Sandwich Generation

Reading the Torah portion this week on the life of Isaac, I couldn't help thinking how different his story is than that of his father and his son. Abraham was specially chosen to be the father of nations, the one through whom God's chosen people--and, eventually, God's own son--would come. Abraham received the promise and took part in the covenant. Jacob (as we'll see next week) had his own adventures. But Isaac? Isaac is the middle child of the patriachs, All the stories we have of him tell about him in relation to someone else. He's one in the list, but what do we know about him, really?

Birth

The story of Isaac's birth is really the story of his parents. But isn't that how it is with all of us? Isaac's birth is a tale of faith and doubt, of laughter and tears, of Abraham and Sarah. Isaac, the promised child, is incidental in the narrative, more a chess piece in a strategy game than a character in his own right.

Sacrifice

In the very disturbing story in which Isaac is laid out on an altar to be sacrificed at God's request, he only gets one line. The boy (or is he a young man?) asks his dad why they didn't bring a lamb to sacrifice. That's it. If I was writing the story, I would be tempted to tell it from Isaac's point of view. After all, didn't he have the most to lose? But we don't even get to see him squirming on the altar or jumping down in relief when his dad untied him, or huffing off in anger at a god who would jeopardize his life for the sake of testing his dad.

Marriage

The story of "Isaac and Rebekah" takes up 6 columns in my Bible. Guess how many columns Isaac gets? An incidental little mention at the end, that he went into a field to meditate and that he took Rebekah into his mother's tent for the wedding night. He got his name in the heading, but this is not really the story of Isaac. One the surface, it's the story of a servant, an uncle, and a woman brave enough to run off and marry a total stranger. Yet there's another story bubbling underneath

Sons

Jacob and Esau. What can I say? They steal the show. How different they are as twins, even from birth. How they struggle and fight against each other all their growing up years. How Rebekah loved Jacob so much more than the older brother. Where is Isaac in the story of his children?


Old Age

Now the boys are grown and Isaac is old. Here we get the fullest description of this man who has remained, for the most part, a two dimensional character. And the look we get is not all that flattering. His sight has gone. He comes across a bit doddering while his wife plots behind his back (with the help of Jacob) to steal the blessing of the firstborn. He knows something's wrong when Jacob comes to him, but he falls for the trick and gives his blessing to the wrong son. Then, when Esau comes for the blessing, Isaac is powerless to give him one. The best he could say was, "Eventaully, you'll get made enough to escape slavery. Isaac comes across and stupid and impotent in this story. The foolishness of his actions overshadows the eloquence of his blessing.

Death

I almost didn't mention Isaac's death. It's sort of buried (sorry!) in the middle of someone else's story, several chapters after he must have already been gone. He lived. He died.

He was the son of someone important. He was the father of someone important.

The end.

Only not quite. In telling the life of Isaac, I skipped one little story, one that stood out to me as weird and interesting. It starts with Isaac passing off his wife as his sister, a little ploy his dad used more than once. When Abimelek finds out Rebekah is his wife, he institutes a hands-off policy which allows Isaac to plant crops. His fields were super successful, so much that he was asked to leave because he had become too rich and powerful. He moved away for the sake of peace. That night, God appeared to him, promising him the same things he'd promised Abraham, but this time the promise was to Isaac.

And Isaac built an altar and called on the name of the Lord. And the people around saw clearly that the Lord was with him and came to make peace with him. And he dug a well and found water and called that place Beersheba.

I feel like it's taken me a long time to get here, but as I read through the stories of Isaac, frustrated by the fact that he is not featured in his own stories, I'm reminded that none of our stories are our own.

I was with my aunt recently, who is not much older than I am. She is truly in the sandwich generation, caring for both her children and her parents. She doing an amazing job, juggling work and family, watching after elderly parents in two searate care facilities.She's overworked and exhausted. She's also got to feel invisible, like she only exists to care for those older and younger than she is.  I wonder if Isaac ever felt that way?

Or did he feel more like the middle child, not the obedient older child who did everything right (Abraham) or the youngest scamp, always getting into trouble and demanding attention (Jacob).

Or did he, like most of us, feel like he was the key player in the story of the world? Did he think he was the star or was he content to be an extra?

What I've processed this week has been more observational than confessional. Except it makes me think that for those of us who live a quiet life, there seems to be value in holding the generations together, in bridging the time between the superstars, in waiting for the next promise to be fulfilled. And for us middle children out there, isn't the stuff inside the sandwich at least as important and interesting as the bread it's squeezed between?

This week's Torah Portion:
Genesis 28:10-32:3
Hosea 12:13-14:10
Matthew 3:13-4:11

Photo via Visual Hunt