This biblical episode is especially difficult to explain to children, for it is impossible to justify a parent’s sacrifice of his or her child. When stripped of its biblical quaintness, it is a terrible story, and similar ones about a parent murdering a child provoke nothing but horror. The biblical account is generally viewed as a divine test of faith, which Abraham passes, as Job does. Adam and Eve, who are subjected to another such divine test, fail it and are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
One possibility is that this episode was originally a kind of boilerplate narrative, perhaps not Israelite in origin, about a human sacrifice to a god. The editors of Genesis, then, took this sacrifice narrative, inserted Abraham and Isaac, and instead of having the man slay his son, had an angel of the Lord stop him at the last moment, with an animal—the ram in the thicket—sacrificed in Isaac’s place. The precedent set is clear: from this time on there shall be no more human sacrifices, but they shall be replaced by animal sacrifices. This remained the precedent until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, after which even animal sacrifices were eliminated, since there was no remaining altar on which to perform the sacrifice.
Sources:
Genesis 22:1-19.
Studies:
The Last Trial by Shalom Spiegel.
The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son by Jon D. Levenson.
“The Return of a Myth in Genesis Rabbah on the Akeda” by M. R. Niehoff.
“Seeing with the Sages: Midrash as Visualization in the Legends of the Aqedah” by Marc Bregman in Agendas for the Study of Midrash in the Twenty-First Century.
436. HOW ABRAHAM RECOGNIZED MOUNT MORIAH
God told Abraham, “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” (Gen. 22:2). Abraham did find that mountain, as it is said, On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar (Gen. 22:4). But how did Abraham recognize Mount Moriah?
Some say that Abraham saw a cloud enveloping the mountain and knew that was the place where God wanted him to sacrifice his son. Abraham asked Isaac if he saw anything, and Isaac pointed to the cloud hovering above the mountain. But neither of the two young men who accompanied Abraham and Isaac to Mount Moriah saw anything at all.
Others say that Abraham said to God, “Master of the Universe, upon which mountain?” God replied, “You will see My glory waiting for you. That is how you will recognize the altar.” So it was that Abraham saw the place from afar. There he saw the glory of the Shekhinah standing on top of the mountain in the form of a pillar of fire reaching from earth to heaven. He asked Isaac if he saw anything and Isaac said, “Yes, I see a pillar of fire reaching into heaven.” When Isaac said this, Abraham knew that his son was acceptable as a burnt-offering.
Still others say that there was a light shining and a cloud clinging to the top of that mountain, and Abraham knew that was the Shekhinah and the place of the sacrifice.
Then there are those who say that when Abraham approached the mountain, the finger of God pointed it out to him.
Genesis 22:4 recounts that Abraham looked up, and saw the place from afar. However, just how Abraham was able to recognize Mount Moriah is not explained, thereby opening it to midrashic interpretation. The two primary explanations are that Abraham saw a cloud, or else he saw the Shekhinah—God’s Presence—above the mountain, which took the form of a pillar of fire. This pillar recalls, of course, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that led the Israelites in the wilderness. This interpretation derives from the word ha-Makom, meaning “the place,” which is also understood to be one of the names of God. Thus in seeing “the place,” Abraham saw God. Here the term Shekhinah carries its midrashic, pre-kabbalistic meaning, referring to God’s presence rather than God’s Bride.
Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 55:7, 56:2; Midrash Tanhuma, Va-Yera 46; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Va-Yera 22, 23; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31.
Studies:
“Seeing with the Sages: Midrash as Visualization in the Legends of the Aqedah” by Marc Bregman in Agendas for the Study of Midrash in the Twenty-First Century.
Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, pp. 13-51 by Elliot Wolfson.
437. THE SACRIFICE
Abraham and Sarah lived in the Land of Israel and their lives were good, but they didn’t have any children. One day Abraham prayed to God and said, “If You give me a son, I’ll give him to You as a sacrifice.”
