From the Midrash on Vayera (archive)

The Moral Dilemma of the Akedah

There is perhaps no chapter in the Bible that presents greater philosophical and ethical difficulties than that of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, found in this week’s parasha (Genesis 22). Whatever position taken—ranging from humanistic rejection of the values it implies; to anthropological-historicist reduction of it as an “archaic” document reflecting the remnants of antique concepts of human sacrifice; to its theocentric celebration of it as showing man’s submission of his will to that of the Absolute; to the anti-rationalist existentialist interpretation of Soren Kierkegaard, who saw in it the “teleological suspension of the ethical,” in his famous phrase from Fear and Trembling, perhaps the first and most famous modern discourse in the Akedah—the concern is, first and foremost, with the ethical problematic raised. The modern sensibility seems to agree that this chapter is scandalous from the perspective of nay normal standards of ethics, and demands profound examination and interpretation.

But this is not necessarily the immediate association evoked in classical Jewish thought upon reading this chapter. The classical midrashim run a wide gamut: from exploration of the nature of the trial; to painting in sharp colors the harshness of Abraham’s dilemma, both his emotional reaction and the contradiction posed by this test to earlier promises; but only rarely directly challenging God’s justice in posing such a test. In the medieval world, as eloquently demonstrated by Shalom Spiegel in his study The Last Trial, medieval Jews themselves with the figure of Isaac. For many, the Akedah was a powerful metaphor for the martyrdom of the hundreds if not thousands who perished in Kiddush Hashem during the Crusades, in 1096 and on other occasions. Spiegel’s book culminates with a liturgical poem on the Akedah by Rabbi Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn, which includes the phrase: “You were bound once, but I was bound many times”—i.e., the Jewish people as the sacrificial victim.

This week, we shall attempt to examine some of the meanings of the Akedah in two midrashim which portray the dilemma in clear terms. First, Genesis Rabbah 55.4:

[1] “After these things” [Gen 22:1]—after thought about things that were there. Who thought? Abraham thought and said: I have rejoiced and caused rejoicing to all the others, but I have not put aside for the Holy One blessed be He even one bullock or one ram?! The Holy One blessed be He said to him: so that I may ask you to offer your son, and you will not refuse.

The phrase, “I have rejoiced and rejoiced others” refers to the feast made by Abraham when Isaac was weaned (Gen 21:8)—an occasion for celebration, evidently, because it marked the transition from babyhood to early childhood and the beginnings of the child’s life as an independent figure in the family circle and not merely an appendage to his mother—and thus, in later Rabbinic tradition, the earliest stage of education and training towards a life of mitzvot. In any event, Abraham expresses here his misgivings that he did not make a proper offering to God on that occasion.

The dilemma stems from the basis religious impulse toward sacrifice, to offer something of one’s own to God. Hesed, the impulse toward expansiveness and generosity, is here directed toward God. (Incidentally, this is a basic need fulfilled by the mitzvah, which provides a vehicle directing man’s inchoate energy of wishing to serve God.) But there is a paradox here: What happens if God asks for more than what one bargained on giving to Him? Deep down, the average person wants to show appreciation to God, to reciprocate in some small measure His infinite love, to acknowledge the gift of life itself—but to remain a human being, to go about in the world, to live his life, to enjoy the mundane pleasures, small and great, of earthly life. The Akedah represents, in principle, the idea of giving everything to God; of mesirat nefesh, of being prepared to lay down one’s very life, of there being nothing else but God (see the Kabbalistic interpretations of Shema, of Tahanun, etc.). Its spiritual logic may be impeccable, but it is certainly scary, taking one to a realm far beyond that at which human life is ordinarily lived.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz was wont to refer to the Akedah as paradigmatic of Judaism. He contrasted the Crucifixon with the Akedah: in the one God sacrifices Himself for man; in the other, man sacrifices that which is dearest to him for the sake of God. Leibowitz thus drew a sharp dichotomy between the theocentric and the anthropocentric moment. Torah and mitzvot are Avodat ha-Shem, Divine service; as such, they transcend reason, need not make any sense, nor express any of our own feelings emotions, but are purely God-focused.

