When I was a boy attending Sunday school, I, like most of you I would imagine, was taught to admire the characters in the bible. They were our role models, and we were supposed to emulate them.
As I matured and spent more time with the bible, I realized that the characters I once thought were flawless were, in fact, far more complicated than my Sunday school teachers first let on. At first I was disillusioned. But as I came to better understand the word Torah, whose Hebrew three-letter root system also forms the words for teacher and parents, I came to appreciate the bible in a new way. Far from being a mere set of stories, or perhaps a history of my people’s distant past, the Torah is in fact a teaching tool for how to live our complicated, messy lives today. God, although others might argue Divinely-inspired sages, but I will say GOD crafted these complicated, multi-layered characters to show us the way. To instruct us, to guide us in not only what we should do, but perhaps more importantly, what we should NOT do.
Father’s Day is now less than a week away. (Send out your cards TODAY). My original intention in today’s blog was to mine the Torah for examples of Biblical fathers whose positive role models might guide fathers in the listening audience to be better parents. Once again, as in my childhood, I am disillusioned. I could not find one positive father role model I could recommend to you, other than God, who is our Divine parent. So I am taking a new approach. I am going to celebrate Father’s Day by presenting some of my worst Biblical examples of fathers, along with my reasoning, all in the hope of inspiring us to avoid some of the pitfalls presented in these stories.
My award for perhaps the worst father in Hebrew scripture can be found in the eleventh chapter of Judges. Jephthah, or in Hebrew, Yiftach, makes the following vow to God: “If you deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.” Of course, the first thing that comes out the door is no “thing” at all, but rather his only child. And the text reports that after giving her two months to bewail her maidenhood, she returns and her father did to her as he had vowed.
Just out of curiosity, just what did Yiftach thing would come of the door to meet him – the family dog, or perhaps a chicken that was destined for the soup pot? It is a fathers’ job, above all else, to keep his children safe. One could argue that Yiftach had no way of knowing what would come through the door. And I am saying it is a father’s duty to anticipate, to think of all his actions – from second-hand smoke to extra-marital affairs, and the damaging impact these actions will have on his children, who depend on him, and to thus be inspired to make smart choices. There is a Jewish tradition that says once you make an oath, you must keep it. The third of the ten commandments, whose anniversary we celebrated this past Wednesday and Thursday with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, states: “You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God.” But does this commandment override the sixth commandment: lo tirtsach – thou shalt not commit murder? Yiftach put his vow to God over the life of his daughter – and this earns my award for the worst father in the bible.
A close second prize for worst father in the Torah goes to the common father of Jews, Christians and Moslems: Abraham. Chapter 22 of Genesis, which Jews read every year at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, presents a model of Abraham as the faithful servant of the Lord. Chapter 22 opens with the words: “Sometime afterwards, God put Abraham to the test.” God says to Abraham: “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah,” and here I would like to turn to the Hebrew: “l’olah al echad heh-harim.” Now based on Abraham’s actions, most of the translations have God telling Abraham “to offer him there as a burn offering on one of the heights.” Now it is true that an olah is a burnt offering, but the verb l’olah means “to raise up,” so God could have simply been telling Abraham to “bring him up on to one of the mountains.”
Perhaps if he had consulted with his wife, Sarah, she could have better translated the Hebrew for Abraham. Yet EVEN if God, in fact, wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac up as a burnt offering, I still say Abraham did not pass the test, rather he FAILED the test. If a father’s number one job is to keep his child safe, Abraham certainly failed the test. He put his job being God’s faithful servant, what I might call being a “Jewish professional,” above his responsibilities to his son. The consequences for Abraham were severe.
Although both Abraham and Isaac, as a united father and son, went up the mountain together, in Genesis, Chapter 22, verse 19, the text has Abraham descending the mountain alone. There is no recorded interaction between Abraham and his son, Isaac, ever again. Nor does Abraham’s wife, Sarah, ever speak to Abraham again. In fact, rabbinic tradition, called Midrash, reports that when Sarah learned of Abraham’s attempt to ritually sacrifice their son, she cried out three times and died on the spot of a broken heart. On Rosh Hashana, several times we blow the shofar, the ram’s horn, with three consecutive notes, tekiah, which according to this tradition, is a reenactment of Sarah’s three screams.
I have conducted many a eulogy of hard working fathers who were never there for their kinds during their childhood because they always put their job first. In sacrificing for their children, they may have, like father Abraham, inadvertently sacrificed their children instead. It is a lesson well worth applying to our own lives today, as we strive to find a proper work-life balance that puts family first.
My final award for worst father of the bible, goes to the man himself, Moshe rebeynu, Moses our Teacher, who taught us not only what TO do, but when it comes to raising kids, what NOT to do. Seek out Exodus, chapter 18, verses six and seven: “Jethro sent word to Moses, “’I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, with your wife and her two sons.’ Moses went out to meet his father-in-law; he bowed low and kissed him; each asked after the other’s welfare, and they went into the tent.” And what of his wife, Tziporah, and his boys: Gershom and Eliezer? Nothing, garnisht, zip, nada, shum d’var. This biblical scene is one of my all time most miserable biblical moments. Like many other famous leaders in world history, Moses sacrificed his family in order to lead his countrymen. Yet his wife, and certainly his children, never asked Moses to be a great leader. They just needed a great father. Once we bring children into this world, we owe them. It is not enough to just pro-create. All animals can do that. Being a father demands more than that.
I had other runner’s up for worst biblical father: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all practice forms of parental favoritism, which result in brother hating brother. But I am out of time. So I will conclude by saying that it is my belief that God gave the Torah to the Jews, and through extension, to all humanity, to guide us, not only in what we SHOULD do, but almost more importantly, in what we should NOT do. May we heed the bible’s lessons and on this father’s day, may we men who are so blessed by God with children, strive to be the best possible fathers we can be, taking the lessons of the Bible to heart … and let us say a collective amen.
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