At the age of one hundred, Abraham had a son and he named him Isaac. The boy grew and Abraham forgot his promise to God. After several years God came to Abraham in a dream and said, “Abraham, you promised that you would give Me your son as a sacrifice.”
In the morning, when Abraham awoke, he remembered the dream, and he said to Sarah, “I am going to take my son to study. Don’t worry about him. He will be with me.”
Abraham took Isaac and went to the forest. They were both silent. But when they arrived, Isaac said, “Father, why did you bring me here?” Abraham said, “My son, before you were born I had to make a vow that if I had a son, I would sacrifice him to God.” Isaac said, “Father, I am ready.” So Abraham tied the hands of Isaac behind his back and laid him on the wood, and he took the knife in his hand and put it on Isaac’s neck. At that instant Abraham heard the voice of God: “Abraham, Abraham, leave the child. I have already received the sacrifice you wanted to give Me. Look, there is a sheep. Sacrifice it to Me instead of your son.”
So Abraham untied his son, caught the sheep, and sacrificed it to God.
The oral retelling of the binding of Isaac from India makes some crucial changes from the biblical account. The most crucial is that in the oral version Abraham and God reach a bargain whereby God will give him a son, and Abraham will sacrifice the son to God. This is very different than the sudden demand by God in Genesis 22 that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Nevertheless, this oral version ends as does the biblical one, with God stopping the sacrifice at the last minute, and an animal being sacrificed instead of Isaac. It is possible that this oral retelling of Genesis 22 may be closer to the original oral version of the myth than that found in the Bible, as it follows a folk pattern in which a parent desperate for a child vows to give that child to the god who provides it. See, for example, the story of the birth of Samuel in 1 Samuel 1:1-28. Also, Hannah makes a similar bargain with the Jewish God in 1 Samuel 1:11. Another example, closer to the spirit of the present tale, is “The Black Hand” in Lilith’s Cave, pp. 197-198.
Sources:
IFA 9586, 12921.
438. SATAN AT MOUNT MORIAH
While Abraham and Isaac were traveling on the road to Mount Moriah, Satan appeared to Abraham in the guise of an old man and asked him where he was going. Abraham answered, “To pray.” The old man asked, “Why then are you carrying wood, fire, and a knife?” Abraham answered, “We may spend a day or two there, and we will kill an animal, cook and eat it.”
“Old man,” said Satan, “are you out of your mind? You are going to slay a son given to you at the age of one hundred! And tomorrow, when you do, He will tell you that you are a murderer, guilty of shedding your son’s blood.” Abraham said, “Still, I would obey Him.” And Abraham turned away from Satan.
Seeing that he could not sway Abraham, Satan appeared to Isaac in the guise of a young man and said, “Run now for your life. Your old father has lost his mind, and he is planning to sacrifice you. All those fine things your mother prepared for you are to be the inheritance of Ishmael.” But Isaac refused to pay heed to him and continued to travel with his father.
When Satan saw that Abraham and Isaac had spurned him, he turned himself into a great river lying across their path. Abraham strode into the water, which reached his knees. “Follow me,” he said. By the time they reached midstream, the water was up to their necks. At that moment Abraham called out to God, and God rebuked Satan, the river dr
ied up, and they stood on dry land.
This midrash makes the underlying assumption that God and Satan have made a wager concerning Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, much as they made a wager in the prologue to Job. God believes that Abraham will follow through on whatever He commands him to do, including the sacrifice of Isaac. Satan seeks to stop Abraham from going through with the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. First Satan takes the form of an old man, then a young man, then a river blocking their path. But all three attempts fail.
One way of looking at this midrash is that it permits the rabbis to express through the mouth of Satan their doubts about God’s command to Abraham. What Satan says to Abraham and Isaac makes good sense, and reflects rabbinic incredulity at God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Since these doubts cannot be expressed directly, they are expressed indirectly by putting them in the mouth of Satan.
