The theme of Sarah’s beauty is expanded on in Genesis Rabbah 40:5 and in Targum Yonathan on Genesis 12:11. Here Sarah was said to have been so beautiful that the entire land of Egypt was irradiated with her beauty, for she was even more beautiful than Eve.
Sources:
Genesis Apocryphon.
430. ABRAHAM’S NAME
When Abraham was still known as Abram, he was a skilled astrologer, and he saw in the stars that neither he nor Sarah would beget a child. All the other astrologers confirmed that this was true. When God told Abraham that I will make you exceedingly fertile (Gen. 17:6), Abraham said, “I have read in the stars that it is not possible that I should beget.”
God replied, “What did the stars say to you? That Abram and Sarai will not beget? And you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham (Gen. 17:5), and as for your wife Sarai, you shall not call her Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah (Gen. 17:15). For while Abram and Sarai will not beget, Abraham and Sarah will be fruitful.”
When God changed Abraham’s name, he added a new letter to his name, the letter heh. Where did that letter come from? God took it from beneath the Throne of Glory and gave it as a crown to the soul of Abraham. And Abraham received that crown when God said the words, “And you shall no longer be called Abram” (Gen. 17:5). After that Abraham was a new person, for his soul had been infused with the crown of that letter, and that letter brought with it the breath of life.
And God said to Abraham: “Because of the letter that has been added to your name, the heavens will be in your control and all the stars and constellations that give forth light will be subjected to you.” Ever since, anyone who studies the Torah nullifies the power of the constellations over himself, as long as he studies it in order to fulfill its commandments. But those who do not study the Torah remain subject to the influences of the stars and constellations.
The tradition that Abraham was an astrologer was likely inspired by God’s promise to Abraham: “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He added, “So shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:1-5). Abraham’s role as an astrologer is also affirmed by the talmudic tradition that Abraham wore a glowing stone around his neck that he used as an astrolabe to study the stars. See “Abraham’s Glowing Stone,” p. 332.
The letter that Abraham receives as a crown to his soul functions much like an ibbur, the spirit of a departed sage that fuses with the soul of a living person. Here God gives Abraham the letter heh, taken from beneath the Throne of Glory, and fuses it with his soul, not only changing his name, but also his soul. Thus the change in his soul is a gift from God, which transforms him into the Patriarch Abraham.
Note the linkage of this myth to the nullification of the power of astrological forces over a person. This grows out of the tradition that when God gave the Torah to Israel, He removed control of the stars and constellations over them, since the Torah transcends the world. This demonstrates the rabbis’ recognition of the widespread belief in astrological forces and their concern that people would put their faith in these forces rather than in the Torah.
Sources:
B. Bava Batra 16b; Aggadat Bereshit p. 73; Zohar 3:216a, 3:216b; Midrash ha-Ne’elam, Zohar Hadash 24d-25a.
431. ISCAH THE SEER
Who was Iscah? Iscah was Sarah. And why was she called Iscah? Because she saw through the Holy Spirit.
The difficult genealogy of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 11:29 led to confusion as to the identity of Iscah. The resolution found in Targum Pseudo-Yonathan, the Talmud, and other rabbinic sources is that Sarah was Iscah, and that Iscah was a seer. This meaning is derived from the Aramaic root of Iscah, which denotes seeing. This led to the tradition that Sarah was a prophetess as great or greater than Abraham. The implication is that Iscah is a kind of alter ego for Sarah, and that when she turned to her prophetic side, she became Iscah.
Sources:
Targum Pseudo-Yonathan on Genesis 11:29; B. Megillah 14a; B. Sanhedrin 69b; Midrash Tehillim 118:11; Sefer ha-Yashar 12; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:151.
Studies:
“Sarah and Iscah: Method and Message in Midrashic Tradition” by Eliezer Segal.
432. ABRAHAM BARGAINS WITH GOD
Now the Lord had said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right, in order that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.” Then the Lord said, “The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave! I will go down to see whether they have acted altogether according to the outcry that has reached Me; if not, I will take note.”
The men went on from there to Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” And the Lord answered, “If I find within the city of Sodom fifty innocent ones, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham spoke up, saying, “Here I venture to speak to my Lord, I who am but dust and ashes: What if the fifty innocent should lack five? Will You destroy the whole city for want of the five?” And He answered, “I will not destroy if I find forty-five there.” But he spoke to Him again, and said, “What if forty should be found there?” And He answered, “I will not do it, for the sake of the forty.” And he said, “Let not my Lord be angry if I go on: What if thirty should be found there?” And He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” And he said, “I venture again to speak to my Lord: What if twenty should be found there?” And He answered, “I will not destroy, for the sake of the twenty.” And he said, “Let not my Lord be angry if I speak but this last time: What if ten should be found there?” And He answered, “I will not destroy, for the sake of the ten.”
