RABBI CHARLES DAVID ISBELL, PH. D
  • Home
  • CONTACT ME
  • ABOUT ME
  • PUBLISHED BOOKS
  • SCHOLARLY ARTICLES
  • POPULAR PUBLICATIONS
  • ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES
  • INVITED BOOK REVIEWS
  • POPULAR LECTURES
  • SCHOLARLY PAPERS
  • SERMONS
  • ACADEMICS
  • PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
  • SERVICE
  • Home
  • CONTACT ME
  • ABOUT ME
  • PUBLISHED BOOKS
  • SCHOLARLY ARTICLES
  • POPULAR PUBLICATIONS
  • ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES
  • INVITED BOOK REVIEWS
  • POPULAR LECTURES
  • SCHOLARLY PAPERS
  • SERMONS
  • ACADEMICS
  • PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
  • SERVICE

SERMONS:

     
         Evening Rosh ha-Shanah      Morning Rosh ha-Shanah 
 
       Shabbat Shuvah      Kol Nidrei      Yom Kippur Morning​



High Holy Days Sermons:   Morning Rosh ha-Shanah
Preached at Temple Sinai in 2009 in Lake Charles, Louisiana
​

    Last year, I began the Rosh ha-Shanah morning sermon with the following 
introduction: “Well here we are again. Another Rosh ha-Shanah morning, 
and one more time we sit silently and listen to the stunning story of an 
elderly father dragging his son up a mountain. Once again we wonder what 
must have swirled in the mind of Abraham, what Isaac was thinking, and 
maybe we even wonder what Sarah knew and when she knew it. Last year 
[now two years ago] we established the fact that Abraham had 
misunderstood the intention of God. The story was not about Isaac dying, it 
was about Abraham trusting his future to the God who had led him from 
Mesopotamia to Canaan, into Egypt, and finally back to Canaan. But is there 
anything else we need to know?”

   Each year it becomes more difficult to say anything new about this 
passage that the rabbis chose for us to read on the second day of Rosh ha-
Shanah. So today, I want to examine the portion chosen for day one of Rosh 
ha-Shanah, the story preceding the “binding of Isaac.” It is the sad story of 
how Abraham lost his first son, Ishmael. As it now reads, the narrative in 
Genesis 21.14-21 seems to recount a simple narrative of a father who 
expelled his own son at the insistence of a jealous first wife. Ishmael was a 
true biological son of Abraham. And Sarah had been the one to insist on the 
liaison with Hagar, anticipating that she would claim the child as her own 
(16.2). But after she bore her own son and watched the two boys growing 
older together, she became overly concerned about the inheritance that 
she coveted for Isaac. So she demanded that Abraham take action.  

   We know from several ancient Near Eastern codes of law, like the famous 
Code of Hammurabi, that a son who had been acknowledged by his father 
was expected to share in the paternal inheritance, and there is no doubt 
that Ishmael was legally entitled to at least a portion of Abraham’s estate. 
Otherwise, Sarah would not have been so worried. But these ancient legal 
codes make another provision that may furnish a clue to the familiar biblical 
narrative. If a father granted freedom to a slave woman and the children she 
had born to him, they forfeited their share of the inheritance, but gained 
status as full citizens in exchange. This change in social status opened up 
numerous paths to economic success simply unavailable to a slave. Sarah 
apparently demands that Abraham exercise this legal option.

   Still, the biblical story about Ishmael is almost as shocking as the one 
about Isaac. A mother and her young son are sent away into the wilderness 
with only a small amount of food and a single container of water. When the 
water ran out, poor Hagar was so distraught that she left the boy alone to 
die, and the narrator explained that she was psychologically unable to 
witness the horrible death of her only son.

   The Torah places this story alongside the picture of hapless Isaac lying 
bound on top of a stack of wood that he himself had carried up the 
mountain, waiting helplessly for his father to plunge a knife into his heart, 
bringing certain death. So the narrator is telling us that two equally horrible 
types of death awaited the sons of Abraham: death by starvation and thirst 
for Ishmael, death at the hand of his own father for Isaac. In both cases, 
there seemed to be no way to avoid great tragedy.

   Although I cannot relate to either story exactly, I don’t find it difficult to 
imagine the terror that each boy faced. Some of us have heard an 
oncologist say one of the most horrible sentences in the English language: 
“You have cancer!” Many of us have lost or been deprived of jobs or 
promotions that were critical to our psyches and the futures of our families. 
We have all received news that someone we loved and upon whom we have 
depended for years has left us forever. Add to these critical moments the 
countless little setbacks we face daily and we learn that life can be cruel. In 
particular, situations over which we have no control are a major component 
of that cruelty. And in the most difficult times, it often seems as if there is no 
possible way for us to go on.

      In the stories of the two sons of Abraham, a miraculous solution was 
provided just when things seemed utterly hopeless. Hagar found a well of 
water that saved her precious son, and Abraham spied a ram that he could 
sacrifice in place of his son. We are told that God opened Hagar’s eyes, 
enabling her to see what had presumably been there all along, but which 
her grief had prevented her from seeing. And God had to tell Abraham to 
turn around and look in a totally different direction to see the way out for 
Isaac.

   I think these two stories have a lot to teach us. Life is replete with 
miracles. But many times we fail to look in the right place. Hagar was 
convinced that there was only one possible ending to her distress, and so 
she gave in to her despair. Abraham was convinced that there was only one 
way for him to prove his loyalty to God, and so he embarked on a plan that is 
unimaginable to a normal parent. The miracle in each case was not that the 
two parents were able to shield themselves and their boys from trouble, 
fear, or stark terror. It was rather that just when Hagar and Abraham reached 
the end of their own resources, they both received insight from a source 
outside themselves. We call that Source God.

   We often believe we know just how our lives should progress. And so we 
attempt to use God as a consultant. “Here’s what needs to happen, O Lord. I 
don’t have the ability to make it happen, so You must work a miracle.” 
Because we cannot see any other option, it often seems that God doesn’t 
come through for us as we believe He should. But could it be that our own 
plans are not the best ones? Is it possible that out of the ashes of failure we 
can discover new possibilities that we never considered earlier? Often the 
miracles of life come just when we think everything is lost, that our strength 
to struggle on has been exhausted. It is in moments like these that from 
somewhere, if we look, we may see possibilities to which we had previously 
been blind. From somewhere we find the wisdom to continue to live, not 
just somehow, but triumphantly.

   I believe in miracles, and I believe the coming year will bring many 
miraculous moments into our lives. God may not do things the way we would 
choose, but I believe we can open our eyes to new possibilities, and 
thereby find new and exciting ways to develop ourselves in harmony with 
God, with other people, and with the wonderful world He has given us.​ 

​
​
Morning Rosh ha-Shanah
Preached at Temple Sinai in 2009 in Lake Charles, Louisiana

            Evening Rosh ha-Shanah      Morning Rosh ha-Shanah  
​
       Shabbat Shuvah      Kol Nidrei      Yom Kippur Morning​



Email: cisbel1@lsu.edu
​
Louisiana State University
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
106 Coates Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Copyright 2011-2023     Rabbi Charles David Isbell, Ph. D.     All rights reserved.
  Website by Leslie Perry Runnels Isbell
  • Home
  • CONTACT ME
  • ABOUT ME
  • PUBLISHED BOOKS
  • SCHOLARLY ARTICLES
  • POPULAR PUBLICATIONS
  • ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES
  • INVITED BOOK REVIEWS
  • POPULAR LECTURES
  • SCHOLARLY PAPERS
  • SERMONS
  • ACADEMICS
  • PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
  • SERVICE