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Sacrifice, Safety, and Security

09/25/2022 02:30:56 PM

Sep25

    Shana Tova! Our Torah reading on Rosh HaShana morning is probably the most difficult reading in our liturgical calendar. There are many other pieces of the TaNaKh similarly disturbing, and stories some Biblical scholars call “Texts of Terror,” but the Akeidah is so deeply disturbing on theological, familial, and narrative levels. Every year on this Holy Day, a day of shofar blasts and prayer, a day of new year's resolutions and celebrations, a day of family and community, we read about our ancestor - by all accounts a righteous man - willing to kill his own son at the seeming behest of God. Every year - twice a year, in fact, as we will read this parasha again in just about a month’s time as part of our regular Shabbat weekly Torah portions - I try to find or make the midrashim that make Abraham’s or God’s behavior excusable or tease out the relevant lessons to find hope in this parasha. 

    For all our head shaking at Abraham and God and our befuddlement that such a story would make it into our holy scripture, and read on this day of all days, it seems that we still haven’t learned much in the 4000 years since Abraham may have walked the Earth. We are still sacrificing our children, but now our gods are greed, laziness, convenience, and misplaced fear. We sacrifice our children with gun violence for the sake of our sense of false security that guns bring. We sacrifice our children with an unlivable planet for the sake of our convenience at the expense of the climate crisis. We sacrifice our children with covid and long term health problems for the sake of the economy. We sacrifice our children with the destruction of self-esteem and mental health for the sake of our own comfort with who we think they should be. For all these things and more, we must atone, and we must be the angels we are waiting for to stay our hands and make meaningful changes to save our children. 

To talk about all the ways we sacrifice our children regularly in this society would take all day. So to take one example for now, the most immediate and violent concern is that of gun deaths and trauma. On average, 12 children die each day in this country from preventable gun violence, the leading cause of death among American children and teens. Gun violence accounts for 1 in 10 deaths among minors, more than 5 times the rate of drownings. This year has seen more legislation to finally try to limit access to guns, but only after the 2021-2022 school year broke record for the most gun violence in schools in the decade that the non-profit advocacy group EveryTown for Gun Safety started tracking such incidents. It is tragic to me that the 2020-2021 school year had the lowest rate of school shootings in recent years, because the kids weren’t in school so much and we were still all surrounded by mass death. Our youth deserve better. 

Sandy Hook Promise, another non-profit that focuses more on education and prevention rather than political advocacy, found that about half of the population of gun-owning parents mistakenly believe their children do not know where their guns are, and an estimated 4.6 million children live in a home with a loaded and unlocked firearm. Most school shooters plan their attack ahead of time, with 4 out of 5 incidents involving another person who knew or suspected but failed to warn or report the threats. Often these are fellow students who are afraid of violent retribution if they tell, or are afraid of not being believed, or are afraid of getting their friend into trouble over nothing if it turns out to be a “joke” or a bluff. Still, sometimes parents, teachers, or other adults have been shown the signs of an impending attack, and have chosen to turn a blind eye. It seems too horrible to think about, so it can’t be real, right? Until it is and another 20-30 elementary school students are dead. Is it possible Abraham heard what God commanded him to do, and then repressed his impending actions as a trauma response as he prepared to carry out the act? Was he counting on having an angel step in at the last minute the way it seems so many of us assume someone else will do something to make our schools safer for our children? 

Several times throughout the Akedah narrative, Abraham says, “Hineni,” literally: “I am here.” But Hineni carries more weight than the casual “Ani Po'' which also means “I am here”. Hinei is like, “BEHOLD, HERE!” So Hineni is a declaration not only of physical presence but of spiritual and mindful presence as well. Behold, my whole self is here in this place and moment, responding to the call. Abraham says this when God first calls upon him and tells him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham says this when Isaac calls upon him to answer for the apparent lack of sacrifice as the two of them ascend Mount Moriah. And Abraham says this when the angel calls out to stop him in the nick of time up on the mountain. Each time, Abraham is turning his full attention to the command or question being asked of him. So we can determine that in fact, no, he did not trauma-black out, but prepared with full intent to carry the sacrifice. Does it make any of us better than him to not be the one with the weapon? Our cognitive dissonance at grieving over school shootings while refusing to take meaningful action to prevent future violence still feels to me as though we too are carrying the wood and the knife up Mount Moriah and pretending we don’t know where the sacrifice will come from. 

What would it mean for us to say “Hineni” now to this moment, this crisis? How can we turn our full attention to the task at hand to save our future generations? As mentioned previously, there are non-profit and non-partisan organizations that teach about gun safety and violence prevention (Sandy Hook Promise), organizations that focus on political advocacy to enforce stricter gun laws and ensure that only safe and responsible adults have access to guns (Everytown USA), and here in Virginia we even have a local organization that does both (Virginia Center for Public Safety). If these organizations had the same level of people-power and money that the NRA has, we would have more effective gun safety in this country. Our community, our elected leaders, and our children need to know that we will no longer accept the wanton death of school children, even if it means some laws that may inconvenience people within our community as well. 

I know there are gun-owners in our congregation. I know that the congregants who have made themselves known to me are safe and responsible gun owners, licensed, and would never endanger children. I’m not advocating for a complete removal of guns nationwide. Truth be told, I also wouldn’t be opposed to that, but it’s not my starting point. We can start with more widely applied and evenly enforced gun safety laws, so that the laws here are the same as the laws everwhere else. Some of the most stringent gun laws in this country are focused on cities, ostensibly because urban areas are more violent, and gun laws are more strictly enforced and harshly punished in Black communities. But right here in Prince William County, not exactly an inner city, there were nine shootings just this summer, killing four and wounding 12 people, including a 9-year-old. A few hours west is Blacksburg, also not a bustling urban center akin to NYC or LA, but I remember distinctly finishing up my first year at college in New England and learning about the mass shooting on another college campus that seemed forever away at the time, only to end up there as the High Holy Day rabbi six years later. Our suburban and exurban areas also deserve safety from gun violence. We may have fewer incidents of violence, but we also have lower population density, evening out the scope of loss for our counties and communities. Enforcing background checks, an end to private gun shows and sales, and requiring waiting periods for all gun sales are the very least we could do to limit the sacrifice of innocents. For individual gun owners, guns should always be stored unloaded and locked away, and never within reach of children. It feels ridiculous to say these things out loud. They should be obvious. I’m sure they are obvious to people here. But they are not obvious enough. Because children, angry misogynists, and deeply disturbed individuals are still getting their hands on firearms and harming themselves and others. 

This Rosh HaShana, let us say, “Hineni” to the call of protecting children and other innocent victions of gun violence. Let us commit to advocacy and education as the angels that stop senseless killing in time. Let us be fully present to our own complicity in the society we live in, and pledge to do better, to ascend to holier ground, to put an end once and for all to child sacrifice. May 5783 be a year of healthy learning, safe schools, and peaceful families. Amen and Shana Tova. 

 

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784