A Binding Vision
This past year, ever since October 7, time and time again, we visited Har HaMoriah, Mount Moriah, the mountain that Abraham and Isaac climbed—the mountain God showed Abraham during the three-day journey leading to the binding of his son. Unlike Abraham, whose beloved Isaac was eventually replaced by a ram, too many of Israel’s children paid the ultimate price.
I think of my sister and brother-in-law on October 7th as the hours passed, anticipating the tragic news of the death of their beloved son, Yoav. I was with my parents on that day. We could not eat, our feet could barely carry us, breathing was difficult. I remember the desperation we held unto when we were told that maybe he was injured, maybe he was taken to a nearby hospital.
Maybe a ram showed up? Maybe an angel will intervene?
On that awful day, I saw the pain, hope, and devastation of Abraham and Sarah in my sister, brother-in-law, and parents during those terrible hours until we learned that no ram came and no angel showed up. As the hours passed, our family joined Abraham and Isaac on that excruciating track up the mountain.
Just a week after October 7, during Yoav’s Shiva, my father, brother-in-law, and I attended Shabbat morning services at a local shul. Before the psalms, the prayer leader recited the verses of the Akeidah, as is done every morning. My brother-in-law whispered to me: “We are now in this Parsha.”
Sadly, almost a year later, we are still in this Parsha. The shock, the pain, and the trauma are still with us. Too many hostages have not returned, too many have died, and too many of Israel’s children are still risking their lives.
Our Rosh Hashanah reading also describes the casting away of Yishmael. The Torah does not shy away from the pain of the rejected son, who threatened and abused his brother, Isaac. Throughout this year, John Polin and Rachel Goldberg have reminded us: “In a competition of pain, there are no winners.” And so, the binding of Yishmael’s children, Gaza’s ongoing state of despair and disrepair, and now the war in Lebanon too, are part and parcel of our Parsha as well.
After the angel’s fateful intervention, Abraham names the place of the binding “Hashem Yireh,” meaning “On the mountain, God will be seen.” The experience at the mountain granted Abraham a vision of God and bestowed the mountain with a name for all time: Mount Moriah, the mountain of vision. Living in the aftermath of our own experience of the binding, I struggle, we struggle, to find a lasting vision as we, like Abraham, attempt to find our way home from the place of binding. And sadly, many of us can relate to the Midrash that explains Sarah’s death as a response to the trauma of the Akeidah.
What is our “Hashem Yireh”? What vision do we cling to in light of these traumas as we find our way home?
As I pose this question, I can’t help but think of a midrash that teaches that Isaac became blind during the Akeidah:
בשעה שעקד אברהם אבינו את בנו על גבי המזבח בכו מלאכי השרת…ונשרו דמעות מעיניהם לתוך עיניו והיו רשומות בתוך עיניו (בראשית רבה (וילנא) פרשת תולדות פרשה סה)
“When our father Abraham bound his son upon the altar, the ministering angels wept. …Tears dropped from their eyes into Isaac’s eyes, and they remained imprinted within his eyes.” (Bereishit Rabbah 65:)
This Midrash moves us from trauma to post-trauma, from Isaac’s binding to his blinding. It suggests that the Akeidah left Isaac with profound emotional scars, manifesting in his blindness.
But too many of our Isaacs were not spared, and the angels have yet to cry. Still, our vision remains clouded by our own tears and fears.
This summer, while visiting Israel with CBI and Beth Jacob, our group met with R. Doron Peretz, Executive Chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement. My son Gavriel spoke about R. Peretz’s story during his bar-mitzvah, but I think it bears repeating.
On October 7, both of R. Peretz’s sons were fighting at the Gaza envelope. His eldest son, Yonatan, was slightly injured, while his son, Daniel, went missing. It was only after 163 days of uncertainty that the family finally did learn that Daniel had been killed on October 7th after a heroic battle defending Nahal Oz. Tragically, his body still remains in Gaza to this day.
But just ten days after the war began, when Daniel’s fate was still uncertain, his brother Yonatan was scheduled to get married. How do you proceed? What do you do when the fate of one of your sons remains unknown—when death crouches at the door?
R. Perez was unsure, but the family ultimately made the difficult decision to go ahead with the wedding celebration. R. Perez recalls how he resolved not to think about his missing son, Daniel, on that day, preparing himself to suppress the pain. But moments before leaving for Yonatan’s chuppah, R. Perez’s wife asked him to step into Daniel’s room with her—to enter the pain, to pay homage, and to offer prayers.
At Yonatan’s chuppah, the officiating rabbi spoke about Daniel as well. Once again, R. Peretz could not hold back the tears. And yet, he shared this surprising reflection with our group: “At the chuppah, I cried and I cried and I cried. But when I think back on the wedding, what I remember is being happy.”
The midrash about the binding and blinding of Isaach states: ונשרו דמעות מעיניהם לתוך עיניו והיו רשומות בתוך עיניו – “Tears dropped from their eyes into his eyes, and they remained imprinted within his eyes.” R. Perez’s lived experience adds another dimension to this midrash. Sometimes, the only way to truly see, feel, and live is by letting the tears enter our eyes. Perhaps the vision granted beyond the Akeidah or the tragic events of October 7 is one that is imprinted with tears. This acknowledgment of our personal and national trauma, and the blurred vision we suffer as a result, may itself, become a source of wisdom and perspective.
As I consider our “Hashem Yireh”, I realize how much of this year I didn’t fully see or understand and I feel a profound need to revisit key moments for a clearer perspective.