These kinds of doubts are also found in some other midrashim, such as the blunt exchanges between Abraham and Isaac recounted in Ner ha-Hayim and Yalkut Shim’oni 1:101: “Isaac said to Abraham, ‘My father, what are you doing with me?’ Abraham answered, ‘I am going to carry out your Maker’s will.’ Isaac said, ‘What will you say to my poor old mother?’ He answered, ‘I will tell her that Isaac has been slaughtered.’ ‘You will kill her and be guilty of her death,’ said Isaac. ‘Instead, when you have burnt me, take my ashes to my mother, perhaps she would find consolation in them.’ ‘So it will be,’ said Abraham.”
Sources:
B. Sanhedrin 89b; Genesis Rabbah 56:4; Midrash va-Yosha; Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, Va-Yera 22; Pesikta Rabbati 40:67-69; IFA 10022.
Studies:
The Last Trial by Shalom Spiegel.
439. ISAAC SEES THE SHEKHINAH
Isaac asked his father, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering ?” Abraham answered, “You are the lamb for the burnt-offering.”
When Isaac was bound upon the fire, he saw the heavens open, and he saw the Shekhinah above him in heaven, ready to receive him. Then Isaac broke forth into song. What song did he sing? The song of sacrifice.
Here Isaac is willing to let himself be sacrificed, and when he is bound on the altar he has a vision of the Shekhinah and breaks into song. This grows out of the tradition that when the righteous see the Shekhinah, they break straightway into song.
For other versions of Isaac’s heavenly vision, see “Isaac’s Ascent,” p. 171.
Sources:
Sefer ha-Pardes; Midrash ha-Gadol, Bereshit 22:3.
440. GOD BINDS THE PRINCES OF THE HEATHENS
Even as Abraham bound his son Isaac below, so did God bind the princes of the heathens above and make them subservient to Israel. Yet they did not remain so bound, for Israel alienated themselves from God. God said, “Do you think that those fetters are forever? When Israel breaks its covenant with Me, their fetters are broken.”
Here God immediately rewards Israel when Abraham binds Isaac to the altar by binding the princes of the heathens—the angels who served as guardians to the heathen nations—thus making them subservient to Israel. But this fettering only lasts while Israel upholds its part of the covenant with God. When Israel fails to do so, God unfetters the princes, and the heathen nations take their revenge on Israel.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this myth is the parallelism between earth and heaven: just as Abraham binds his son, God binds the princes of the heathens. Other parallels between above and below are often found in the midrashic and kabbalistic texts, such as the parallels between the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem.
Sources:
Genesis Rabbah 56:5.
441. THE ANGEL WHO SAVED ISAAC
When Isaac was bound upon the altar, and Abraham’s arm was upraised, with the knife in his hand, God called upon the Angel of the Lord and said, “Tell him not to lay his hand on the lad, nor to do anything to him.” And the angel called to him from heaven, saying, “Abraham, Abraham, lay not your hand upon the lad.” Abraham was terrified when he heard the voice, and he put down the blade. Thus was Isaac spared and a ram that was caught in the thorns sacrificed in his place.
The Akedah, or binding of Isaac, was the subject of extensive midrashic revision. While this retelling of Genesis 22:10-12 does not stray far from the biblical text, it changes the perspective from Mount Moriah, where Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, to heaven, where God calls upon an angel to stop Abraham from slaying Isaac. In The Book of Jubilees, this change in perspective is even more striking because it is the angel himself who tells the story, speaking in the first person. This is an excellent example of the midrashic method, where details missing in the biblical text—specifically, God ordering the Angel of the Lord to stop Abraham—are inserted to resolve any problems in the text. For another midrashic version of the Akedah, see “Isaac’s Ascent,” p. 171.
Sources
The Book of Jubilees 18:8-12.
