Who’s afraid of child sacrifice?

Here in America, we live in a culture that has developed a persistent distrust of sacrificing for others. Unless it’s to help the “oppressed,” we are encouraged, almost relentlessly, to put ourselves first.

Yet, many of us suspect this focus on self has become a bit too consuming. Some might look to this week’s Torah portion, Vayera, to find balance. After all, here, Abraham famously proves his faith by being willing to sacrifice his son.

But I ask you to imagine Abraham standing there, knife in hand, Isaac bound before him. And then ask yourself: What could a story of near-child sacrifice possibly have to teach us today?

I believe it has so much to teach us, especially now. As American Jewish parents, we can find new meaning in the Binding of Isaac by drawing on insights from the convictions, choices, and commitments of Israeli Jews today.

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The one perfect and loving God chose to test Abraham’s faith, asking him for the ultimate sacrifice: his only son with Sarah. At a time when child sacrifice was common, Abraham obeyed. He brought Isaac to Mount Moriah, knife in hand, ready to act. God, saw Abraham’s faith, spared Isaac and marked this moment as a testament to Abraham’s righteousness and merit for future generations.

The questions are obvious: Why would God demand such a monstrous offering? Why would Abraham comply? How can so many retellings of this story overlook Isaac’s role? Why is this story upheld as the pinnacle of Jewish faith?

It’s no surprise that, in recent years, people have started to question how we valorize the Akedah without asking hard questions. See, for example, my friend Prof. Aaron Koller’s 2020 book Unbinding Isaac. He basically argues that the command to sacrifice Isaac comes from a lower level of prophesy than that of the command not to sacrifice him, and carries the implication that Abraham’s understanding of God was somehow flawed, or perhaps at least incomplete.

I, too, have struggled with the Binding of Isaac, but the philosophical questions trouble me less. My questions are grounded in Jewish history. For generations, Jewish parents have faced a different kind of “sacrifice” — not one commanded on an altar but one endured through the dangers of Jewish life. Across centuries — through inquisitions, pogroms, and genocide — parents came to accept a painful truth: that their children might suffer or even die simply because they were Jewish. Part of their endurance lay in turning to the Binding of Isaac — not philosophically, but from a lived perspective: they drew comfort and strength by seeing themselves as faithful heirs to Abraham.

This is why I have a hard time with new interpretations of the Akedah. They might resolve philosophical tensions, but they risk disregarding the meaning that sustained countless Jews through history’s darkest chapters. Sometimes, these interpretations even feel like a betrayal of their suffering.

My love for Jews across history makes me want to hold on to the Akedah story. At the exact time, it is that very historical legacy that causes me to want to run away from it.

I wrestle with the Akedah as a Jewish mother. Every time I read of historical persecution of Jews and think about what it meant to live them as a parent  I become afraid of this inheritance, of accepting the burden of the Akedah, the role of a mother bound to the fate of her child’s sacrifice.

In recent years I’ve read poetry by Israeli mothers for whom this is not theoretical. These women — who send their children to battle — confront the Akedah as an immediate, tangible reality. A powerful new wave of Israeli poetry gives voice to their plea, calling for an end to this never-ending Akedah. Raya Harnik’s haunting poem stands out. Written when her son was just six, she describes waiting endlessly for the day tragedy will take her son. She concludes her poem with a challenge to God: אֲנִי לֹא אַקְרִיב בְּכוֹרִי לְעוֹלָה, “I will not offer my eldest son as an offering,” alluding — and protesting — Abraham’s binding of Isaac. Her son Gony z”l was killed during his IDF service in Lebanon in 1982.

Israeli educator Netanel Ellinson argues that mothers’ fierce rejection of child sacrifice did not originate in modern Israeli poetry, but has roots in classical Jewish tradition. The sages portray Sarah as dying from anguish when she hears news of the Akedah (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 23:5), embodying the protective love and resistance Abraham did not show on Isaac’s behalf.

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In The Eighth Day, Micah Goodman explores Israel’s path forward in the aftermath of October 7. He contrasts the strengths and vulnerabilities of the West with those of Israel’s Middle Eastern context, suggesting that Israel should draw from the best of both. He observes astutely that one of the West’s weaknesses is its deep attachment to individualism, which sanctifies personal freedom to the extent that we sometimes lose sight of what societies need to survive: a willingness to sacrifice.

This idea brings new light to the Binding of Isaac. From my home in America, I look at Israel and see a society where, in many communities, parents raise their children with an awareness that they belong to something greater than themselves. Israeli parents don’t do this because they want to but because they know they have to. They are educating their children with a sacred understanding that there may come a time to serve and sacrifice for their people.

And their children are choosing to listen.

This is an Israeli reinterpretation of the Akedah — not Abraham with his arm raised and Isaac bound passively before him, but Abraham lovingly teaching Isaac to cherish his people and values so deeply that he might one day choose to become a “knight of faith” (as Kierkegaard famously described Abraham), willing to sacrifice for a higher cause. Many Israelis today look at the younger generation with awe, finding hope in their courage and their readiness to give so much for their people. The phrase לא נופלים מדור תש”ח, meaning “no less than the generation of 1948,” has become ubiquitous, honoring today’s youth as equal to those who heroically brought the state into existence.

I’ll be honest — I am terrified of finding myself in that position, but I am also envious. I look around here in America and wonder if we can cultivate this — raising children who would drop everything—their careers, their lives — to serve their people in times of need.

This Israeli remaking of the Binding of Isaac is a necessary reminder for us in the West. Here in America, it is easy to forget that some struggles are larger than ourselves and call on us to set aside comfort, demanding sacrifice beyond our own interests. It is time to revisit the lesson of Isaac, with humility and resolve, as we consider what it means to be part of our people’s larger story.