Here I Am

The following is my sermon for Rosh HaShana Morning at Temple Beth Am, Monessen, PA. The views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the community I am honored to serve this year.


“Present!” I would answer when my grade-school teacher took attendance. For some reason, “Here” seemed too informal to my mind. I was ready to learn, even eager to diagram sentences in English class. I was present!

A friend of mine recently told me that she, too, would answer her teacher with a more formal response to the mundane role call. But this was in a different language, in a different kind of school. At her afternoon Hebrew school class, my friend responded not with “I’m here” (in Hebrew, Ani po). Instead, she called out, “Hineini!” Here I am! Other students snickered as her teacher tried to explain the rich and sometimes subtle difference between two Hebrew expressions that can both indeed be translated as “Here I am.”

In the Tanakh and in our liturgy, hineini represents much more than physically being here. Hineini indicates a presence and an intention and a humility that can clue us in to our duties as Jews and as morally-conscious human beings. Last night, at the beginning of our service, I recited the traditional words of the prayer leader, a humble statement of intention and responsibility. The prayer begins hineni, here I am. With all my own faults, grateful for the trust of this community on whose behalf I invoke Jewish tradition, here I am.

For the prophet Isaiah, hineini is his immediate, perhaps even instinctual, response to what is literally a call from God: “Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Hineni, sh’lacheini, Here I am, send me’” (Isaiah 6:8). But the Bible does not reserve this special word for human encounters with the Divine. Hineini symbolizes a son’s willingness to take action for his father. When his father Isaac calls to him saying, “My son,” Esau responds, “Hineini, here I am” (Genesis 27:1). Esau responds openly, willingly, though he does not know what his father will ask of him. This call to a son answered so openly and willingly marks the beginning of a conversation. Isaac asks his son to hunt some game and prepare a stew for him; Esau follows through on his hineini, hunting as his father requested. Making the stew demonstrates just how present Esau can be for his dying father, who plans to bestow upon his son his “innermost blessing,” a blessing from the depths of his soul (Gen. 27:4). Hineini symbolizes a beloved child’s willingness to put himself at risk. When his father Jacob sends the young Joseph out to the fields to check up on his competitive brothers, he answers “Hineni, Here I am”—or, as one translation renders it, “I am ready” (Gen. 37:13). Jacob’s trust in his son is met by Joseph’s loyalty.

And as we see so clearly in the Akeida, the story of the binding of Isaac, hineini indicates far more than proximity or attendance. Hineini represents a bond between one person and another, between a person and God. A covenantal tie or a feeling of responsibility prompts one to reply, Hineini, Here I am.

Climbing Mount Moriah together, Abraham and his son, his only one, his beloved, Isaac, have not wandered far from one another. The Torah tells us, “vayeilchu sh’neihem yachdav”—“and the two walked off together” (Gen. 22:6). When Isaac cries out, “Father,” he does not need Abraham to tell him physically where he is; Isaac can see Abraham clearly. Perhaps he can reach out and touch him, steadying himself on the rocky ground during the long climb. Isaac calls out in his own fear and confusion, seeking the love and loyalty of a father, asking just with that one word, that one name—Father—for Abraham to remember the responsibility that binds him to Isaac. “Then Isaac said to Abraham his father, ‘Father!’ And he answered, ‘Hineini, vni’—‘Here I am, my son.’ And he said, ‘Hinei, Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?’” (Gen. 22:7). Abraham reassures his son that God will provide for the offering, though this father had already pledged to offer up his beloved son; he has the knife in his hand even now. Abraham reassures his son not only with the words, “God will see to the sheep for the offering,” but by twice addressing Isaac as “my son”: “God will see to the sheep for the offering, my son” (Gen. 22:8); and “Hineini, vni”—“Here I am, my son” (Gen. 22:7). Abraham reassures his son with the very word he used earlier to respond to God, the Most High. “Hineini, vni”—“Here I am, my son.” Here I am, willing to take responsibility for you, remembering the love and loyalty I feel toward you, bound in two directions, bound by the covenant with a God who tests me with this ultimate sacrifice, bound by the ties of father to son.

When God first calls to Abraham in this story, the response is immediate, open, and willing. As many classical commentators note, Abraham commits himself to fulfilling God’s call before he knows what God is asking of him (Genesis Rabbah and Or Ha-Hayyim). “Abraham,” God cries. “Hineini” (Gen. 22:1). And then God asks the impossible: “Take, please, your son, your only one, the one you love, Isaac, and take yourself (lech-lecha) to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you” (Gen. 22:2).

I wonder how it felt to be present, there in that moment, atop the mountain, binding his beloved son to the wood for the burnt offering. Isaac has asked only one question; whether he was reassured or horrified we cannot know. The Sages say that the Angel of God blessed Isaac with a tear as he lay, bound to the wood atop the altar—a single tear to blind Isaac, sparing him from the terrible sight of his father: “Vayishlach Avraham et yado vayikach et hama’achelet lischot et b’no”—“And Abraham put out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son” (Gen. 22:10). In that moment, could Abraham be truly present, or had he turned his brain to autopilot, carrying out the motions? In that moment, the Angel of God calls Abraham to be present again: “Then an angel of the Eternal called to him from heaven: ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ And he answered, ‘Hineini’” (Gen. 22:11). Called to be present in the moment, shaken from the terrible truth of the knife in his hand, Abraham can now fulfill the promise he made with each previous Hineini. He can be loyal to the God of the covenant, and he can be loving toward his son. He can be present to two crucial relationships in his life—relationships that bind Abraham to take on the sometimes messy project of discerning what it means to live a Jewish life.

