(1) Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test, saying to him, “Abraham.” He answered, “Here I am.” (2) “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering (lit. trans. bring him up there as an offering) on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”
אָמַר רַבִּי אַחָא הִתְחִיל אַבְרָהָם תָּמֵהַּ, אֵין הַדְּבָרִים הַלָּלוּ אֶלָּא דְבָרִים שֶׁל תֵּמַהּ, אֶתְמוֹל אָמַרְתָּ (בראשית כא, יב): כִּי בְיִצְחָק יִקָּרֵא לְךָ זָרַע, חָזַרְתָּ וְאָמַרְתָּ (בראשית כב, ב): קַח נָא אֶת בִּנְךָ, וְעַכְשָׁיו אַתְּ אָמַר לִי (בראשית כב, יב): אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל הַנַּעַר, אֶתְמְהָא. אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אַבְרָהָם (תהלים פט, לה): לֹא אֲחַלֵּל בְּרִיתִי וּמוֹצָא שְׂפָתַי לֹא אֲשַׁנֶּה. כְּשֶׁאָמַרְתִּי לְךָ קַח נָא אֶת בִּנְךָ, לֹא אָמַרְתִּי שְׁחָטֵהוּ, אֶלָּא וְהַעֲלֵהוּ, לְשֵׁם חִבָּה אָמַרְתִּי לָךְ, אֲסִקְתֵּיהּ וְקִיַּמְתָּ דְּבָרַי, וְעַתָּה אַחֲתִינֵיהּ.
[נסח אחר: משלו משל למלך שאמר לאוהבו העלה את בנך על שלחני, הביאו אותו אוהבו וסכינו בידו, אמר המלך וכי העלהו לאכלו אמרתי לך, העלהו אמרתי לך מפני חבתו. הדא הוא דכתיב (ירמיה יט, ה): ולא עלתה על לבי, זה יצחק. ]
Rabbi Acha said, "Avraham started to wonder, 'These words are only words of wonder. Yesterday, you told me (Genesis 21:12), "Because in Itzchak will your seed be called." And [then] you went back and said, "Please take your son." And now You say to me, "Do not send your hand to the youth." It is a wonder!' The Holy Blessed One said, 'Avraham, "I will not profane My covenant and the utterances of My lips, I will not change" (Psalms 89:35) – When I said, "Please take your son," I did not say, "slaughter him," but rather, "and bring him up." For the sake of love did I say [it] to you: I said to you, "Bring him up," and you have fulfilled My words. And now, bring him down."
- Why does Abraham misunderstand God?
- Why is it important to our rabbis to say that God did not want Isaac to be sacrificed?
- Why does God ask Abraham to bring his son up the mountain?
Avraham’s all-consuming desire to do God’s will at the expense of the welfare of those he loves most (Sarah, Hagar, Yishmael, Yitzchak) points to areas for moral growth and development in all of us. When we see God as wholly other and divorced from the immediate world of our relationships with human beings, we fail to recognize the God within us and the divine spark within others. God becomes splintered and deformed, and our moral lives do as well.
—Rabbi Amy Scheinerman (b. 1957)
Mishkan HaNefesh: Rosh HaShanah: Machzor for the Days of Awe (p. 237). CCAR Press. Kindle Edition.
- When has the goal to live up to an ideal or to fulfill a dream created pain for you?
Every year our father Abraham would take his sons to Mount Moriah
The way I take my children to the Negev hills where I once had a war.
Abraham hiked around with his sons. “This is where I left
The servants behind, that’s where I tied the donkey to a tree
At the foot of the mountain, and here, right here, Isaac my son,
you asked:
Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt
offering?
Then, up a little further, you asked for the second time.”
When they reached the mountaintop, they rested a bit, ate and drank,
And he showed them the thicket where the ram was caught by its horns.
After Abraham died, Isaac started taking his sons to the same place.
“Here I lifted the wood, this is where I got out of breath,
here I asked, and my father answered: God will see to the lamb
for the offering. Over there, I already knew it was me.”
And when Isaac’s eyes were dim with age, his children
Led him to that same spot on Mount Moriah, and recounted for him
All that had come to pass, all that he might have forgotten.
- What is the touchstone, the memory, that you return to again and again? Why?