I hope everyone gets a chance to take a look at my tie.  It was a gift from Carrie Schaffner and Duane Thompson.  I normally wouldn’t mention a gift of a tie in a Rosh Hashanah sermon, but this tie is special.  They bought it for me specifically for this morning, and my intentions are to wear it only once a year - on Rosh Hashanah mornings.  What, you may wonder, is the connection between this tie and this holy day?  Well, it is what is on the tie.  The tie is covered with little pictures of rams.  Now I have been a rabbi for 28 years, but I have to say that this is the first time that I had ever seen, or even heard of, an “Akeda” tie; a “Bind­ing of Isaac tie; a tie whose theme is this morning’s Torah portion!

I honestly don’t know whether or not the designers of this tie were thinking of Rosh Hashanah when they created it, but I do know this - no matter what they were thinking, for many Jews, especially Jews who attend High Holy Day services, the image of a ram, any ram, is likely to evoke thoughts of the story we read in the Torah today, and which we read every Rosh Hashanah.  That, in and of itself, is a testimony to the power of this particular Torah text.

As most of you know, every year I build my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon around this powerful story.  What you may not know, but which many of you may have surmised, is that every year, even as I am finishing one such sermon, I am already fretting, “Where is next year’s sermon going to come from?  How will I find something new in the text?”  But as if miraculously, this Torah text never dries up.  It is always a fount of insight.

And sometimes those insights come from the strangest places.  Take this summer for example.  Last June, my family had a wonderful summer all planned out.  Helene would be spending 4 weeks at our U.A.H.C. camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  Shira would be staying in Madison, Wisconsin, working until mid-August.  Josh would be up in Iowa City.  The Cantor & I would have some time to ourselves - sans chil­dren - and we would go on a cruise; our first true vacation by ourselves since our honeymoon, 28 years ago.  We had been able to put away some extra money and everything was just falling into place - a great summer, indeed!  Well, it turned out to be a great summer, but not exactly as we planned it.  Helene did go to camp.  Shira did stay in Madison.  Josh was in Iowa City.  And Cantor and I did go on our cruise.  But other things started to happen as well.  Shira’s car broke down.  The Cantor’s car broke down - twice, the second time requiring us to go out and get another car.  With Helene at camp, and the Cantor and I on board our cruise ship, literally pull­ing out of the Port of Miami, I receive a call on my cell phone informing me that one of Helene’s guinea pigs had fallen terminally ill.  The neighbor who was taking care of the pigs wanted to know who our vet was and whether or not they should take it to him.  And no sooner had the Cantor and I returned to U.S. territorial waters than they called again to inform us that the animal had died and that they had carefully wrapped and preserved the body in their freezer, in anticipa­tion of a later burial.  Then, to top it all off, one early evening, as I was driving by myself home from Madison, with a carload of Shira’s possessions, all of a sudden in front of me on Highway 61, just south of Clinton, I saw jagged pieces of concrete rising from the pave­ment.  I was in the left lane, passing an 18 wheeler, and I had no place to go.  So I hit that concrete, destroying my left  rear tire and wheel, and throw­ing me into the median, almost flipping over my car before I re­gained control.  And that is when the inspiration struck!  As I sat there, waiting for the AAA tow truck, I found myself cataloguing all the curves that had been thrown my family so far that summer; all the crises and challenges; all the tough choices, all the unexpected decisions, that we had to make.

And that is when I started thinking of Abraham.  He, too, had a plan for his life and his family.  Sarah fi­nally gave birth to the son they so desperately wanted.  His wandering days were over.  He was settled and comfortable.  He had been able to save a few shekels in his pocket, and life looked pretty good; the future looked pretty good.  Just when it seemed as though he had found easy street, God called to him, and the events of this morning’s Torah portion commenced.  God tested Abraham, and as I sat on that road, I felt tested as well.

That is when it struck me that the classic interpretation of God’s test of Abraham might not be the correct one.  Classically, our tradition teaches that God tested Abraham’s faith.  God wanted to see whether or not Abraham’s faith was so pure, so strong, that he would actually be willing to offer up his son as a sac­rifice simply because God asked it of him.  But what if Abraham’s test was not a test of faith, but rather a test of something else?  What if God was testing Abraham to see how he would respond when faced with an unanticipated crisis?  What if God wanted to take a measure of the man when his responses came from his gut and his instincts rather than from his head?

Suddenly, I felt more at one with Abraham.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but personally, I have always been troubled by this perception of Abraham as being a person of such pure faith that he would willingly offer up his child’s life for God.  I want to be a person of faith.  I spend my life striving toward that end; sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  But at no time, even at the moments of my deepest faith desires, do I yearn to be so faithful that I would willingly kill my children in the service of God.  If that is what Abraham’s faith is about, then I guess my faith is different.  However, if this test of Abraham was not about faith, but rather about coping with life’s challenges, then I could resonate with that.  I have felt so tested, and I suspect most of you have as well.

