long as guns and ammunitions are so easily available.

I’m also tired of having to defend my words when I say what I just said about the easy availability of guns. I have friends, members of this congregation and of my previous congregation, and colleagues who I very much respect, who are gun owners and members of the NRA. And I’ve said before that I fully support the right of law abiding citizens with the proper training and who use proper safeguards to possess guns for personal protection, hunting, target practice, what have you.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution has been understood by the Supreme Court to protect the individual citizen’s right to own guns. I happen to believe that this is an incorrect reading of the Second Amendment but unless the Supreme Court reverses its understanding that is the law of the land. But the fact that a person possesses a certain constitutional right does not mean that said right cannot be regulated to protect society as a whole. The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, but it doesn’t mean that followers of Santeria can sacrifice animals anywhere they want or that Christian Scientists have the right to withhold medical treatment from their minor children. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech but it doesn’t mean that I can libel others with impunity or shout “fire” in a crowded theater. My exercise of my rights can be regulated by society in such a way that it does not endanger the wellbeing of others.

In the 21st chapter of Deuteronomy we read of a very strange ceremony:

1 If, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down,2 then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body. 3 The elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has not pulled in the yoke; 4 the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the wadi. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord, and by their decision all cases of dispute and assault shall be settled. 6 All the elders of that town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi, 7 and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor were we witnesses to it. 8 Absolve, O Lord, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel.” Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt. 9 So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

The Mishnah comments on this ceremony:

MISHNAH SOTAH 9:6 The elders of that town wash their hands in water at the place where the neck of the heifer was broken, and say [Deuteronomy 21], “Our hands did not shed this blood, our eyes did not see.” Could it possibly even enter our minds that that the elders of a Court were shedders of blood? Rather, [understand this to mean] “He did not come into our hands, that we should have let him go without food, and we did not see him, that we should leave him without an escort!”

In other words, leaders have more than just a responsibility to personally refrain from bloodshed. They have a responsibility to create a society where blood is not shed. If they fail to do so, they share in the guilt for those who are killed by violence. When Congress can’t even pass a law that requires additional checks before someone on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist can purchase a gun, something is horribly wrong.

I’m tired of this, and I hope you are tired of it too.

Danger is real, but fear is a choice

This has been a rough week for our world. A week ago today Islamist terrorists staged several simultaneous attacks in Paris and killed 129 people. Yesterday in Eretz Yisrael, Palestinian terrorists killed five people in two different attacks; one of those killed was an 18 year old American student, Ezra Schwartz of Sharon, Massachusetts. Ezra z’l was a graduate of a Jewish day school and an active member of USY who was spending a Gap Year in Israel between high school and college. This morning, again as I write, US and other forces are responding to an Islamist hostage-taking at a Radisson hotel in Bamako, Mali.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said “the entire world is a very narrow bridge, but the important thing is not to fear at all.” A more recent version of the same idea was stated by Cypher Raige, the character played by Will Smith in the movie “After Earth.” Cypher tells his son “fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create . . . danger is very real. But fear is a choice.”

We live in a dangerous world and many of those dangers are out of our control. But how we react to danger is always in our control. In the wake of the Paris murders and the revelation that one of the terrorists may possibly have slipped into Europe using a fake Syrian passport, our American politicians are falling all over themselves rushing to protect us from the threat of Syrian refugees coming to our country. This despite the fact that the U.S. process for gaining refugee status takes a minimum of 18 to 24 months and includes the most stringent security checks imaginable; despite the fact that in the history of the refugee resettlement program not a single refugee has ever participated in an act of terror in the United States. (The Tsarnaev brothers who committed the Boston bombing were not refugees. They came here as children with their parents on tourist visas and later received political asylum derivatively through their parents -- a completely different process which takes place in the USA, not overseas.)

Fear is a choice. The most important thing is not to fear at all. Ezra Schwartz did not fear. He chose to spend a year in Israel despite the very real danger. While in Israel, he chose to go to Gush Etzion to visit a memorial to the three young men kidnapped and murdered last year, and to deliver food to “lone soldiers” (Israeli soldiers without parents or other family in the country) on an army base. While the car in which he was riding was stuck in traffic, he and the other inhabitants were murdered by an Uzi-wielding Palestinian terrorist.

