Initially, God thought to create a world founded purely on Din (judgment). But God foresaw that a world of Din had no chance of survival; an unfeeling and inflexible judicial system with unlimited powers would quickly destroy man. So God partnered Chessed with Din and created a world where Law is forced to coexist with Love. (The Divine right and left wings, if you will.) The odd couple of Chessed and Din must learn to live together (Bereishit Rabbah 12:15).
It’s a long and difficult journey from kindness to judgment, the chasm is wide and deep, but our Parshah traverses it. Starting with Avraham’s welcoming perfect strangers into his home for a feast (Bereishit 18:2-8) and enDing with Yitzchak marching faithfully to offer himself to God at the Akiedah (22:7-8), our Parshah takes us from the warm feelings of love and kindness to the cold rule of law and judgment.
Some of us are naturally kind, others have an affinity for law; there are Chessed people and then there are Din people, but man is only whole when he learns to appreciate both Chessed and Din. People are particularly concerned for Chessed, and maybe a bit disdainful of Din. There are far more advocates for clemency and improved prison conditions than there are for punitive damages and capital punishment. This is fine and good, but the divine attribute of Din must also be recognized and understood. God is not only a God of Love; He is also a God of Judgment.
In the Amidah, the daily prayer service, we describe God as being the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak and the God of Yaakov. What does that mean? It means that our knowledge of God is built on our knowledge of the forefathers. The better we understand and appreciate the personal character of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, the better we will understand and appreciate the divine attributes of God and His relationship with us. UnderstanDing our forefathers is a steppingstone to understanDing God.
We have no difficulty with Avraham. He personified Chessed, and we are perfectly comfortable with that. Yitzchak on the other hand, is an altogether different story. Yitzchak, the polar opposite of his father, personified Din (judgment).
Din takes some getting used to, but the strangest thing is our very first introduction to it. How could a man named Yitzchak be the symbol of Din? The Hebrew word Yitzchak means “He will laugh”! What’s so funny about Din? Din is sobering, not humorous. (Although it might be hard for us to take a name like ‘laughter’ seriously, in Yitzchak’s case we must. God Himself told Avraham to name his son, ‘Yitzchak’ (17:19). It goes without saying that God does not give trivial names to his favorite people.)
When God informed Avraham and Sara that He was going to bless them with a son, they both reacted the same way. They laughed. Avraham laughed and said, “Can a hundred year old man have children? Can Sara who is ninety, give birth?” (17:17). Sara laughed and said, “Now that I am worn out, shall I have my heart’s desire? My husband is old!” (18:12). Avraham and Sara both expressed their surprise at the fulfillment of their heart’s desire after so many years of prayer. An infant in the tent would definitely throw a wrench into their peaceful desert retirement.
God had no issue with Avraham’s laughter, but He did respond sharply to Sara’s. God said to Avraham: “Why did Sara laugh and say, ‘Can I really have a child when I am so old?’ Is anything too difficult for God?” (18:13,14).
This is a blatant double standard. Avraham can get away with laughing, but Sara can’t? Apparently, not all laughter is created equal. There is nervous laughter and excited laughter, uncomfortable laughter and joyous laughter. You can laugh out of skepticism and you can laugh in mockery; you can laugh ‘with’ and you can laugh ‘at’. There are many possible causes for laughter and oftentimes laughter flows from several sources simultaneously. But no two people laugh alike.
What makes you laugh says a lot about you. Does Eddie Murphy make you laugh? How about Art Carney (may he rest in peace)? Or maybe you laugh indiscriminately? Sometimes we just don’t know why we laugh. But God knows, and that’s where Din comes into play.
The judgment of God is unlimited and it certainly takes note of our laughter. We might think that laughter is just instinctive, but Din says that there are certain self-made instincts that we are responsible for. The divine attribute of Justice can make no dispensations. Not even for laughter.
Avraham and Sara were intimately familiar with God’s attributes of Chessed, kindness and love, but Chessed alone is an incomplete picture. God is about to introduce them, and us, to a fuller appreciation of the way He operates in this world. God is bringing a manifestation of Din into creation, and it’s called Yitzchak.
We may be unable to distinguish between the laughter of Avraham and Sara, but God can, and that is exactly the point. The exactitude of Din searches deep beneath the surface in its unrelenting demand for judgment. Din clashes violently with Chessed, but ultimately Chessed and Din partner together to conceive the ultimate Truth. As we say in the Amidah, our God is the God of our fathers; He is the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzchak, and the God of Yaakov. When we understand that, we will understand God.
