Rabbi Jonathan Crane
Rosh Hashanah 5767 / September 2006
I know a young boy who played goalie for a soccer team in the nine-and-younger league. It was less soccer than it was a game of bunch-ball with an amorphous clump of dirty boys chasing a ball this side and that. Field positions seemed irrelevant in this game. The boy in goal spent his time kicking clods, swimming in puddles and watching his friends race up and down the field. Always nervous an opponent would charge him, he glanced furtively at the sidelines to see his parents standing there. Even in the soaking rain their presence reassured him. From their perspective, from their vantage of being awake way too early in the cold and damp, they could not fully fathom why this child found so much delight splashing and stamping in mud puddles, or why, in this particular game, he decided to run straight into that goalpost and knock himself out. From the sidelines, this game and that child seemed rather bizarre.
So often in life we are witness to strange events going on in other people's lives. We see family and friends, colleagues and strangers, wrestle with reality in ways we do not fully comprehend. Sometimes these things they do are small in scope and importance - like telling an inappropriate joke or driving around the block yet again in hopes of finding a parking space a few feet closer to the cinema. And sometimes these things are substantial issues, like whether they should be a whistleblower on workplace violations or where to send their children for primary education or how to support an elderly parent in need of more intensive care. By watching them make their decisions - however silly or serious the issue might be - and knowing that they are also watching us make our own silly and serious decisions, all of us come to appreciate that everyone is in the midst of some massive, unfolding narrative.
However comforting it may be to understand that we all have roles in this emerging story of human civilization, it is nonetheless unnerving to be on the sidelines. Those parents, for example, are not sure exactly what to do when their son returns to the soccer field after recovering from his concussion. Do they cheer him on or do they reach out to hold him back? Is this a moment for parental intervention, or one for tzimtzum, of self-restraint? In such moments we are never certain what to do, what our options are and which of them is best. And so we are left to watch that child, that friend or colleague, do what she thinks is best. We stand there at the sidelines, luke-warm coffee in hand and drenched to next week, unsure of what to do or say as the game of life continues nonstop.
Sideliners are as old as society. Every civilization speaks in its foundational legends and stories about the ambiguity of the sideliner experience. The Jewish tradition is no exception. No doubt history attests that Jews have endured being on the sidelines, marginalized and alienated from what appeared to be the main game in town. Studying the history of Jewish marginalization is worthy if only to come to appreciate the ingenious ways Jews overcame social, economic and political displacement. No longer forced to be sideliners, Jews have taken prominent roles in the unfolding narratives of modern societies. You could say that Jews have a large role, despite our small numbers, in the complex world civilizational saga. Playing in the global game, however, is fraught with imagined and real difficulties.
There are others who play fairly and some who do not. Those who cheat or beat their opponents or scream loud enough to get the attention of referees and judges challenge our desire to play nicely, fairly, justly. We just cannot understand why it is they continuously choose to flout the rules of the international game. At times their repeated real and rhetorical attacks against us weaken our resolve to play in the big league. Fatigued, with morale flagging and morality fading from sight, a few begin wondering why we should play with those who do not want us on the field at all. Perhaps, they say, we Jews should retreat again to the sidelines of history, play a different game altogether, and watch others make silly and serious decisions without us.
I do not side with such pessimism because Jewish history, even as it currently unfolds, is not the sole place in our tradition that deals with the experiences of being sideliners. This trope is also found in our liturgy - or more precisely, in the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah. No less than on the head of the new year do we read the awesome and terrifying story of the Akeidah - the binding of Isaac. The central characters - Abraham, Isaac, God, the angel and the ram - are well known to us. The text, in tight language, reveals intense drama. However fascinated and captured may be by the main game, we should not forget the sideliners. We think immediately of Sarah - whose absence is felt throughout this traumatic episode of her husband and child. For her we lament, especially as immediately following this event we learn of her death.
I focus now, however, on those who are mentioned in the text yet explicitly sidelined. Remember the na'arim, the lads, Abraham takes along with him and Isaac for the trek to Mount Moriah. Early in the morning they are taken up with Isaac and they walk alongside the donkey loaded with wood[1]. On the third day, when Abraham sees the divinely specified location, he instructs these lads
You sit here with the donkey.
I and the lad, we will go up to here,
we will worship and we will return to you.[2]
Who are these seemingly anonymous lads now neglected at the sidelines of an increasingly important event? What might their experience be as they watch Abraham and Isaac march off to yonder hill top? Why, in fact, are they mentioned at all?
The biblical text does not specify precisely who these two lads are. All we know from the text is that they are members of Abraham's household and, obviously, respect Abraham enough to abide by his directions. According to rabbinic imagination as found in the midrashim, these two lads are Eliezer and Ishmael[3]. Eliezer is famous for being Abraham's servant and the one who is tasked to find Isaac a wife and selects Rebecca at the well-side[4]. And Ishmael is Abraham's first-born son, who, with his mother Hagar, is banished from Abraham's home prior to this event[5].
It is no accident, I think, that the rabbis read Eliezer and Ishmael into this story. Both of these men already know the experience of being sidelined. Ishmael, although Abraham's first born, was cast out as an infant. As for Eliezer, never his own man, he is always referred to as a slave or a servant living at the beck and call of others. Each man, in his own way, already is familiar with being brushed aside. Here, in this story of the Akeidah, they are doubly sidelined: once for being brought along for the journey only to be left behind at the last moment, and twice for never being named in their own right. Neglected and anonymous, they sit there, right here with the donkey.
