Let us take a moment in looking at the story of the binding of Isaac and ask ourselves:
- Why is this story a part of our tradition?
- Why is it offered here, on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah?
- What value is central to this story?
(11) Then an angel of the LORD called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” (12) And the angel said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, nor do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” (13) When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.
אל תשלח Do not raise your hand against the boy to slay him. Then Abraham said to God, "If this be so, I have come here for nothing; let me at least inflict a wound on him and draw some blood from him." God replied, "nor do anything (מאומה) to him" — inflict no blemish (מום) on him (Genesis Rabbah 56:7).
- Why must Abraham be told twice to stop, to not harm Isaac?
- Why is it so difficult to change course when we are ready to sacrifice?
- Did God change God's mind? Is your answer theologically ok for you?
כי עתה ידעתי For now I know —
R. Aba said: Abraham said to God, “I will lay my complaint before you. Yesterday you told me, (Genesis 21:12) “for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you”, and then again you said, (Genesis 22:2) “Take your son”. Now you tell me, “Do not raise your hand against the boy”!
The Holy Blessed One said to him, in the words of Psalms 89:35, “My covenant will I not profane, nor alter that which is gone out of My lips”. When I told you, “Take your son”, I was not altering that which went out from My lips, namely, My promise that you would have descendants through Isaac. I did not tell you “Slay him” but bring him up to the mountain. You have brought him up — take him down again” (Genesis Rabbah 56:8).
Abraham accuses God here of hypocrisy and God claims that Abraham simply misunderstood. The Hebrew word for sacrifice and for raising something up are the same.
- How do we misunderstand God's messages to us?
- What is God's consistent message both in this Torah story and in your life?
by Rabbi Shai Held
I don’t understand my father. He seems to love me so much: Whenever I call him, he says, “Hineni,” here I am. And he’s so protective of me. As we walked toward this place, he had me carry the wood but insisted that he would carry the fire and cleaver himself. He was worried that if I carried them, I might hurt myself. And yet here we are on this mountain, and he is about to offer me up on the altar. I can’t actually bring myself to say the words — he is going to sacrifice me — which means that he is going to kill me. Me, his son, his favored son, whom he seems to love. He loves me, but I guess he loves God more. How am I supposed to feel about that? How am I supposed to feel about him? I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to speak to him again.
I don’t understand God. My father has told me 100 times that the covenant God made with him was about our “keeping God’s own way by doing what is just and right,” and yet by what conceivable standard is what God is asking for here just or right? God wants my father to sacrifice me? I guess serving God is more difficult and more complicated than I could ever have imagined. What am I supposed to do — argue? I’ve seen my father do that in other circumstances. Surrender my fate to God? That seems to be what my father thinks we both should do now. Maybe he’s right; he’s older, wiser, and has had many conversations with God. But what if he’s wrong? What if God never speaks to him again either?
What about my mother? Doesn’t God care about how she feels? For so long, my father acted as if the covenant were between him and God — as though she didn’t matter. Now, neither God nor my father ask her about the sacrifice. My mother has gotten an incredibly bad deal here, both from her husband and from God. No wonder she’s so unhappy. I can’t imagine she’ll survive when she finds out what the two of them did to me.
And what about Hagar? Poor Hagar. My father cast her out — twice, each time abandoning her to her fate (and the second time God encouraged him). But he didn’t just cast her out. No, he cast her out with her little boy — my brother, Ishmael. What if she had died? What if Ishmael had died? I get it now: First he abandoned his first son, and now he’s going to end my life, too. And both times because God told him to. What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with Him? What’s wrong with them?! If somehow I make it out of here alive, I am going to go find Hagar and bring her home. I think I know what she must feel like. Maybe we could comfort each other.
Right now, all I know is that I just don’t understand.
Rabbi Shai Held is the co-founder and Rosh Yeshiva of the New York-based Mechon Hadar (www.mechonhadar.org), where he holds the Chair in Jewish Thought. He is one of three recipients of the 2011 Covenant Award of the Covenant Foundation.
1 Cf. Gerhard von Rad’s Commentary on Genesis.
2 Genesis Rabbah 58:5
3 Cf. Genesis Rabbah 60:14 and Rashi to Genesis 24:62
- How can we help our children understand where and when we challenge God and when we have just accepted our fate?
- What did Abraham owe Isaac? What do we owe our children?