Avraham, Avraham

There is an old and well-known story of a father who takes his unsuspecting son on a long trek to an isolated mountain top where the father will bind up the son like an animal and then intend to slaughter and burn him. We call it “Akedat Yitzchak, The Binding of Isaac.”

This may be the most enigmatic of many episodes in the development of our people and in establishing the covenant between us and God. The cognitive dissonance between what we know to be right and what God demanded of Avraham as a “test” should make our heads hurt. And what should compound our confusion is Avraham’s compliance with the command to kill his son, not only willingly, but as we are emphatically taught, eagerly. Were this simply a fable spun from the menacing minds of the Brothers Grimm we might shift uncomfortably in our seats.  But it is a story from our Torah that we read daily and on Rosh HaShanah while sitting in our cushioned seats with barely a squirm. We have been conditioned to accept this conspiracy between God and Avraham to upend our core beliefs as people and as Jews. Brilliant rabbinic minds wrestled with this conundrum, contriving a thick tradition of inventive interpretations that have been handed down to us through the centuries, all designed to help us muddle through this deeply unnerving scenario.

One such interpretation is to teach us that as much as we love our children, it is God, not we, who “owns” them, and it is God who will decide their fate. Another common thread: We, like Avraham, are not to question God; we are to obey. Combining these two ideas, imagine your son learning this story and asking you, “Dad, if God commanded you to sacrifice me, would you do it?”

I would like to offer an additional understanding of this episode, one that coheres with Judaism’s intrinsic teachings on the sanctity of life, our undying love for our children, and also explains why the akeda has become the launching pad for our daily prayers and positioned as a focal point of the Torah reading on Rosh HaShanah.

The perspective I wish to share emerges from the second half of the story where Yitzchak is bound upon the altar and is only a moment away from becoming the first martyr who knowingly perishes in sanctification of God’s name. It was God who commanded Avraham to offer up his son. But in that instant as Avraham’s knife was about to plunge into Yitzchak’s flesh, the voice of an angel called for Avraham to stop, and he did.

If Avraham set out to do God’s will at God’s command from God’s voice, should it not have been God to countermand the order? Shouldn’t we expect Avraham to dismiss the angel by saying, “God commanded me. Only God has the power to stop me.” Yet the voice of an angel stopped him with the words, “Avraham, Avraham.”

What is the purpose of a test? It might be to discover what the learner knows and does not know. But another purpose – the purpose employed by God in this “test” of Avraham – is to present a difficult problem for the learner who, by unraveling the answer will discover something new – an idea, an approach, a truth – through the very process of encountering a seemingly impenetrable dilemma.

The dilemma here? Avraham was commanded by God to kill his son. Then he was commanded by an angel not to harm him. Whose voice will prevail?

Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov teaches that this double language, “Avraham, Avraham,” is calling out to Avraham and to us, “lo u’l’dorot” (Midrash Rabbah, Bereishit, Vayeira, 56:7). Clearly, the first calling, the one to Avraham, was to stop him from killing his son.  By hearing and heeding a godly voice—but not God’s voice—Avraham understood the lesson that God’s test was designed to teach him: “Avraham, there is evil in the world. When you have the opportunity to stop it, don’t wait for Me to tell you what to do. Stop it!” Avraham stopped.

But how does that same calling apply to us? Surely, we are not threatening the lives of our children.

We hear that modern day call each morning as we begin the Korbanot, Sacrifices section of our prayer. It would be reasonable to assume that we do this because, as an early example of a korban, the akeda acts as a gateway to this portion of our prayers. One could also acknowledge, I think in a more satisfying way, that a purpose of a korban is to bring us closer (karov) to God. We recall the akeda each day precisely because of how this story ends, with the angel calling out “Avraham, Avraham.” The godly mandate that was charged to Avraham in that moment and remains relevant to every generation since, is God’s demand that we take the lead in confronting evil. This is the paradigmatic behavior in which we – still today, even in the absence of korbanot – come closer to God.

As we celebrate the creation of humankind on Rosh Hashanah, we open our Torah to share the akeda story with the entire world. It is on this very day that the forebears of all humanity attained God-like awareness of good and evil in the Garden of Eden by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. We own that knowledge now and forever.

From Adam we inherited the power to discern good and evil. From Avraham we inherited the empowerment not to wait for God when we see evil, but to confront it. When we act as an extension of God’s will in this way, is this how we become more God-like?

No. This is how we become more human.