The Akeidah: Answering our Questions, or Questioning our Answers

Over the candlesticks and the kiddush cups, an unfinished artwork hangs in my parents’ dining room.

It’s a family heirloom, passed down from generation to generation, dating back to the late 1800s. It was made by my great, great grandfather, who was a tailor in Glasgow, Scotland. The artwork is simple: cardboard backing with wool thread sewn through the pattern, a stitch-by-number set that, apparently, was very popular at the time. We’ve seen copies of it in Jewish museums around the world.

The piece, in its central place in my parents home – what does it depict?

A man lifting a knife high in the air, poised to kill his beloved son!

It’s a depiction of the Akeidah—the Binding of Isaac.

I’ve often wondered: why that scene? Why not something else, like baby Moses in a basket? Or Jacob’s ladder? But no, it’s the Akeidah. The choice of this moment in our family’s heirloom certainly makes an impression.

The Akeidah always makes an impression. Every time I read it, I tremble.

As literature, it’s genius. It reads like Hemingway: terse, powerful, poignant, with the silences just as powerful as what is said. Every time I read it, it gives me chills.

I remember the first time I learned this story as a kid. Third grade. I can picture the room, the teacher, and the shock I felt hearing this story. And it comes each year, twice in close succession: on Rosh Hashanah and then again a few weeks later in Parashat Vayeira.

It also appears in our siddur, meant to perhaps be recited every single day.

Probably like many of you, I’ve wrestled with this story. What is it supposed to mean?

Over the years, I’ve come across different commentaries that help make sense of it. There are interpretations that resonate with me: like the idea that Isaac was never meant to be sacrificed.

Consider Genesis Rabbah 56:8:

א”ר אחא התחיל אברהם תמיה אין הדברים האלה דברים של תמה אתמול אמרת כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע חזרת ואמרת קח נא את בנך עכשוב את אמר לי אל תשלח ידך אל הנער אתמהא אמר לו הקדוש ברוך הו אברהם תהלים פי לא אחלל בריתי ומוצא שפתי לא אשנה כשאמרתי לך קח נא את בנך לא אמרתי שחטהו אלא והעלהו לשם חיבה אמרתי לך אסיקתיה וקיימת דברי ועתה אחתיניה.

Rabbi Acha said: Abraham was confused. “Yesterday you said (Gen 21:12), ‘For it is through Isaac that offspring shall be called for you.’ Then you went back and said, ‘Take your son…’ And now your angel says to me, ‘Do not lay your hand upon the lad’ – I am bewildered!” The Holy One, blessed be He, responded: “Abraham, ‘I will not violate my covenant or change what I have uttered’ (Pss 89:35). When I said to you ‘take your son,’ I never said to slaughter him. I merely said to ‘raise him up.’ I said this to you to demonstrate your belovedness (לשם חיבה), and you did my bidding. Now take him down.”

There are midrashim that suggest that Avraham protested silently, daring God to go through with it. There’s also Saadia Gaon, who wrote that Avraham had such trust in God that he believed God would never allow Isaac to die in order to fulfill His promises.

And then there’s the interpretation from our community member Marcia Markowitz. She described it as a love story—a love expressed by being willing to sacrifice everything for the other, and the other knowing that and not being willing to accept that sacrifice. God is saying, “I know you would do anything for me, and I actually don’t want that – because I love you. If this relationship were just about me, then yes, give me your son. But it’s about you too—and I know how much you love me, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself or your family because of your love for me.” I love this pshat.

But still, I’m not satisfied. Each commentary offers something wise and insightful, but no commentary has resolved all the questions the Akeidah invokes in me.

If Avraham knew it was a test, why did God do it? If God really didn’t want Isaac to be sacrificed, why did Avraham think that He did? Why did he raise the knife? Why didn’t Avraham challenge God, as he did with Sodom and Gomorrah? What kind of God would test someone like that? And what about the effect on Isaac? And Sarah? The next thing we hear after this story is that Sarah dies. Rashi says it was as a result of hearing the news that Avraham almost killed her only son.

I had a therapist in rabbinical school who once told me, “You want to tie everything into a bow. Everything that happens, you want to tie it up nicely, give it a clear meaning, and be done with it. But life doesn’t work that way.. Not everything can be tied up in a bow.”

But you cannot tie up the Akeidah with a nice little bow. You cannot answer all of the Akeidah’s questions.

And maybe that’s the point.

The Akeidah provokes us to ask some of the biggest questions:

Is there anything worth sacrificing everything for? When should we obey? When should we protest? How do we know what God wants from us? What do we do when religious commands seem to conflict with personal morality?

The Akeidah does not have THE answer to these questions. And don’t trust anyone who claims to have THE answers to these questions.

The Akeidah’s goal isn’t to answer all your questions but to question all your answers. Religious life often thrives on tension, mystery, and unresolved questions. Because the world, and God, is full of mystery, tension, and unresolved questions. This ambiguity fosters growth, humility, and the ongoing search for meaning.

In a world where easy answers are rare, wrestling with the story mirrors our own struggles to reconcile divine commandments, personal values, and communal expectations. Ambiguity fosters a deeper, ongoing dialogue with God and with the text. We are invited to continually revisit and reinterpret the story. Each reading is an opportunity to explore new dimensions of fear, love, and obedience in one’s relationship with God.

The Akeidah is a model for how to live with paradox—holding both faith and doubt, obedience and questioning, joy and fear in balance. The Akeidah teaches that religious life is not about resolving every tension but about finding the ram, finding our loved ones, finding God in the midst of the thicket.

So, the Akeidah hangs there in my parents’ dining room.

Unfinished. Loose threads.

One day my kids will notice it. And they’ll ask the same thing I did: “Why is that hanging in Saba and Safta’s dining room?”

And with that question, another thread will be woven into the tapestry.