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One simple, powerful word—hineini—contains the key to deepening your relationship with God and with others.
Hineini (Here I am!). This single spoken word appears only fourteen times in the Bible–each time in a memorable and meaningful story: Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice to God, Jacob deceiving his father for Esau's birthright, Moses answering the call that comes from the Burning Bush.
Scholar and popular teacher Norman Cohen explores each of these powerful stories and shows what each can reveal about you as parent, spouse, sibling, lover and friend. By probing these dynamic biblical relationships, Cohen challenges you to think about the ways you relate to the people in your life and God.
And, to add other fascinating perspectives to the conversation, eleven insightful authors and teachers share personal reflections that exemplify each of the hineini passages.
"The Book of Genesis is about fallible human beings struggling to do the right thing and to respond to the needs of the other in the absence of a formal legal system. It continues to provide guidance in a world in which the legal system still contains significant gaps and in which hineini responses can be very complicated."
— Alan M. Dershowitz
"What Abraham learned on the mountain is that God doesn't want us to sacrifice a part of ourselves in order to serve God. God wants us to pay attention, to be present, to bring the fullness of our selves into our relationship with God."
—Laura Geller
“The Jewish mystical tradition teaches that in everything there is a Divine spark, and we are in the places we find ourselves not by accident but to redeem the holy sparks present there. Everything invites us into relationship, but we often refuse. Everything calls to us—'Here I am'—but we aren't listening.”
—Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
“When Adam heard God’s voice calling him, Ayekkah (Where are you?), he had hidden himself for shame, so he did not answer, 'Hineini.' Who knows what would have been had he stood up and taken responsibility for his actions before God, owning up to his disobedience? By seeking to shift blame, he invited blame on himself and punishment.”
—Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reading through the Prism of Midrash—Making the Text Our Own
PART I: FOURTEEN BIBLICAL TEXTS, FOURTEEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEANING
1. Recognizing the Other
2. Being Accessible to the Other
3. Awakening to Relationship
4. Response in the Everyday
5. Unqualified Openness: The Challenge and the Risk
6. Fulfilling Past Promises
7. The Significant Ramifications of Our Response to Others
8. Responding to the Other's Fears
9. The Reticence to Respond
10. The Difficulty of Discerning the Call
11. Fabricating the Call
12. The Ever-Present Other
13. The Ultimate Call
14. The Ultimate Response
PART II: PERSONAL STORIES: MAKING HINEINI COME ALIVE
Double Call
Rabbi Lester Bronstein
Jacob’s Tangled Web
Alan Dershowitz
Bringing My Whole Self to God
Rabbi Laura Geller
Parallel Life Journeys
Rabbi Neil Gillman
Being Accessible to the Other in Our Lives
Rabbi Richard Jacobs
Hineini: The Calling?
Lawrence Kushner
The Story of a Calling
Peter Ascher Pitzele
I Am Not Supposed to Be Here
Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
The Challenge of Answering Hineini
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
One Hineini Against Another
Rabbi Harold Schulweis
Beholding Esau
Phyllis Trible
PART III: A GUIDE TO CREATING OUR OWN PERSONAL MIDRASH: FINDING YOUR OWN VOICE IN THE TEXT
Notes