[2] According to the view of R. Eleazar, who said: “and God” (veha-Elohim) refers to Him and his court. The ministering angels said: Abraham rejoiced and caused rejoicing to all the others, but he did not put aside for the Holy One blessed be He even one bullock or one ram?! The Holy One blessed be He said to them: So that I may ask him to offer his son, and he will not refuse.

The sequence of events described here is almost the same, with one “small” change. In the first case, the Akedah comes about as a kind of extension or expansion of Abraham’s own initiative; here, it is the angels who draw God’s attention to Abraham’s omission. This makes all the difference. Are the angels jealous of man? One is reminded of the opening scene in the Book of Job, where Satan comes up with his devilish scheme to test Job, destroying first his family, his property, and then subjecting him to painful physical suffering—and God acquiesces without protest. Or of the midrash of the jealousy of the angels, when Moses ascended to heaven to receive the Torah (see Shabbat 89a).

[3] Isaac and Ishmael were disputing with one another. This one said: I am more beloved than you, for I was circumcised at thirteen years; and the other said: I am more beloved than you, for I was circumcised at eight days. Ishmael said to him: I am more beloved than you. Why? Because I could have objected and did not object. At that moment Isaac said: Would that the Holy One blessed be He were to be revealed to me now and tell me to cut off one of my limbs, and I would not object. Immediately: “and God tested Abraham” [ibid.].

Here the focus moves from Abraham or the Celestial Court to Isaac and Ishmael. What at first seems a childish dispute, one more incident in what was doubtless endless squabbling between the siblings, perhaps of jealousy or rivalry for the affection of the parents, is quickly revealed as something deeper: as a contest for Divine favor. (Were this Midrash not ancient, no later than the 5^th century, one might suspect this passage of being a covert Jewish-Muslim polemic.) The comment I made earlier, about “getting more than he bargained for,” applies equally well here. Incidentally, it is ironic that this section ends with the verse saying that God tested Abraham when the test is no longer seen here as Abraham’s, but as the fruit of Isaac’s impulse.

[4] [An alternative version:] Ishmael said to him: I am more beloved than you, for I was circumcised at thirteen years, but you were circumcised in your infancy when you could not protest. Isaac said to him: All that you gave to the Holy One blessed be He was three drops of blood. But I am now thirty-seven years old, If the Holy One blessed be He were to ask me to be slaughtered, I would not object. The Holy One blessed be He said to him: This is the hour. Immediately: “and God tested Abraham” [ibid.].

Here, the impulse comes from Isaac himself, expressing his full willingness to be sacrificed. There is something almost masochistic here. The impulse is not simply one of showing ones gratitude to God, the putting aside of a token offering by the self-satisfied bourgeois baal bayit (householder), nor even longing for mystical knowledge of God, but the total self sacrifice of the God-intoxicated mystic, who disregards everything in the world. (This line of thought reminds me of friend, a deeply pious and somewhat unbalanced Hasid who, after a regimen of years of intense mystical prayer, routinely fasting most if not all of the day, died of anorexia.) The average reader will ask: Is this “healthy” or “normal”? But such definitions of health or normality are irrelevant and even meaningless when speaking of those who are totally consumed by such God-centered yearnings.

Let us now turn to another midrash, which to my mind addresses the “modern” questions in about the problematics of the Akedah more directly. Genesis Rabbah 56.4:

[1] “And Isaac said to Abraham his father…” (ibid., vv. 7-8). Samael came to Father Abraham and said to him: Grandfather! Grandfather! Have you lost your heart [i.e., your mind]? A son that was given to you at the age of one hundred years, you are going to slaughter? He said to him: Nevertheless so. He said to him: And if He tests you more than that, can you stand? “If one tests you with some thing, you will be exhausted” [Job 4:2; read here as “If one ventures a word with you will you be offended”]. He said to him: Nevertheless. He said to him: Tomorrow He will say to you: “You have shed blood! You are guilty of shedding your own son’s blood.” He said to him: Nevertheless so.

