Tomorrow, Izsák Gilbert will be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah, chanting from Parashat Vayeira. It is awesome to have Vayeira read by a student named Izsák, because it is within this Torah portion that we derive the name Izsák – Yitzhak.

In our text, three messengers appear to Abraham and Sarah, who are well beyond a normal age to become new parents. And yet, the messengers say that Sarah will, indeed, conceive a son. Sarah, seeing the prophecy as rather absurd, given their age, laughs. And because of her reaction, the child will be named Yitzhak, meaning laughter.

It’s kind of a silly name, Laughter. You wouldn’t name a child Chuckles – that’s a stage name for a clown, not a real person. But there’s something wonderful about this name, Yitzhak. It’s joyful. It’s genuine. It’s hopeful.

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Last week, Israelis and people around the world observed the yarzheit of Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, the 5th prime minister of Israel, represented a hope for peace that is unparalleled to this day. He first took office in 1974, succeeding Golda Meir.

In his first term, he signed the Sinai II agreement with Egypt and ordered the raid on Entebbe, carefully keeping the delicate balance of the hawk and the dove. He resigned the office in 1977, though he stayed in government, serving as defense minister for much of the 1980s, including during the First Intifada. He was reelected as Prime Minister in 1992, having campaigned on a platform of pursuing peace with the Palestinians. He signed the Oslo Accords, and a peace treaty with Jordan. We could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Peace in our time.

But not everybody was hoping for peace, or at least, not on these terms or with these people. A Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir shot and killed Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995 — 28 years ago, tomorrow.

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Looking back to our text, there is so much that happens in Parashat Vayeira after Isaac’s birth, but the piece I want to talk about tonight is God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son. You might be familiar with it because we read it every year on Rosh Hashanah morning: “Take your son, your special one whom you love” — Kach na et bincha, et yechidcha Asher ahavtah.

This is the first time in Torah we read the word ahav — “love.” Love, according to our tradition, is first and foremost neither sexual nor romantic, but rather the love that a parent feels for their child — no love comes before this one.

And that is precisely why it is so difficult to read these words, to read this story of our patriarch, our father Abraham sacrificing his love. It is viscerally painful, even for those of us without children, to imagine giving up our child for this intangible entity beyond ourselves.

And yet, it is a call with which Israeli parents are painfully familiar, letting go of their child, saying goodbye as their 18-year-old joins the Israel Defense Forces for their compulsory service.

I am not the first person to draw this parallel. In her second songbook, published in 1975, the prolific Israeli composer Naomi Shemer gave us her own retelling of Akeidat Yitzhak.

Naomi Shemer was born in K’vutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents had helped found on the banks of the sea of Galilee, on July 13, 1930. Those of you doing the math may note, she turned 18 just two months after Israel’s Declaration of Independence was signed on May 15, 1948. Her entire life, and the music that accompanied it, mirrors the story of Israel itself, with all its trials and triumphs, its joy and sorrow.

Shemer was a songleader from her childhood on the kibbutz, through her education at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem, into her military service with the Nahal Band, and, truly, for the rest of her life. After her death in 2004, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “Using marvelous lyrics and melodies, she succeeded in connecting us to our roots, to our origins, to the beginnings of Zionism.”

Shemer’s songs include Al Kol Eileh, Lu Yehi, Mahar, and plenty of others. Her catalog consists of hundreds of works ranging from sing-along-style folk tunes to ballads to children’s music. Her best-known song is Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, written in 1967, in honor of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War. The song is so beloved, so ingrained in the Israeli consciousness, it was even pitched to replace Hatikvah as the state’s national anthem. After all, argued some members of the Knesset, Hatikvah speaks of the hope for our state, lihyot am chofshi b’artzeinu, eretz tzion virushalayim — to be a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem. The hope has been achieved, they said; we have Zion, we have Jerusalem; it’s no longer hope, it’s reality. Do we really still need Hatikvah? Do we still need hope?

In my lifetime, Israel has not faced an existential crisis in the way it constantly and consistently did in its earlier history. “Masada will not fall again” is no longer a question or a rallying cry, but a statement of fact — Israel is not going anywhere. And yet, as the violence continues and crescendos, as it did four weeks ago on Simchat Torah, we know there is still much to hope for. We still hope for peace, for security, and, of course, for the safe return of over 200 hostages still held in Gaza.

Hope is not a wish on a star, passively spoken into the night. The prophet Zecheriah calls us asirei hatikvah – captives of hope. Even the word itself, tikvah, implies something greater, referring to a cord or a thread in the book of Joshua. Hope can bind us up and tie us together.

The binding of Isaac is not only about the horror of the sacrifice, but the string we may tie on our finger, the ribbon on the tree, that calls on us to remember hope.

Shemer’s Akeidat Yitzhak begins almost quoting the Torah verbatim:

“Take your son, your special one whom you love, take Isaac, and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains in the place that I will tell you; sacrifice him there, on one of the mountains in the land of Moriah.”

She continues, taking the words spoken by Isaac, and repurposing them to be a great cry that arises in the land, reminiscent of the great cry that rose out of Egypt upon the plague of the death of the firstborn. In Vayeira, Isaac questions Abraham, “Here is the flintstone, and here is the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Instead, in Shemer’s retelling, from all the surrounding mountains, a great cry rises up, “Here is the flintstone, and here is the wood, and, behold, here is the lamb for the burnt offering.”

The cry pleads with God, “Ribono shel olam, Master of the universe, hamalei rachamim, the one who is full of mercy, do not set your hand upon the boy.” Here, she takes from the angel’s call to Abraham, staying his arm: al hanaar yadcha al tishlach — do not set your hand upon the boy.

Beginning four weeks ago, and continuing today, this cry rings throughout Israel and the Jewish world. God who works wonders, who redeems with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, let my child, my parent, my neighbor, my countryman, my people — let them be ok.

Shemer concludes, “Even if we live and grow old, we will not forget that the knife was raised. We will not forget your son, your special one, whom we loved. We will not forget Isaac.”

In honor of Yitzhak our ancestor, and in the memory of Yitzhak Rabin who symbolized and continues to inspire hope, and in prayer for the hostages, their families, and our soldiers, I offer this song: Naomi Shemer’s Akeidat Yitzhak.