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Reconciling A Contradictory Abraham: On The Orthoprax And Anti-Theological Nature Of The Hebrew B...

Jeffrey Radon

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Nov 29, 2017 Jeffrey Radon added it · (Review from the author)

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND ABRAHAM
By DVORA WAYSMAN

The nature of Abraham has always been a mystery. Anyone who has read about the binding of Isaac, his son, has asked the inevitable question: "Why didn't he plead with God?" If he pleaded so strongly for mercy for any innocent citizens of the evil city of Sodom - should any be found - why did he remain silent when told to slay Isaac, the beloved long-awaited son of his old age?

The author stresses he is not a rabbi. Nevertheless, his qualifications a TRYING TO UNDERSTAND ABRAHAM
By DVORA WAYSMAN

The nature of Abraham has always been a mystery. Anyone who has read about the binding of Isaac, his son, has asked the inevitable question: "Why didn't he plead with God?" If he pleaded so strongly for mercy for any innocent citizens of the evil city of Sodom - should any be found - why did he remain silent when told to slay Isaac, the beloved long-awaited son of his old age?

The author stresses he is not a rabbi. Nevertheless, his qualifications are impressive. He is a teacher of Jewish Studies from Achva College in Israel, with a Master's Degree in Jewish Philosophy from Bar Ilan University, plus one in Educational Psychology from the Israel branch of Northeastern University in USA. He is also a certified marriage counselor and mediator. He studied ten years in Orthodox Yeshivot in Israel, and in one Yeshiva was a teacher for several years of Hebrew Bible and issues of Jewish thought.

However, he has quite a startling viewpoint to those of us brought up to believe that Judaism demands that we believe in monotheism, faith in one God and ritual.

The word "orthodox" means "correct belief. He prefers the term "Orthoprax" - Latin for "correct practice", which he translates as right behaviour, both ethically and morally, but without formal theological dogma - quite revolutionary to the majority of religious Jews.

It would take far more space than a book review to expound on this viewpoint. So, of necessity, this will only relate to the quandary about Abraham's behaviour in the hardest test, surely, any father would be required to pass.

When pleading with God, on behalf of the evil citizens of Sodom - complete strangers to him - he asks: "Will the judge of the earth not do justice?" Yet there is deafening silence as he prepares to slay his beloved son, in blind obedience and submission to God's will. To every parent, this is incomprehensible. Is Abraham praiseworthy in the first instance, and blameworthy in the latter?

In Genesis 22:12 we read: "For now I know that you fear God." Was fear the motivation in the case of the binding of Isaac? The author suggests there is no contradiction between the story of the binding of Isaac and that of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the stories complement each other. In the former, Abraham is silent and obedient because he shows how far he is willing to go to serve God when he perceives His decree to be moral; but in the case of the evil cities, he argues with God because he finds the decree to violate his own standard of justice.

I learned a great deal from this book, which we are told is the first of a future series - Orthoprax Judaism Study Series, which will cover such subjects as the Anti-theological Nature of the Jewish tradition; Roots of Democracy and Pluralism in the Jewish Tradition; Humanistic Psychology in the Bible and Maimonides -: the great Heterodox-Orthodox Thinker.

The first book of the series, which argues that Faith in God is not a central concept in the Torah, provides much food for thought and even tells the true story of a father in Auschwitz who was faced with Abraham's dilemma and made a similar decision. In Abraham's eyes it was a moral command and did not violate his conscience. Each reader will have to decide whether or not he agrees with the author.
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