The Israeli poet, Yehudah Amichai, often used his poetry to revisit Israel’s War of Independence—a war in which he fought and that claimed the lives of many of his friends. In one of his works, using the narrative of the Akeidah, Amichai describes how he would often return to those places from the war.
Yehuda Amichai, Jewish Travel 5, translated by by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld
Every year our father Abraham would take his sons to Mount Moriah
The way I take my children to the Negev hills where I once had a war.
Abraham hiked around with his sons. “This is where I left
The servants behind, that’s where I tied the donkey to a tree
At the foot of the mountain, and here, right here, Isaac my son,
you asked:
Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt
offering?
Then, up a little further, you asked for the second time.”
When they reached the mountaintop, they rested a bit, ate and drank,
And he showed them the thicket where the ram was caught by its horns.
After Abraham died, Isaac started taking his sons to the same place.
“Here I lifted the wood, this is where I got out of breath,
here I asked, and my father answered: God will see to the lamb
for the offering. Over there, I already knew it was me.”
And when Isaac’s eyes were dim with age, his children
Led him to that same spot on Mount Moriah, and recounted for him
All that had come to pass, all that he might have forgotten.
As I read these lines, I hear my own voice, revisiting and retelling the story of this past year to my children and future grandchildren: Early in the morning, we learned that war had broken out. Later that morning, we realized Yoav was in the line of fire. By evening time, we understood he was the ram. That night, a dear friend who isn’t Jewish arranged flights for my parents. This is where they left our home in a rush to attend their grandchild’s funeral.
And here, right here, this was where the rabbinic and educational leadership of the shul gathered to decide how we would observe Simchat Torah. Right there, one rabbi spoke about the time the Yom Kippur War broke out while he was serving as a rabbi of a shul in southern California. And right here, another rabbi shared about the Eish Kodesh, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, celebrating Purim during the years of the Shoah. Here, a bereaved educator in our community reflected, “Sometimes we dance because we’re happy, and sometimes we dance because we’re completely broken.” And here, right here, here is where we cried and we danced. We cried and we danced. And we cried.
And this was the sandwich someone brought to the shul before I left for the shiva in Israel, realizing I hadn’t eaten in days. These were the handful of hundred-dollar bills someone stuffed in my hands for tzedakah, and since then, we’ve collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations. This was the gym we dedicated in Yoav’s memory, to support the evacuees of Kfar Aza. Here’s a photo of the fridge we stocked at the evacuees’ center.
These were the conversations I had with those frustrated with me or with our community, thinking I was too far to the right, and with others, who believed I was too far to the left. Conversations I know were held with love and deep respect.
These were the members of our shul who helped found J-COB (the Jewish Coalition of Berkeley). These were the members of our community—nearly 20—who traveled to Washington to protest the rise of antisemitism. And these, right over here, these were the shul members—almost 20—who joined the mission to Israel during a time of war.
Revisiting these moments and experiences sheds light on our journey thus far. Indeed, seeing where we’ve been helps us better understand how we might reach our next destination.
More than anything, what I see now is our collective love and resilience.
I can also recognize the enormous trust you’ve placed in me and in our community, even during times when I may have stretched your comfort—emotionally, as I grieved so publicly, or politically, as I took a stronger activist stance.
Through this journey, I believe that we’ve upheld our ideals and commitments, demonstrating our capacity to give and support one another. And we’ve also learned to hold both pain and the insistence on vibrancy and life, remaining steadfast in our values while navigating immense challenges.
During our Israel mission, we also met with Rav Benny Lau, who strongly advised against believing anyone who claims clarity about the country’s direction. “Don’t believe them,” he said. “Don’t believe them,” he said once again. Rav Benny described the courage of Israel’s soldiers, calling for humility, caution, patience, and resilience. He wondered how we might balance blindness and boldness.
Rav Benny shared a vision that stayed with me. He said: “We are driving through very heavy fog. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now. How do we make our way while driving through fog? How do we move forward when we can’t really see what’s up ahead?”
Rav Benny went on, describing several strategies that are all too familiar to those of us in the foggy Bay Area.
He said: “First piece of advice: don’t stop. You never know what’s behind you, so keep moving. Second, slow down. Third: open your window. Use your other senses; don’t rely solely on your eyes. Tune in and open your ears. Lastly, don’t use your high beams. They’ll give you the illusion of seeing further than you actually can and will distract you from what’s right in front of you.”
While Rav Benny’s intuitive instructions don’t offer a vision of what ought to be, they do provide a vision of how we might get there.
In moments of great fear, pain, anger, and grief, our emotional state can paralyze us. Don’t stop. Keep on moving. These very feelings can throw us into a state of panic, urging us to act or react before taking the time to assess and process. So, take your time and slow down. In such moments, we often fall back on old patterns, relying on familiar strategies and coping mechanisms like a crutch. So, tune in. Open your ears and open up. It may be time to develop new skills. These challenges urge us to assume control and to oftentimes, assume more than we know. We tend to project confidence and imagine a future beyond what we can actually see. So, humble yourself. Lower your headlights. Use your low beams to gain a clearer, more grounded perspective.
We know this to be true on the road. It should also apply in our personal lives and on a national level as well.
What is our “Hashem Yireh”? What is the vision to which we cling in light of this past year’s traumatic experiences as we struggle to find our way home, and as Israel as a whole, tries to find its way home?
If someone claims to have a clear answer to this question, don’t believe them.
Instead, let us take the time to cry and acknowledge the tears in our eyes.
Let us remember where we’ve been and hold on to the resilience and courage we’ve already shown. Let us continue to lean on the people and communities that have supported us.
Let us slow down and take our time. Let us tune in and open up.
Until God sees us again.
Until we see again.
Until we see anew.