Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence

by Jonathan Sacks

What the secularists forgot is that Homo sapiens is the meaning-seeking animal. If there is one thing the great institutions of the modern world do not do, it is to provide meaning. Science tells us how but not why. Technology gives us power but cannot guide us as to how to use that power. The market gives us choices but leaves us uninstructed as to how to make those choices. The liberal democratic state gives us freedom to live as we choose but on principle refuses to guide us as to how to choose.

Abraham is being promised by God that, although Isaac will continue the covenant, Ishmael will, in worldly terms, be no less great, perhaps greater. Certainly he will have a share in Abraham’s blessing.

Note first that God does not reject Hagar. He hears and heeds her distress. He saves her and Ishmael from death.

Yet Ishmael is not vilified. That is the masterstroke of the narrative.

But once Sarah was no longer alive, they could engage in an act of reconciliation. That is how Isaac and Ishmael came to be together when Abraham died.

The message of Genesis is that love is necessary but not sufficient. You also need sensitivity to those who feel unloved.

What Joseph is doing is, in effect, taking his brothers through the experience of teshuvah, change of heart.

The three dramas of sibling rivalry have all ended on a note of reconciliation, each time at a more profound level.