Yes, if Ezra Schwartz had given in to fear he would probably still be alive. But that is not our way. The whole purpose of terrorism is to make us change our way of life, to be afraid to do normal everyday things like go shopping, go out for coffee, help our neighbor, or live by the generous ethical standards of both Judaism and Americanism. It is to paralyze us and fill us with fear. I for one refuse to live that way.

In Pirkei Avot chapter 4, Rabbi Matya ben Charash says “be a tail of lions and not a head of jackals.” Which will we choose?

Starbucks and Christmas

You’ve probably heard something over the last few days about the controversy that may or may not be swirling around Starbucks’ holiday coffee cups. Every year around this time, Starbucks introduces a new holiday themed cup, which is red and usually has snowflakes, reindeer, tinsel, snowmen, or Christmas tree ornaments. They are never explicitly religious. This year, they are simply red, and a “social media evangelist” posted an outraged Youtube video. The first time I watched the video I was not sure that it wasn’t a hoax, since the “social media evangelist” is named Joshua Feuerstein -- an unexpected name for a Christian evangelist. And predictably enough, Donald Trump weighed in on the controversy and promised that if he is elected President, we would all be saying “Merry Christmas.” One assumes that among those saying “Merry Christmas” would be Trump’s Orthodox Jewish daughter and her three children.

Although Starbucks has “holiday” themed and not “Christmas” themed cups, they do have a “Christmas blend” coffee which happens to be my favorite blend, and I usually buy a couple of bags of it.

You may perhaps know that the first Starbucks on the East Coast was located on Wisconsin Ave NW between Macomb and Newark Streets, and I would often stop in there on my way to my job as Hillel Director at American University. One of the baristas there was a young man named Tarek, an Egyptian-American Muslim who was a student at AU and had taken a course I taught as an adjunct in the History Department. On the day I came in to buy a pound of “Christmas blend” he paused for a moment and then let me know that they also offered the same coffee in a blue bag that said “holiday blend” and he offered to put the coffee in the holiday rather than Christmas bag. I told him that I was fine with the Christmas blend bag and we both had a little chuckle. It seems to me that if your faith depends either way on the presence or absence of the word “Christmas” on your coffee cup or bag, then Starbucks coffee is a lot stronger than your faith.

The Talmud of Gaithersburg looks at the Akedah

The Talmud of Gaithersburg

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah I posed a question to my congregation and invited them to send me their response by e-mail. I’m now expanding the discussion by sharing my question, their responses, and my responses to the responses. You are invited to add to the discussion by commenting at the end of this post.

Rabbi Charles said:  For over thirty years I have read the story of the Binding of Isaac on Rosh Hashanah and I still don’t think I understand it. I know that the Torah wants to teach us something by means of this story but I don’t know what it is. What is the plain meaning (pshat) of the text? What does the Torah want to teach us?

Dee responded: I believe that the question regarding Abraham’s following G-d’s direction to take Isaac to the mountain, bind him on the altar….. without hesitation or challenge  tells us

that even though a parent’s love for his/her child is the strongest bond possible, Abraham demonstrated total trust in G-d and further demonstrated his own belief that G-d knew/knows

the depth of this devotion and chose this as the most intense test of Abraham’s faith and devotion to G-d.

Because Abraham did follow G-d’s order, G-d deeply felt Abraham’s loyalty and spared Isaac. Not only did he spare the life of Isaac and the horror Abraham would know had he killed his own son,but he blessed Abraham with his promise that Abraham would, in fact, become the father of the people of Israel and there would be generations of his descendants for time immemorial.

While I am strengthening my own faith more and more each day, I don’t believe that I would ever rise to the stature of Abraham’s trust or of G-d’s blessing of that magnitude. However, I know that

over the past several years, my faith has surely and sorely been tested. Having said that, I hope it is really true that G-d hopes and waits for the sinner and the wayward to return to him and I have.

Rabbi Charles replied: My quibble is that God had already promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the skies. In fact there is a Midrash which discusses Abraham’s use of the phrase נֵלְכָה עַד-כֹּה; “we will go yonder” where the word כֹּה is the same word as is used in Chapter 15, “so shall thy seed be”  כֹּה יִהְיֶה זַרְעֶךָ. In other words Abraham, though acceding to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac, is reminding Him of the promise that through Isaac Abraham would have many descendants.

