Where was Sarah and what caused her death? Different approaches in the writing of Israeli women poets about the Akedah (Hebrew)

• In Event: Bible and its Aftermaths

Abstract

Women’s Akedah poetry should be examined in the light of the fact that the biblical story that is the source of inspiration for all the poems written after it is a totally “male” story. All the active participants in it are men, Sarah does not appear on stage throughout the story, and there is no expression of the maternal voice. Unlike the biblical narrative, the Midrashic stories of the Jewish sages give Sarah a central role. According to the Midrash, Sarah’s death was a consequence of the Akedah (in contrast to Isaac, who was bound on the altar, but ended up surviving). Satan telling her of the – narrowly averted – sacrifice of Isaac was what caused her death (Tanhuma, Vayera, section 23). The midrash focusing on the psychological trauma Sarah experienced was a source of inspiration for several Akada poems that deal with the issue of maternal anxiety and the question of where Sarah was at the time of the Akada.
A number of scholars have seen these Akedah poems as part of a wave of women’s protest poetry that intensified after the war in Lebanon (1982).
During the lecture we will read poems whose approach is subversive in relation to the myth of the sacrifice of the children, written by Raya Harnik, Yehudit Kafri, Sh. Shifra, Ruhama Weiss, Esther Ettinger and more. The poemבקשה ("Request") by Chava Pinchas Cohen, which we will focus on, also confronts the myth of the Akedah and subverts it from a female perspective. However, in my opinion, this poem, which focuses on the psychological state of the anxious mother, expresses an approach that is different from that of the other poets. This poem is actually a prayer poem written from the point of view of religious faith.

Author

• Rachel Ofer, Herzog College