The Akedah today

In times of existential struggle Israel should look to her unique inception as a covenant people, and find solace in the Akedah, as a defining moment in Jewish history.

“Take your son, your only son, whom you love and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on the mountain.”

Each test contains within it the sum of every previous test. In Isaac was contained the sum of Abraham’s hopes and dreams. When God called Abraham to venture beyond himself, to enter the crucible of doubt, he cannot go empty handed.

“Father the fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb?”

“God will provide the offering, my son.”

Abraham’s ascent envisages both escapes from his fallen nature and transcendence to life everlasting.  The one who was strong in faith staggered not at the promise of God. The immediacy of God and the promise of an eternal inheritance precipitated the surrender to a greater, loftier dream. Yet something must have enabled him to trust, and his can only be answered practically, by the personal example. The question, then, for Jews today, is whether anyone, or anything, is sufficiently trustworthy.

For Isaac, child of the promise, the answer was straightforward. For when you die for someone, you entrust yourself entirely to them. But can anyone or anything be worth dying for? What son will readily die for his father?

The marvel of the Aqidah was Isaac’s ability to face death, as opposed to being killed. Greater love has no man. What else have you got to give in the last resort, except yourself?

When desire is strong enough death has no hold. Isaac was the lamb led to the slaughter. To behold the death of one’s progeny is the supreme form of suffering. The call upon Abraham to sacrifice the answer to every previous prayer means the willingness to return all things to the giver of life. Understanding can only take us so far, and in that moment, knowledge is not enough.

Practice keeps memory alive. Abraham’s search culminates in Isaac upon the altar, and his unwavering trust is explained though captivation by a greater reality. The covenant takes Abraham to the brink of annihilation, shows him that to trust is to greet the one who lies beyond his earthly struggle.

“Now I know that you fear God, and I will surely bless you, because you have not withheld your only son.” The Torah speaks.

Power from on high is given in accordance with the measure of surrender. Only when he raised the knife to slay his son does the angelic host call out from heaven.

“You will be the father of many nations.”

From the personal to the universal, God anchors cosmic salvation to the promise of a son who is Abraham’s own flesh and blood. As it was in Gan Eden, the first conversation concerns family.

Through testing you are refined even as the dross is burned away. What is his testimony except to echo these words, and for Jews today, what is ‘everything’ except the sum of all previous journeys and memories of existence outside of God. TO echo the words “Lord, we have left everything and followed you.”