Bruce responded: Maybe a lesson we could take from G-d’s refusal to accept Isaac as a sacrifice is that G-d is not a law of nature that can be brought under our control. We’re entering a time of year that demands we engage in intensive personal introspection and change but, in the tradition, would culminate in an open miracle following elaborate rituals by the Kohen Gadol. Reading Vayera today might simply be a quick way of reminding us of our need to focus on our own personal work during these days of repentance and not to look ahead to the promise of Yom Kippur. If G-d rejected even a perfect offering then we could never count on G-d’s acceptance of the Kohen Gadol’s goat. Although rituals change, the tension between our individual responsibilities and our collective future remains the same.

Rabbi Charles replied: I like this a lot. There is always a temptation for us to see rituals as magic and the prophets in particular insisted that rituals “work” only in conjunction with proper ethical behavior. Having said that, I am not sure that this is the plain meaning of the text, but rather a cogent explanation as to why the Sages chose this as the reading for Rosh Hashanah. Sometimes the choice to read a text on a specific day is itself a commentary on the text.

Stuart responded: It’s all about belief in the existence of G-d. Rather than a fear of him – a trust and respect of him.  When G-d speaks unto Abraham that he should gather his favored child and prepare for him to be sacrificed, the message builds in clarity to a degree which cannot be dispelled. G-d was building a test in which he had chosen Abraham to partake in what would become the singularly greatest moment in Jewish history, whereby Abraham’s descendants and the multiple of tribes derived thereupon would honor a true leader who witnessed the instruction of Hashem. In the face of his instruction trusted and believed in him to the degree he was more than just willing to draw the blood of his seed upon a rock in the wilderness.  The test was monumental, as we learn G-d recognizes Abraham’s utmost trust and respect, and directs him to forgo the sacrifice of his son, and instead sacrifice the ram seen in the thicket.   The lesson learned is combination of the key pillars of faith – trust, leadership and the willingness to make no exception of one’s self in the eyes of G-d, and in the eyes of our community. These pillars and recollection of the story enabled Moses, King David, Judah Maccabee, Theodor Herzl, Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir and countless others to lead based on trust of a leader, rather than by fear -- and as a result our religion and our culture continue to thrive, not just survive.  From the lesson of Genesis 22, those of us who understand are better equipped to lead by example – rather than by dictation.

Rabbi Charles replied: It’s easy to believe in God when God speaks directly to you. It’s much harder since God no longer does that. But your reading of the story has God not so much “testing” Abraham (since we presume God is omniscient) but using him as an exemplar of leading by deed rather than simply by word -- which is another theme that emerges in the classic commentaries.

Billy responded: I have always found the Akedah both perplexing and aggravating. It is always presented that Abraham was such a model of submission to God’s will. Grrrr… to me that is just wrong all around. God should not have asked, and Abraham should not have (almost) done it.

I was thinking about it in shul and I think Abraham failed God’s test. I think it was Issac who passed. If, as it says in some things I have read, Issac was an adult when this all happened, then as a strong young man, he did not have to submit to being bound on that altar by his aged father. But he did. So I think the fact that the world is blessed by Abraham’s descendants is because Abraham’s descendant Isaac honored his father by allowing him to bind him.

At least honoring your father is a lesson I could live with.

Rabbi Charles replied: Wow!

There is certainly a modern trend of more liberal readers to maintain that Abraham failed the test. Emotionally I am tempted to agree with this since we see Abraham demanding justice of God in other situations. But if Abraham indeed failed the test, then why does he get rewarded? Your answer is the only one I have seen that manages to maintain that Abraham failed and yet account for the promise of blessing without being self-contradictory, since as you point out the emphasis is indeed on Abraham’s descendants and not on Abraham himself.

David responded: I believe the real "lesson" is not about the so called "test" for Abraham as I believe Abraham had already established a pretty good relationship with G.... by this point.  After all, by the time of this "test," G.... and Abraham had been communicating rather often and directly, I don't think G..... had any question about Abraham's commitment to Him and needed a test to cement their relationship (or vise versa).  After all, Abraham and Sarah gave birth to a son at a rather old age, certainly the first and main step to demonstrate to Abraham to believe in G...'s word.  In addition, I am not aware of any question that G..... did not trust or feel that Abraham was the proper vessel for his word.  It isn't like the back and forth dialogue (and negotiation) that we read about with Moses and G......  In fact, you could argue that the 10 plagues were in fact a "test" for Moses.   Therefore, respectfully, you can't convince me G.... had to, or was in the process of testing Abraham.

