Covenant

The part of the Torah that tells the story of Avraham and Sarah is one of my favorites. It is intriguing and foundational.

The most intriguing and, at face value, perplexing, is, of course, the climax of this week’s Parsha, the Akeida, the binding of Isaac. Human sacrifice is the antithesis of everything we know about what God wants from us. “Do not murder” is one of the Ten Commandments. And yet God commands Avraham to offer Yitzchak as a human sacrifice.

The only way to understand it is as follows: Avraham had reached such profound clarity about life. He understood the harmony of the world, the meaning of life, he even grasped all the mitzvot intuitively. Everything fit. Was he following his own understanding of goodness, and God was just a part of it, or was he going beyond himself and serving God?

So God tests him: Do something you absolutely do not understand—offer your son to me as a sacrifice.

After Avraham proves he is willing to follow God, even when he could not see where the path leads, an angel calls out to him and tells him, “Now I see you are God fearing.”

Murder is wrong. But, obeying it because it’s the word of God is to fear God—to live not only with truth, but with relationship. Not just ethically—but in covenant. That is what it means to be a Jew.