And what of this donkey? According to the rabbis, it is apt that Abraham brought the donkey along. When he saw the place God intended he turned to the lads and asked them what they saw. They replied, "we see only trees and bushes on that hill just like those on surrounding hills." Isaac, by contrast, said he saw a hill top encased in glory. Abraham then said to the lads to stay put with the donkey because, like the donkey, they might see but they do not comprehend. They are 'am-chamor, people of the donkey, so they should stay 'im-hachamor - with the donkey.[6]
But this does not mean that Ishmael and Eliezer are dumb witted, insensitive or unusually stubborn. Indeed, the rabbis portray them as rational if not egoistical men. Immediately after Abraham and Isaac depart for what they could surmise to be as an exclusive father-son bonding experience, Ishmael and Eliezer begin to argue. Ishmael claims that because Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac all that is Abraham's will come to him and he shall inherit the household. Eliezer retorts, "Surely Abraham cast you out with your mother so that you shall not possess anything. It is to me, the faithful servant who has attended to Abraham's household his whole life, who will inherit from Abraham."[7]
Imagine yourself in their sandals. Brought along for what appears to be a promising family adventure but left at the sidelines next to a stinking burro, would we not also massage our wounded egos by trying to imagine ourselves in the centre of it all? Sitting next to a beast of burden, I too would feel beastly burdened with awkwardness, trying to figure out what to do so I could feel significant, useful, purposeful again.
Often in life we are like Ishmael and Eliezer and that mule, heeing and hawing, searching for a way to make sense of life on the sidelines of others' experiences. We sit here watching friends and family experience pain and we can do nothing to take their stead however much we pray to. We sit here watching children make difficult choices we might decide otherwise. We sit here watching siblings do things we cannot fathom. We sit here watching our beloveds head off into the mysterium tremendum of adventure and war, partnerships and scholarship; they take on professional risks, political challenges and spiritual endeavors. And here we sit. Frustrated. Feeling abandoned, silenced, ignored, used perhaps.
In many ways being on the sidelines stinks.
Yet being on the sidelines is one of the most important roles one can have in life. It is because Abraham brought these two na'arim along with him that Rashi reminds us to bring at least two others along with us wherever we go lest we get hurt and a single companion cannot help us alone[8]. To be someone brought along is no slight, for you have been singled out for this responsibility. Who knows, perhaps you will be in the right place and time to offer critical assistance to this person you now accompany.
However useful a sideliner may potentially be in an emergency, every sideliner nonetheless serves an ongoing, real purpose. Remember that Abraham says to the lads - we will return to you. Why does he say this? Certainly he did not bring them to the slopes of Mount Moriah only to abandon them after completing his task with Isaac. The lads' continued presence at the margins of this event was no less critical than the ram suddenly appearing at that opportune moment. Abraham could only return to them if indeed they remained put. Their presence served as a physical and emotional goal toward which he could direct his feet upon his journey down the mountain. When Abraham reached the lads, they all arose and they walked together, as one, toward their next destination[9]. The text does not say whether Abraham told the lads about his experience on Mount Moriah. Nor do we know whether the lads understood what they witnessed there. Regardless of communication and understanding, the lads' presence guided Abraham back and he joined with them and they altogether charted a new course in life.
It is to those of us on the sidelines that others return. We sideliners are a source of security, familiarity, comfort, protection. We offer a beacon to them so they can re-orient themselves as they emerge from their adventures. Their shuvah, their turning back, is a teshuvah, a returning, a re-pentance, a re-thinking of how to relate with we sideliners. Sometimes we do not see them just yet, like Isaac, as they have disappeared for a while but whose presence we nevertheless feel by their absence. In time, they like Isaac will reappear in our lives.
No doubt they will be altered from their life's experiences just as we are changed from our own experiences. It is in their eventual return as different people elecha - to you - that reconciliation is possible and a new relationship journeys forth. Look to Ishmael and Isaac who both mourn the passing of their father Abraham and together bury him in the cave of Machpelah[10]. Look to Eliezer who willingly calls Isaac his master and to Isaac who willingly takes Rebecca as his wife - the woman Eliezer chose for him[11].
Whether you feel you are a sideliner always watching others live their lives, or you feel that in a particular relationship your sidelineness is too beastly to bear, don't move - for your presence is necessary. But remember you are also playing in the game of life. During these High Holidays, look to your own sidelines. Take note of those in your life who hover there on your sidelines watching you pursue what is best for you. They are watching you play in the strange, sometimes dirty but always incredible fields of history. And they await your return. They are patient, patient enough to withstand the stink of anxiety because they care for you. They are patient, patient enough to endure not understanding why you do what you do. They are patient, patient enough to pray for your wellbeing.
Let the year of 5767 be the year of the sideliner - for we are all sideliners as much as we are all players in this game of life. Just as you await the return of colleagues, friends and loved ones to emerge from whatever game or funk or pain they now experience, many people await your own teshuvah, your return. The question is not if but when and how you will return, when and how you will teshuvah alehem - return to them.
There is something inexplicably awesome about stamping in mud puddles just as there is something profoundly primal about waiting in grime for a stranger to kick a ball in your direction. And, yes, there is something painfully mysterious about knocking oneself out against a goal post. Even though I cannot recall much of the first half of that game, I do remember coming off the field after the game to my awaiting parents, shy about the bruise that was my head, proud that I had played at all, and so glad they were there to watch and bray on my behalf.
Shanah Tovah u'Metukah.
References
[6] Vayikra Rabbah 20.2; Midrash Zuta, Kohelet, 9.7.
[8] Rashi on Genesis 22:3; Midrash Aggadah (Buber) Genesis 22.5, vayashkem.