442. ISAAC’S VISION AT MOUNT MORIAH
When Abraham bound Isaac at Mount Moriah, Isaac’s eyes gazed at the heavenly angels. Thus Isaac saw the angels present there, but Abraham did not. As soon as the sword touched his neck, Isaac’s soul departed. But when the voice of the angel rang out, “Do not raise your hand against the boy” (Gen. 22:12), his soul returned to his body. Abraham loosened his bonds, and Isaac stood on his feet. Then Isaac knew that there is a resurrection of the dead, and he said, “Blessed are You, O God, who resurrects the dead.”
When Rebecca first saw Isaac, he was wrapped in a tallit, and his appearance was like an angel of God. Later, Isaac returned to Mount Moriah, and through his prayer he changed God’s decree that his wife be barren for twenty-two years. For when Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, Rebecca conceived.
After Abraham died, God appeared to Isaac and blessed him. Nor did God appear to Isaac with the Merkavah, the Divine Chariot, but instead the Shekhinah rested directly upon him. So too did God give Isaac a taste of the World to Come while he was still in this world, and as a result the Evil Inclination had no power over him.
Some of the most remarkable traditions concern Isaac. Very little is said about Isaac in the Torah. He is first encountered as a child (although later rabbinic tradition in Seder Olam Rabbah 1 and elsewhere claims he was 37 at the time of the Akedah), and later, as an old, blind man on his deathbed, so little of his life between youth and old age is known. This very absence of narrative produces some strange traditions, such as that which asserts that Isaac was slain by Abraham at Mount Moriah and his soul ascended into Paradise for three years before he was reborn. See “The Ascent of Isaac,” p. 171. This myth, which runs counter to the central thrust of the Akedah narrative, that Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac, seems to have strong Christian echoes, especially in the use of the number three, specifically the three days after his death when Jesus was said to be resurrected. From a Christian perspective, the binding of Isaac was identified as prefiguring the passion of Jesus. The verse God Himself will provide the sacrifice, my son (Gen. 22:8) is understood in Christianity to mean that God will provide Himself—the Christian notion that Jesus and God are one, and that in sacrificing Jesus, God was sacrificing Himself.
Sources:
B. Berakhot 1:6; B. Bava Metzia 87a; B. Bava Batra 17a; Genesis Rabbah 61:6; Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer 31; Midrash Tanhuma, 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.
443. SARAH’S TENT
While Sarah was alive, the cloud of the Shekhinah hovered at the entrance of her tent, the doors of the tent were wide open, her dough was blessed, and a light burned in her tent from one Sabbath eve to the next. When Sarah died, these all ceased. But although she had died, Sarah’s likeness did not leave her tent. Yet no one saw her
except for her son Isaac, for Abraham did not enter that room of the tent.
When Isaac brought Rebecca to the tent of Sarah, the light that had gone out at the time of Sarah’s death immediately shone again.
This myth emphasizes the holiness of Sarah, since the cloud of the Shekhinah hovered at her tent. After Sarah died, this cloud disappeared, along with a light that burned all week. Nevertheless, Sarah’s presence—like a ghost—remained, although only her son, Isaac, could see it. This seems like a mythic expression of a quite human experience, sensing the presence of one’s parents in their house long after they are gone. When Isaac married Rebecca, the light returned to the tent, meaning that Rebecca, like Sarah, was a holy person. Note, however, that there is no mention of the cloud of the Shekhinah returning, or that Rebecca’s dough was blessed. Thus Rebecca was holy, but not to the extent of Sarah. This last detail about the dough seems to confirm the adage that as far as a man is concerned, no one can cook as well as his mother.
Sources:
Targum Pseudo-Yonathan 24:67; Genesis Rabbah 60:16; Zohar 1:133a-b.
444. THE DEATH OF SARAH
Some say that Satan came to Sarah when Abraham and Isaac were on Mount Moriah, and showed her a vision of Abraham with his knife raised above Isaac. And when Sarah saw that terrible vision, she cried out and was choked and died of anguish.
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