Rabbi Dr. Norman Cohen sees in the Biblical examples of Hineini a challenge to us. We must not assume that this word, and the attention to relationship it carries with it, was meant only for the ancient Israelites (Hineini in Our Lives). We can bring hineini into our own relationships.

To be present, truly present, with another human being, and to feel responsible in relationship to another human being—not knowing what will be asked of you, not knowing the consequence—this is hineini. And hineini is something I learned this summer through an internship in hospital chaplaincy.

In the Bible, hineini indicates a conversation, an exchange, a reciprocal encounter between two beings tied to one another in relationship. Hineini does not open the conversation; it is a response; it continues an ongoing exchange. Hineini can link past, present, and future: because of our past covenant, I will commit to taking action for you in the present, accepting the consequences for our shared future.

For Isaiah, hineini happened in an unprecedented direct conversation with God. The covenant between God and Israel was not new to Isaiah, but his role as a prophet came upon him like a bolt from the blue, a voice from the heavens calling out to him alone. And he answered, Hineini, here I am.

It is this kind of call we answer when we dare to be present to other human beings. Bound by the ethics of Jewish religious tradition, I walked into hospital rooms this past summer feeling a generalized sense of responsibility, an abstract call to be present. But in the face of each new human being, each stranger lying vulnerable in a hospital bed, I was called individually and anew. “Will you be present for me?” Hineini. Here I am.

When I first visited Wanda, she immediately grabbed my hand. “You’re the chaplain,” she said, relieved. “Pray for me. Pray for God to change the minds of all these doctors and social workers. They won’t let me go home. Pray for God to change their minds.”

Wanda’s story was complex, her stay in the hospital lengthened by her own unwillingness to be transferred to a rehabilitation center where she could get proper care. Alone at home, Wanda had no support, and she needed at least two people to help her get out of bed. Resistant and angry and afraid, Wanda could not hear the reasoned, and at times impatient, words of the social worker, nor could she interpret the nurses’ care as attentive.

Over the course of my visits with Wanda, she often changed her mind about what she wanted. One day she refused to be transferred to rehab; the next day she complained that the doctors wouldn’t let her go.

During each visit, I tried to simply be present with Wanda—not to argue for or against the social workers’ recommendations or to determine whether Wanda was “right” or “wrong” about the nurses. Instead, I tried to discern what Wanda was asking of me, present with her in the moment of her pain and vulnerability. And loneliness.

“People treat me like I’m dog meat,” she said, seemingly referring not only to the hospital staff but to everyone she had ever encountered—all of humanity. “I’m a person.”

The last time I prayed with Wanda, I began with a song: Don’t hide your face from me; I’m asking for your help. I call to you, please hear my prayer, O God. If you would answer me as I have called to you… please hear me now; don’t hide your face from me.

In that prayer, I asked that Wanda come to know, in her interactions with the hospital staff, throughout her healing process, and indeed throughout her life, that each person is created betzelem Elohim, in the image of God. In our humanity, we share a bit of the Divine, and we are called to reach out to one another in responsibility and in humility and with care. Being present with Wanda meant saying hineini to her loneliness and her pain. Being present with Wanda meant urging her to reconnect to the other people around her even as I acknowledged that sometimes people fall short, sometimes they fail to see the human being in pain right in front of them.

Being able to say hineini means recognizing that, when we stand in the presence of another human being who is willing to reach out to us in relationship, we stand upon holy ground. Present in that moment, we each have the opportunity to remind the other that she is human in the best sense. We have the opportunity to remind the other that she is not only mortal or vulnerable or fragile, but that she is created in the Divine image, that she is capable of taking action in her own life, that she is capable of climbing the mountain or calling the world to justice.

Being able to say hineini means paying attention to who is calling us. Asleep in the Temple, the young Samuel hears a voice in the night: “Vayikra Adonai el Shmuel vayomer ‘Hineini’”—“and the Eternal called out to Samuel and he answered, ‘Here I am’” (1 Sam. 3:4). Throughout the night, Samuel misses the call, not realizing it is God reaching out to him. Samuel thinks it is Eli, the High Priest, calling him to some particular duty; he willingly answers, Hineini, but he answers the wrong person. The Jewish Publication Society indicates the difference between the kind of answer Abraham gives to the Angel of God and the answer Samuel gives to a voice he thinks is Eli. JPS translates Samuel’s nighttime hineini as “I’m coming”—a more casual response to a voice Samuel thinks he has heard dozens of times. Eventually, Eli unravels the mystery and instructs Samuel on a new answer: “Speak, Eternal, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:9,10).

Sometimes we respond in our relationships with rote replies. “I’m coming,” we say, rolling our eyes. But our tradition teaches us that we must open our ears to the extraordinary call, the radical call to be vulnerable to another, responsible for another, willing to live in relationship with an other. Hineini, here I am, here I am with all my faults and in love and in loyalty. Here I am, for you, in this moment.

As we embark upon this new year, let us be attentive to our relationships. Let us answer one another’s call. And let us remember that God, too, reaches out to us in relationship. Through the prophet Isaiah, God assures us, “When you call, the Eternal will answer. When you cry, He will say, Hineini, Here I am” (Isaiah 58:9).