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The Akedah: The Binding of Isaac
(Delivered by Daniel Rotto, on Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 16, 1993, at Congregation Dor Hadash, San Diego)
In Genesis Chapter 17, we learn
that when Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90, God tells Abraham that not
only is his wife’s name to be changed from SARAI
to SARAH
Indeed
Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac; and I will
maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring to
come.
And then what do we learn in
Genesis 22? We read:
Take your son, your favored son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of
Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.
Who among us is not
stunned and mystified by how the compassionate God of the Bible can ask Abraham
to sacrifice his son - but is that what God is really asking Abraham to do - is
that what the Akedah story - the binding o£ Isaac is all about?
For
generations not only the Jewish theologians and lay people
alike have struggled with this chapter, but Christian and Moslem
theologians also have tried to fathom its intention..
In
the Torah published by the Union of Hebrew
Congregations, the comment is made that the text sets forth the main theme by
saying that God puts Abraham to the test, and goes on to say, but it does not
state precisely what He is testing him for.
Is it to test Abraham’s faith that God will not go back on His promise,
that somehow His design can be trusted – or is it to test Abraham’s
unquestioning obedience, his faithfulness rather than his faith, his total
submission to a mysterious divine will?
Is
the story to teach obedience to God? It
makes no difference what God commands. Is it that one must suspend one’s own
judgment and one’s own will before God’s?
Is it that the human being is not commanded by the Torah to be ethical;
but is commanded by the Torah to serve God?
The
Midrash reads the whole story of Abraham as a succession of ten severe
tests…but why must God test man? Does
he not know all; things?
Maimonides
answers that God tested Abraham precisely because he know that he would pass the
test. Abraham’s faith would shine
like a beacon and be a sign to the nations.
The emphasis is therefore not on Abraham’s ordeal but on his strength.
Dr.
Joseph Hertz, editor of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs, and former Chief Rabbi of
the British Empire says, "The purpose of the command was to apply a supreme
test to Abraham's faith, thus strengthening his faith by the heroic exercise of
it. He goes on to say that
"The proofs of a man's love of God are his willingness to serve Him with
all his heart, all his soul and all his might; as well as his readiness to
sacrifice unto God what is even dearer than life. It was a test safe only in a
Divine hand capable of intervening as He did intervene, and as it was His
purpose from the first to intervene, as soon as the spiritual end of the trial
was accomplished."
It has been said
that Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his most beloved son on the altar of his
God, evoked and developed a new ideal in Israel, the ideal of martyrdom. For in
all human history, there is not a single noble cause, movement or achievement
that did not call for sacrifice, yes, sacrifice of life itself.
Others have
held that the climax of the story teaches us that God forbids useless sacrifice
that does not bring us nearer to Him. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word for
sacrifice, korbon "it is that which brings us close to God"
Rabbi
Ben Zion Bokser formerly an associate professor of homiletics at the Jewish
Theological Seminary says, the Akedah story teaches that life is under a high
commitment, that its highest fulfillment is to surrender to God. Abraham was
ready to offer his beloved son as a sacrifice to God in response to the divine
summons.
Some say the Akedah story has
sometimes been misunderstood, because in the end Isaac was not really
sacrificed. The entire story is of
course presented as a test and its fulfillment. If the test had been fulfilled
in the willingness and after that the act itself was no longer of any
consequence.
Rabbi
Shlomo Riskin has pointed out on the other hand another tradition of how to read
the Akedah story. He pointed out that the Gerer Rebbe, in his book, the Sfat
Emet, Andre Neher, the great Jewish teacher in France, and Harold
Kushner, in our time, understand the story in a very different way.
They ask what if the test in the story was not to see if Abraham would
obey but to see if Abraham would protest? When God was about to destroy the
wicked city of Sodom, He first sent angels to inform Abraham of His
intention. And they expound further on this and perhaps He did that in order
that Abraham might protest and thereby set an example to all the future
generations that one should speak out for justice, even against God, if one
must. Abraham passed that
test at Sodom. He spoke up to God and said to God: ”Will the Judge of
the entire earth not do justice?"
Now
when it is his own son who is involved, why doesn't Abraham say that again?
Isn’t it strange that Abraham doesn’t protest the inhumanity of the
divine request that he sacrifice his son on the altar?
Perhaps
the Akedah was intended as a test, not of his self-denial and of his ability to
obey without question, but of his ability to protest.
Perhaps God was waiting for Abraham to refuse, and only when He saw that
Abraham was not going to refuse, did God intervene and save Isaac.
And
its been noted that if you look carefully in the Torah you will notice that up
until this event God speaks to Abraham many times but from this event on, God
never speaks to Abraham, again
It
is an angel who intervenes and saves the child, not God. From this moment on for
the rest of his life, God does not speak to Abraham. The Akedah is Abraham's
greatest moment - and yet only an angel speaks to him on this day, not God. God
cuts off communication with Abraham from then on because perhaps
he failed the test.
Rabbi
Jack Reimer has observed, that if we understand the story in this way, Abraham's
silence is not a sign of his courage and faith in God; it is a fault and a
shortcoming. He should have spoken up. He spoke up for Sodom; He should have
spoken up for his son too.
Here
then are two totally opposite understandings of the Akedah; one that sees the
silence and the obedience of Abraham as a virtue; the other which is the story
of a person who perhaps made a mistake, of a person who could have and should
have expressed compassion for a fellow human being's suffering - namely, that of
Now
as you reflect on the Akedah - the story of the binding of Isaac - reflect on
these two versions and you tell me which one carries the real meaning for you?