So what does the lesson demonstrate?  I believe that the answer lies in the line, "On the mount (Moriah) of the Lord there is vision."  The lesson is meant to be for Isaac (not Abraham) to demonstrate that if you believe and fulfill the covenant with our G..... (as does Abraham) then all will be ok, you will have "vision" and guidance by the Lord the rest of your life.  Isaac certainly does this as instructed by his father and is in fact granted the life promised by the Lord.

I think most people may not ask about what Isaac must have been going through during this "test" - the scripture indicates that at one point Isaac notices that all preparation is made for a sacrifice........EXCEPT THE RAM???  Wonder how Isaac must have been feeling as his father "wraps him with wood and asks him to lie on the alter........?"  I would bet he might have figured out what was in store for him, but he trusts his father (and hence G....) and doesn't seem to want to run away, struggle or argue about what is happening.  I would bet that during this "test" it was about a father's lesson to his son to "trust in our G......" and you will have vision (meaning everything will be ok).

Lastly, I am the father of a boy that is probably of Isaac's age at the time of this story and I also understand that just telling my son to do something is lot less powerful than teaching him a lesson (and demonstrating) that might cost him his life.  I would argue that this is a lesson that Isaac would never forget (and of course, in fact doesn't).

Rabbi Charles replied : You and Billye are on similar tracks here. To strengthen your point it helps to know that the word we generally translate as “test” or “prove” is נִסָּ֖ה  which some commentators connect to the word “nes” which means a sign. So in this reading God did not “test” Abraham but rather held him up as a sign for future generations.

Allen responded : While the text indicates that because Abraham was willing to follow the command of G-d even though that meant sacrificing his favorite child, he and his family were rewarded, I think that the ram caught in the thicket is a significant part of the story.

Abraham did not anticipate that he would be told to sacrifice the ram, and, of course, he did not know the ram would be nearby. This illustrates that even if a person thinks that he or she understands what is to be done, and what will occur, often they are not accurate. Our real perception is limited, and we often fail to understand (much less anticipate) Divine purpose or design.

From the human perspective, it is crucial to determine what is "right," and to attempt to accomplish that "right." We understand that we may be limited, and that the outcome may be different than anticipated, but we must do what we believe is appropriate. We hope that like Abraham, we can learn and gain insight from our own rams in the thicket.

Rabbi Charles replied: Abraham’s eyes were opened by God to see the ram which had been there all along. In the very prior story, the one we read the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Hagar’s eyes are opened by God to see the well which had been there all along. Sometimes the answer is right in front of our eyes but we need divine help to see it.

Adam responded : I read about Jonathan Sacks' opinion on this topic and his interpretation deals with the viewpoint of ownership over children as this directly contrasts with Pagan beliefs (willingness to sacrifice their own sons to earn personal benefit from the gods).  The Torah teaches that child sacrifice is the worst of all possible sins.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition a child is God's child and the biological parents do not have ownership over children, rather they are entrusted with a gift from God.  From this perspective there would be no personal benefit associated with child sacrifice, since the child's soul is God’s in the first place or looked at another way a child is his/her own person and not a commodity.  So when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, he is asking him to demonstrate that he has fear of God and is willing to return his own son (which was clearly a blessing given to him from God since Sarah was unable to have children) to God.  The same perspective would apply to ownership over land, since land ownership does not come easy to the Jewish people in the early bible and Abraham was instructed to give up his own land and his descendants did not arrive at the "promised land" until many generations later.  Land, like children, is a gift from God and therefore we cannot really own land, but rather are just temporary tenants of the Earth and responsible to keep it in good condition for it's real owner, God.

Rabbi Charles replied: I of course agree with the point Rabbi Sacks makes about us not owning our children, or the land, and contrasting this with pagan perspectives. Yet, I remain mystified at how exactly this story proves what Rabbi Sacks wants it to prove. I think this is a case of eisegesis (reading something into the story to fit our preconceived notions) rather than exegesis (explaining what is actually there). Not that there is anything wrong with it, we all do it all the time, but I just don’t see what Rabbi Sacks sees.