Sermon: An Angel at My Table – Vayera 2011
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 16 December 2011
It is one of the staples of puzzle books and games to divert children on a long car journey – the spot the difference contest. To start my sermon this morning I would like you to have a go at one yourself. On the back of the Haftarah sheet today you will see two photographs.
Of course they are actually the same photo. It was taken two weeks ago at the Leo Baeck Center in Haifa at the end of our Alyth B’nei Mitzvah trip to Israel. It features the fifteen young people who came with me and Adam Martin for the week together with the friends they rapidly made in Israel and the four skilled Israeli Madrichim, all of whom had spent a summer at Alyth in the past, who helped them to get to know each other. In the second from back row you can see our Bat Mitzvah today – Ellie.
The pictures are identical apart from two differences, not very well disguised. Spotted them – yes in the front row of the lower picture one of the Leo Baeck students has turned into a ram and in the back row an umbrella has turned into an incongruously European well of water. Look closely, open your eyes and you can see more clearly – of course.
We could do the same exercise with our Torah portion this morning – the story of Hagar and Ishmael and with the more famous next chapter of the Book of Genesis – the Akedah – the binding of Isaac. Indeed the way that the two episodes are written in the Hebrew, and the content of the stories themselves encourages us to do so. It is actually the opposite of a spot the difference contest – it is a spot the similarity contest.
In both the story of Ishmael’s banishment to the desert and Isaac’s lying on the altar ready to be slaughtered each of Abraham’s sons is placed in mortal danger only to be rescued at the last moment. In both stories Abraham, we are told, gets up early in the morning eager to do what he feels God needs him to do – to send Ishmael and Hagar away, or to leave came to with Isaac on the journey to sacrifice him. In both stories a son of Abraham is given the promise that he will be the progenitor of a great people – Ishmael of the peoples who will become the Arabic nations and Isaac of the people of Israel. Both stories end the same way – the dreadful fate of Ishmael and Isaac is averted because vayikra malach Adonai or Elohim – then the angel of God called – to Hagar, to Abraham – and the angel stopped the terror. For Hagar the angel enabled her to see a water source which would save hers and Ishmael’s lives. For Abraham the angel enabled him to see a ram stuck by its horns in a thicket which he could then sacrifice in place of his son Isaac – saving his life and giving a future to Abraham too.
What is the Angel doing there? What does he or she bring to the stories? The Angel is there because both Hagar and Abraham need something outside of themselves, a new and clearer vision of how to proceed – the opposite of an insight – they need an “out-sight” to find a new way. Hagar needs to see the possibility of continued life outside of the family of Abraham, that there will be different peoples on the earth. Abraham needs to see that faith in God will not demand the sacrifice of his children but quite the opposite – the continuation of his covenant with God from generation to generation. The angel opens their eyes to these new ways of thinking.
For most of us the idea of an angel seems extraordinary – irrational, old fashioned, superstitious. Yet angels appear regularly in the Bible and they are part of our Rabbinic literature of the past two millennia. They also inhabit a disturbingly large part of the shelving of Religion and Spirituality sections of bookshops today with books such as “How to work with Angels” and “Messages from your Angels Oracle Cards”. As Rabbi Laurence Hoffman writes “The Rabbis believed in angels the way we believe in a conscience – that is, they use projective language while we use introjective language. They saw God without, while we like to see God within. The goal for many moderns is to go ‘deep down inside ourselves’ or to ‘get in touch with ourselves’. In antiquity the same thing was expressed by the desire to go out of ourselves and to join the realm of the angelic host.” (My People’s Prayer Book, Amidah p.9)
This is what is happening in these two stories. The Hebrew word here for Angel is Malach – which denotes something sent. The angel is a message which provides clearer insight – an inspiration from God. And it could be said that every time we feel that clearer insight from seeing something new, from something that someone has said, from something that we have read or heard – that is our own contact with an angel. Judaism says that we can’t do it all inside ourselves – we need to interact with the world around us – be moved by a beggars plight, hear a child’s question about the justice of the world to understand how we must act to improve it, see the beauty of a forest and know that we must preserve it if we are to truly fulfil our purpose as God’s hands in the world. We need these messages – these m’lachim, these angels.
Every Shabbat we sing about them – Shalom Aleichem malachey ha sharet, malachey elyon – we welcome you angels or messengers of God’s service, angels or messengers from on high. In these words of the 16th century Kabbalists we welcome the beginning of Shabbat rest from outside, from the people around us, from the atmosphere of a deliberately prepared Shabbat beauty, from a Shul full of people ready to enter Shabbat together. It’s not just an inner process that enables us to rest.
In our services we sing the Kedushah – kadosh, kadosh, kadosh. Holy, holy holy. These words are drawn directly from the vision of the Prophet Isaiah of a different kind of angel – seraphim – literally meaning fire angel, as cherubim means sword angel or destroying angel – for Jewish angels by the way forget about the chubby baby or fairy like angels of Western Christian art – Jewish angels are uncompromisingly macho.
When we make the gesture of looking from side to side before we sing the kedushah, when we rise on our feet as we sing kadosh, kadosh, kadosh – it is because we live with the idea that praise for God is already being sung by the seraphim – the angels surrounding God – the world in prayer. We are simply using our coming together in a Jewish worship service to join in with that worship, to click in to the worship of the universe.
Another role of angels in Jewish literature is that of the intimates of God saying the things that we people would say if only we had the chutzpah. Two well known midrashim illustrate this. In one when the Egyptian armies are drowning in the Red Sea as the parted waves which let the Israelites through collapse on top of them the angels sing in triumph and delight – God bellows at them to stop right away – God cannot bear to see humanity destroyed even if at that moment it is unavoidable if the slaves are to be freed. (Exodus Rabbah 23:7) In another based on our Torah portion today the angels question God when the well appears to save Hagar and Ishamel – saying, “Sovereign of the Universe! Why are you saving the life of this Ishmael who is destined in the future to be the father of people who will threaten the people of Israel” God’s answer in the midrash is based on the words which are said to Hagar as she reaches desperation point – “Do not be afraid for God has heard the cry of the boy from where he is” ‘ What is he now as a child in the wilderness? ‘ God demanded. “Righteous,” was the answer from the angels “I judge man only as he is at the moment,” said God. (Bereshit Rabbah 53:14)
Angels say to Jews you do not have every resource inside of yourself to live right. You need vision from outside, you need a perspective given by hearing and learning from others. You do not have the power to pray unaccompanied in a way that truly matches the majesty of God – you need to join with a universe wide symphony of prayer – lock yourself into it at regular times. The angels are called tzvaot – a host, a great number, a crowd. Jews crowd source our moral and spiritual strength. Once we do that we can find ourselves closer to God than we can possibly do through inner contemplation alone.
There is one other shared picture between that Hagar and Ishmael story and the Abraham and Isaac story. After the angel has appeared in the story neither Hagar nor Abraham are recorded in Torah as speaking to God ever again. Once they can see solutions to their dilemmas in the world around them through the clearer insight the angel gives them they don’t need any more heavenly intervention. You and I cannot count on the Almighty coming to our rescue – but we can seek the help the others can bring, we can connect with others, see and be inspired by beauty around us and through these experience the presence of God’s angels in our world.