Educating Father Abraham: The meaning of fatherhood
I promised a post about my reading of The Beginning of Wisdom by Leon Kass. The title above is the title of the article that appeared in First Things in Dec. 1994 that I had rememberd (vaguely, wanting to return to it and delighting when I discovered the whole book) which is now substantially one of the chapters in this book. I do believe that in Nov. 1994 FT is the chapter on educating Abraham about marriage. Kass' approach, based on 30 plus years of teaching a seminar on Genesis at the U Chicago, is to read the first book of the Torah exegetically as he would read Plato or Aristotle, to seek "wisdom regarding human life lived well in relation to the whole." The title tells it all--the beginning of wisdom...well, you know the Psalm...resides in the fear of the Lord.
Genesis, he claims, "begins with a comprehensive and universal panorama of the entire cosmic whole (chap. 1), moves to naturalistic and universal portraits of human life (chap 2), and concludes with the emergence of a tiny and distinctive people, bearing a new and distinctive human way on the earth (chap 12-50). Throughout, the text is concerned with this question: Is it possible to find, institute, and preserve a way of life, responsive to both the promise and the peril of the human creature, that accords with man's true standing in the world and that serves to perfect his god-like possibilities?"
Even though Kass does not believe that Adam and Eve FELL into sin (but rather realized the essence of human life), he does not discount the power of sin both personal and cultural. The major thrust of the chapters about pre-Abraham life is that humans cannot survive on their own power and wit. As Babel is the final evidence, they will destroy themselves. They need an education from God that can be transmitted down through the generations. Abraham was the person God chose to so educate and his education was both personal and political. He had to have a rightly ordered family life in order to produce a rightly ordered nation. Any young father/mother who desires to pass on his faith in God (of course, Kass does not say Christ) ought to read these chapters about what God taught Abraham through all his adventures and trials. (And you can do so in the FT editions if you don't want the full 700 page book). I'll just type out one paragraph of his summary after the binding of Isaac story:
"Father Abraham, I submit, is the model father, both of his family and of his people [though he did not start out this way, hardly!]--yes, even in his willingness to sacrifice his son--because he reveres God, the source of life and blessing and the teacher of righteousness, more than he loves his own. ... He is a model...because he sets an admiralbe example for proper paternal rule, in which the love of one's own children is put in the service of the right, the good, and the holy.
He goes on to say that all of us human fathers (parents) devote our children to some "god" or other...But a true father will devote his son to--and will self-consciously and knowingly initiate him into--only the righteous and godly ways. ... He will not finally love his son solely because he is his own, but will loveonly that in his son which is good and is open to the good, including his son's own capacity for awe before the divine. In this sense at least, he is ever willing to part with his son as his son, recognizing him--as was Isaac, and as are indeed all children--as a gift and a blessing, from God."
Well, this is just a taste of his style. He coaxes these insights out of the text, line by line. Fascinating. And from a perspective that evangelicals can appreciate but which is not our own so that we have much to learn from it.
Genesis, he claims, "begins with a comprehensive and universal panorama of the entire cosmic whole (chap. 1), moves to naturalistic and universal portraits of human life (chap 2), and concludes with the emergence of a tiny and distinctive people, bearing a new and distinctive human way on the earth (chap 12-50). Throughout, the text is concerned with this question: Is it possible to find, institute, and preserve a way of life, responsive to both the promise and the peril of the human creature, that accords with man's true standing in the world and that serves to perfect his god-like possibilities?"
Even though Kass does not believe that Adam and Eve FELL into sin (but rather realized the essence of human life), he does not discount the power of sin both personal and cultural. The major thrust of the chapters about pre-Abraham life is that humans cannot survive on their own power and wit. As Babel is the final evidence, they will destroy themselves. They need an education from God that can be transmitted down through the generations. Abraham was the person God chose to so educate and his education was both personal and political. He had to have a rightly ordered family life in order to produce a rightly ordered nation. Any young father/mother who desires to pass on his faith in God (of course, Kass does not say Christ) ought to read these chapters about what God taught Abraham through all his adventures and trials. (And you can do so in the FT editions if you don't want the full 700 page book). I'll just type out one paragraph of his summary after the binding of Isaac story:
"Father Abraham, I submit, is the model father, both of his family and of his people [though he did not start out this way, hardly!]--yes, even in his willingness to sacrifice his son--because he reveres God, the source of life and blessing and the teacher of righteousness, more than he loves his own. ... He is a model...because he sets an admiralbe example for proper paternal rule, in which the love of one's own children is put in the service of the right, the good, and the holy.
He goes on to say that all of us human fathers (parents) devote our children to some "god" or other...But a true father will devote his son to--and will self-consciously and knowingly initiate him into--only the righteous and godly ways. ... He will not finally love his son solely because he is his own, but will loveonly that in his son which is good and is open to the good, including his son's own capacity for awe before the divine. In this sense at least, he is ever willing to part with his son as his son, recognizing him--as was Isaac, and as are indeed all children--as a gift and a blessing, from God."
Well, this is just a taste of his style. He coaxes these insights out of the text, line by line. Fascinating. And from a perspective that evangelicals can appreciate but which is not our own so that we have much to learn from it.
posted by Barb @ 9:38 PM
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