I could just picture Abraham, walking around his camp, taking in all the sights, feeling good and warm, with a smile of satisfaction on his face, reflecting on how good life has been to him, when all of a sudden he hears the voice of God.  When out of the clear blue, God calls upon him to do this terrible thing.

As I read the text, I hear the confusion, the disorientation, in his voice.  The rabbis capture it beautifully in the Midrash, but they claim that it is not disorientation or confusion, but bargaining.  Of God’s charge to Abraham, they turn it into a dialogue.  Here’s what they do.  The Torah text has God saying, “Take your son, your only one, the one you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a sac­rifice there on one of the mountains that I shall tell you of.”  But when the rabbis are finished with it, it goes something like this: God says, “Take your son.”  Abraham says, “Which son?”  God says, “Your only son,” to which Abraham coyly responds, “But I have two sons.”  God says, “The one you love.”  “I love them both,” Abraham insists.  God says, “Isaac.”  Now I also hear a dialogue in this text, but I hear it differently.  God says, “Take your son,” and Abraham stares back blankly, saying, “Who?  What?”  God says, “I want you take your only son.”  “What are you talking about, God?”  “You know, the one you love.  Take the one you love.”  “I don’t understand, God.  What do you want from me?”  “Take Isaac and sacrifice him.”

Poor Abraham!  Things were going so well, then everything just fell apart.  Now he has to decide what he is going to do.  He has got to pick up the pieces and move forward.  And therein lies the test.  The test is in how he picks up the pieces; what he does with his life when God throws him a curve.  We all know what he does.  He decides to go with the flow - to surrender to the situation he finds himself in - to do as God asks; to take his son up to a mountain and offer him up as a sacrifice.  Was that the right decision?  Did Abraham pass the test?  We can debate that from today to tomorrow and still it would be unresolved.

We know what Abraham did, but the real question is what do we do?  I doubt there is not a person in this room who has not stood in Abraham’s shoes.  We may not have been asked to sacrifice our children, but we have been thrown plenty of curves, some of them small time but some of them big time.  We, too, have been tested, and are continually being tested by the unexpected, the unanticipated twists and turns of our lives.  And if you happen to be one of those rare individuals for whom everything has gone as planned, who has never been tested by the fires of fates, then consider yourself not only fortunate, but blessed.

As for the rest of us, we, too, have been blessed, but blessed in a different way.  Ours are not the bless­ings of comfort and ease, confidence and self-assurance.  Rather, our blessings are the blessings of self awareness and a certain amount of personal growth; painful growth, but growth nonetheless.  For we have been forced by circumstances to stretch the muscles of our hearts and our souls.  And until you stretch those muscles, you will never know what they are capable of.  You never even begin to fathom the full measure of your person.

Life, without the challenges , without the painful and agonizing choices which are forced upon us, is like painting with a roller.  You get the broad sweep.  You cover a lot of ground, but it is all the same.  You make your plans.  You execute your plans.  You eat of the fruit of your labors.  But the true art of living is not to be found in the planning.  It is to be found in the coping.  Coping with tragedy.  Coping with crisis.  Coping with the myriad of bitter surprises life offers up to us.  That is painting with the fine brush.  That is painting life in the details.  That is where you really find out who you are, who you can be, and who you must become.

When life throws you a curve, you haven’t got time to plan.  You haven’t got time to factor in all the vari­ables.  You have to react and act.  And to do so successfully, you have to call upon some inner re­serves that hopefully you have been building upon during the good years.  For ultimately, what informs your response in times of crisis are the values you have nurtured for a lifetime; values you have con­sciously nurtured.  For those values, they kick in - instinctively, they kick in - and they give form and char­acter to the choices you make and the actions you take.

As a rabbi, I have seen far more than my share of families and individuals in crisis.  Big crises.  Serious crises.  Not dead guinea pigs or busted up cars.  Unfortunately my family has had to suffer a few our­selves.  This I can tell you: The responses I have witnessed are as varied as the people offering them.  Some have responded with dignity.  Some with profound wisdom.  Some with inspiring courage.  Some with remarkable generosity of the spirit.  Some with a selflessness that boggles the mind.  Some with a faith so pure it is humbling to be in their presence.  While others have responded with anger, with fear, with a bitterness dark to behold.  Others have chosen to strike out and to hurt because they, themselves, are hurting.  I have seen the brightest side of humanity, and I have seen the dark side too.