When the Lord had finished speaking to Abraham, He departed; and Abraham returned to his place.
Bargaining is built into the fabric of the Near East, and here Abraham bargains with God over how many righteous people were needed to be living in Sodom and Gomorrah for God to spare the city. Abraham starts with 50 and bargains God down to ten. That God is willing to bargain with Abraham shows how important Abraham is to God, and goes a long way in the personification process that portrays God with humanlike qualities.
Biblical commentators often note that Abraham does not make the same effort to change God’s mind when God commands him to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him in Genesis 22. It does seem strange that Abraham intervenes for the strangers of Sodom and Gomorrah and not for his own son. This demonstrates that the characteristics of biblical figures are not always consistent, nor is that of God.
Sources:
Genesis 18:17-33.
Studies:
Arguing With God: A Jewish Tradition by Anson Laytner.
433. THE SOULS OF CONVERTS
Sarah was not barren. Although she had not given birth to a child, she had given birth to souls, as it is said, And the souls they had made in Haran (Gen. 12:5).
This myth is a rather strange commentary on Genesis 16:1, Sarah was barren. She had no children. The commonly understood meaning of the souls they had made is that it refers to converts to the one God of Judaism. In this interpretation, Abraham and Sarah were successful in gathering converts to worship the one God. Rashi explains that the souls they had made means they found converts and “brought them under the wings of the Shekhinah.” He explains that Abraham would convert the men and Sarah the women. This follows the literal meaning of the passage. The Zohar seek
s an explanation for the repetition, since stating that Sarah was barren already indicates that she had no children. The second statement is thus explained in terms of Genesis 12:6, the souls they had made in Haran, suggesting that Sarah did give birth, but to souls, not to children. Thus Sarah is portrayed in the Zohar as a goddesslike figure who gives birth not to human children, but to souls.
Zohar 1:79a explains that both Sarah and Abraham gave birth to the souls of converts while in Haran. Here the meaning of “made” is not quite as literal, as it is explained that Abraham converted the men and Sarah converted the women.
In Megaleh Amukot, Rabbi Nassan Nata Shapira agrees that both Abraham and Sarah gave birth to souls, and he identifies them as the souls of future converts. According to Rabbi Shapira, Isaac also begat souls of future converts, as did Rachel. For all the years she was childless, she gave birth to souls in heaven.
Strangest of all is the interpretation of Rabbi Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin, who interprets the souls that they had made as souls created from seed ejaculated during intercourse that did not conceive. He states that “These souls are the souls of converts, like the souls Abraham and Sarah created (Sihot Shedim 1 in Sifrei Rabbi Tzadok ha-Kohen). Seed “wasted through masturbation,” however, gives birth to evil spirits, demons, and liliyot, female demons of the night.
Rabbi Shlomo Rabinowitz of Radomsk suggests an alternate origin for the souls of converts, linking them to Adam’s sin: “When Adam sinned, many precious souls were captured by the Sitra Ahra. These are the souls of converts. Thus in converting these souls returned to their true destiny.” As to how Abraham and Sarah gave birth to these souls, Rabbi Rabinowitz quotes Rabbi Menahem Recanati, who said that when Tzaddikim discover new meaning of the Torah, they create souls in the higher world.
Sources:
Rashi on Genesis 12:5; Zohar 1:79a, 3:168a; Zohar Hadash, Balak 53; Megaleh Amukot on Genesis 30:23; Or ha-Hayim on Deuteronomy 21:10-11; Tiferet Shlomo on Genesis 12:5; Sihot Shedim 1 in Sifrei Rabbi Tzadok ha-Kohen.
434. GOD BEGAT ISAAC
One of the most sacred mysteries of the Torah concerns Isaac’s true father. Although Abraham rejoiced when he learned that he was to become a father, the truth is that it was the Lord who begat Isaac. For the Lord visited Sarah and did to her as He had spoken, and she conceived. That is why God said, “I gave him Isaac” (Josh. 24:3) and formed him in the womb of her who gave birth to him.” Nevertheless, Isaac resembled Abraham in every respect.
It is said that Sarah was accustomed to bring forth children for God alone, restoring with gratitude the first fruit of all the blessings she had received, since she was a virgin when God opened her womb. For it does not say that Sarah did not give birth at all, only that she did not bring forth for Abraham, for she told him, “The Lord has kept me from bearing” (Gen. 16:2).
So too is it said that Sarah herself was not born of a human mother, but that she was born of God, the Father and Cause of all things. Indeed, she transcended the entire world of bodily forms and exulted in the joy of God.
