Akedah Darkness

By way of reflecting on Leonard Cohen’s song You Want It Darker and Genesis 22 (see also previous post), this is an imaginative exercise (not an exegesis), reading the song as Abraham. Genesis 22 is cited in italics in the translation offered by Robert Alter.

If you are the dealer
I’m out of the game

And it happened after these things that God tested Abraham. And He said to him, “Abraham!” and he said, “Here I am.” God asked Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering. And Abraham could have said, "if that’s the deal, I’m not playing."

If you are the healer
I’m broken and lame

He could have said, "if this is what healing looks like, I'm stuffed." Or maybe this could be the counterpoint to the first two lines, "if you promise to heal, I allow myself to be broken."

If thine is the glory
Then mine must be the shame

The glory belongs to God. Always. Protesting God's command would cover Abraham in shame; having for years trusted this God, can he now give up without losing face? Praising God's command would amount to praising death, surely a shameful thing!

So Abraham says nothing. He keeps schtumm

You want it darker
We kill the flame

If God wants to extinguish Isaac's light of life, Abraham gets ready to kill the flame. No need for words. Except for the words of the Mourner's Kaddish.

Magnified and sanctified
Be Thy Holy Name

Why does he do it? Later Jesus would claim, "Abraham your father was overjoyed that he would see my day, and he saw it and was delighted." (John 8:56). God's Holy Name, "I AM who I AM," I will be who I am, the ever present one. I AM, the light of the world

Vilified and crucified
In the human frame

It is not truly God who desires darkness but it is us, we who cannot stand the light. And yet need it. We light candles for those whose life has been extinguished, not least in the Shoa.

A million candles burning
For the help that never came

Abraham's sons and daughters died and God did not turn up. He did not command the darkness, but neither did he prevent it. And in this sense

You want it darker

God must accept responsibility. But so must we.

Hineni Hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

Ready to kill or ready to suffer? Abraham's first Hineni is spoken to God, the second to Isaac.Ready to execute God's command, ready to be attetive to the sufferer. Ready to go on a walk for God (verse 3), ready to walk with the sufferer (verse 9). What faith can reconcile this? Not a faith that necessarily knows how things will work out but that trusts, "God will see to the sheep for the offering, my son."

There’s a lover in the story
But the story is still the same

Love - the word is used for the first time in the Bible here in Genesis 22, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, your son, your only one, whom you love. Should love not make a difference? It does not change the story. The text does not say that Abraham loved God but the test is arguably one that relates to the ordering of loves. Our loves for others are rightly ordered when they are directed towards the love of God rather than takes its place. But then

There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame

How can love for God lead to such an hateful act? It seems unbelievable that our love for God should ever lead us to seek to kill someone.

But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim

It must be true then that darkness has two causes

You want it darker
We kill the flame

Abraham sees beyond his own time and place. He sees the Messiah. He also sees the Shoa and murder before and after

They’re lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim

Executions on such a grand scale put our own trials and temptations into perspective

I struggled with some demons
They were middle-class and tame

But not any more if a text gives me permission to join in

I didn’t know I had permission
To murder and to maim

If so, truly,

You want it darker

And what can I confess but

Hineni Hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

Magnified and sanctified
Be Thy Holy Name
Vilified and crucified
In the human frame
A million candles burning
For the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

 And yet. The songs ends

If you are the dealer
Let me out of the game
If you are the healer
I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory
Mine must be the shame
You want it darker

Hineni Hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

But in Genesis 22 the third Hineni is in response to the urgent "Abraham, Abraham!" which heralds the end of the trial. The one who truly fears God sees the substitute ram and knows that there is a place in which God sees to it that justice is done, where he sees and can be seen, YHWH-yireh, "On the mount of the LORD there is sight." Light at last.