Samael is one of the names for Satan, the Tempter, the Arch Enemy of all that is good and holy. But while Satan or Samael was definitely part of the mythic world of Hazal, I wonder whether he may not serve here as a kind of personification or mouthpiece for the “heretical” thoughts of the Rabbis themselves, who were doubtless disturbed by many of the same problems regarding this chapter as are we moderns.

He puts forward three arguments: first, all the hopes that Abraham has pinned on Isaac, his son and heir, which will now be swept away as naught. Second, that the trials may in fact be never-ending (the use of the verse from Job, where trials seem to be an end in themselves, and Satan is constantly convincing God to “up the ante,” in what seems a concerted effort to break Job, is perhaps intended to allude to this). Third, “Tomorrow He will say to you: You have shed blood!” Suppose you’re found culpable of murder! The argument here is either that God will change his mind, completely nullifying his command retroactively and somehow holding Abraham guilty; or, what seems to me more likely, that perhaps Abraham was deluding himself, and the voice he heard was not that of God, but some kind of self-deception.

My friend Dr. Joshua Levinson, a Midrash expert, called my attention to the phrase al menat ken (here translated “Nevertheless so”), used repeatedly. He noted the usage of this phrase in Tosefta Sanhedrin, in the context of the formal warning given to a murderer, or one about to commit a capital crime, to which he answers al menat ken, to show that he is fully aware of the consequences of his action.

[2] Since he didn’t get anywhere with him, he went to his son Isaac. He said to him: Miserable child, he is going to slaughter you. He said to him: Nevertheless. He said to him: If so, all those beautiful garments that your mother made for you will be inherited by Ishmael, the hated one of your house. Do you not take this to heart?

Note the banality of Satan’s argument: what will happen to the clothes that your mother made for you? Of course, what he is invoking here are Isaac’s presumed feelings of rivalry, jealousy, even hatred. He starts with something that is seemingly petty, but Samael is really a shrewd psychologist: in general, one of the strongest forces in life are the hatreds, grudges, jealousies, etc. that people bear towards others for all kinds of reasons. While all this is highly negative and undesirable, and most all religious teachers, ethicists and psychologists would agree that it would be best if these could somehow be eliminated from life, and certainly not allowed to fester—in reality they are very powerful, and serve as a powerful driving force in all kinds of life situations, whether between individuals or between nations and even whole civilizations (the Twin Towers?).

[3] [He said to himself;] If the word is not accepted, perhaps half a word will be. This is what is written: “And Isaac said to Abraham his father, and said, ‘Father!’” Why did he say “his father ,” “Father” twice? So that he might be filled with compassion toward him. “And he said: behold, here is the fire and the knife.” He said to him: May He rebuke that man [i.e., Satan]. In any event, “God will show him the lamb, my son,” and if not “you are the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

“And the two of them walked together”—this one to bind, and that one to be bound; this one to slaughter, and that one to be slaughtered.

Finally, Samael decides to go for at least a partial success: if he can stop neither Abraham nor Isaac, perhaps he can somewhat upset the perfection of their intention in performing the act, by awakening ordinary paternal emotions of compassion, thereby “spoiling” what was intended by God to be a perfect, unblemished, supreme act of faith. But he fails in that too: between the lines, we are told that Abraham discloses to Isaac what is going to happen, and “the two of them walked together”—this time with perfect unity of purpose. (This verse, which is located in the exact middle of the narrative, is seen by Nehama Leibowitz and others as the dramatic climax of the story; hence its position at the center of a chaistic literary scheme.)

Joshua Levinson also noted that some manuscripts, brought in the Theodor-Albeck edition, add here a passage in which the Satan tells Abraham: “I heard from behind the veil [i.e., from Heaven] that you won’t have to slaughter him.” But Abraham disbelieves him, for “one does not listen to a joker [i.e., a known deceiver].“ In other words, Samael tries to demolish the seriousness of Abraham’s devotion by telling him that the whole thing is a kind of ”play-acting,” and not for real—but in this too he fails.