Others say that Sarah’s conception and the birth of Isaac took place on the same day, as it is said, Sarah conceived and bore a son (Gen. 21:2). For unlike others, the soul of Isaac was not conceived at one time and born at another. A heavenly light appeared at his birth, as happened with Noah.
So too was it God who named Isaac when He said, “But My covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.” (Gen. 17:21). For his name was ordained and written in the heavenly tablets. This was the only time that God named a child before he was born. Isaac was conceived on Rosh ha-Shanah, the New Year, and his birth book place on the first day of Passover. On the day of Isaac’s birth the sun shone with a splendor that had not been seen since the sin of Adam and Eve and will only be seen again in the World to Come. So too did all creation rejoice: the earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars. For had Isaac not been born, the world would have ceased to exist.
Here Philo brings yet another perspective to the story of Isaac by revealing “one of the most sacred mysteries”—that it was God, not Abraham, who begat Isaac. Philo’s belief in this strange interpretation of the conception of Isaac appears in at least six texts where Philo suggests that God was the true father of Isaac. Philo’s interpretation perhaps influenced Christianity. Just as Jesus was said to be the son of God, so too is Isaac identified as a son of God. How does Philo arrive at this explanation? He interprets Sarah’s comment that “God has caused me laughter” (Gen. 21:6) to mean that the Lord has begotten Isaac. He interprets “has caused” to mean “begotten,” and he substitutes Isaac for “laughter,” since “Isaac” means “laughter,” referring to Sarah’s laughter in Genesis 18:12, when the angel said that she would have a child even though Sarah was 90 years old.
Philo apparently wrote a now-lost text on Isaac, entitled De Isaaco. Goodenough speculates that “De Isaaco developed as its central theme the fact that Isaac was so completely at one with the power behind the cosmos that he typified joy” (By Light, Light p. 154).
The Christian parallel to this interpretation of Philo is obvious: God begat Isaac through Sarah just as God begat Jesus through Mary. Sarah herself is a kind of virgin in that she is childless. Did Philo mean to suggest a Jewish version of the myth of the birth of a Jewish savior? Not necessarily, in that Philo is quick to reduce the myth to allegory, by describing God as “perfect in nature, sowing and begetting happiness in the soul.” So too does Philo insist that Isaac was not born a man, but as a pure thought. As a result, some readers might consider Philo’s interpretation pure allegory, but Philo cannot escape the implications of his commentaries, making the mythic explanation of Isaac’s birth unavoidable.
In addition to the obvious Christian parallel, there are also parallels from Greek myth, where Zeus takes many mortals as lovers.
There are other instances of supernatural conception found in Jewish tradition. The verse in which Eve says, “I have received a man from God” (Gen. 4:1) is interpreted to mean not that God fathered Cain, but that the serpent begat Cain. See “How Cain Was Conceived,” p. 447. Also, there is the myth of the conception of Rabbi Ishmael, the High Priest, whose true father was said to be the angel Gabriel. See “How Rabbi Ishmael was Conceived,” p. 201.
Sources:
B. Berakhot 1:6; B. Bava Metzia 87a; B. Bava Batra 17a; Bereshit Rabbah 61:6; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Toledot 2; Midrash ha-Gadol on Genesis 17:22; Targum Yonathan on Genesis 22:10; Shoher Tov 90:18; The Book of Jubilees 16:3, 16:12; Philo, Legum Allegoriarum 3:218-19; Philo, De Somniis 2:10; Philo, De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia 1:7-9; Philo, De Cherubim 43-47; Philo, De Fuga et Inventione 166-168; Philo, De Ebrietate 56-62; Zohar 1:60a.
Studies:
By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism by Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, pp. 153-166.
2 Enoch in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James Charlesworth, p. 204, note 71c.
The Last Trial by Shalom Spiegel.
435. THE BINDING OF ISAAC
Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.” And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” So early next morning, Abraham saddled his ass and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.”
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. He himself took the firestone and the knife; and the two walked off together. Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but w
here is the sheep for the burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “God will see to the sheep for His burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.
They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then an angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” And he said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham named that site Adonai-yireh, whence the present saying, “On the mount of the Lord there is vision.”
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I swear, the Lord declares: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your favored one, I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.” Abraham then returned to his servants, and they departed together for Beersheva; and Abraham stayed in Beersheva.
The Binding of Isaac (Akedat Yitzhak) is one of the central episodes of the Bible. It is the subject of great debate and many midrashic versions exist. The most perplexing aspects of this narrative are God’s command that Abraham sacrifice Isaac and Abraham’s almost robotic willingness to fulfill it. Considerable tension exists between God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants will be like the stars of the sky, and God’s insistence that Abraham sacrifice the son through whom he expects that promise can be fulfilled (Gen. 17:19).
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