This is an essay that I have written as part of my application to Rabbinical School (and that I will submit along with everything else on Monday). So if it reads like a college essay, now you know the reason. I hope that you enjoy it! :)
One of the most difficult portions of the Torah that I have found is the iconic story of the Binding of Issac, as found in Parsha Vayyera. Nearly anyone familiar with this single chapter comprising 24 verses, wherein Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his only son Issac, can tell the basics of the events and the message that is supposed to be derived from it. Stopped by an angel of the Lord at the very last moment, Abraham's unquestioning devotion to his duty is held as an example of the purist form of faith in both thought and act.
However, to me, these concepts have never settled well, and I have consistently found myself questioning the events surrounding this chapter in the greater context of the actions of Abraham up to this point. The language in this chapter, at least among the English translations that I have read, are very clear as to the chain of events. Abraham is told to do this thing, and almost immediately we are told that he sets out to do it. This is problematic to me when we consider the previous actions taken by our great Patriarch in this parsha alone: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael.
Again, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is one that need little retelling, as anyone familiar with the source material or current American politics knows of the basics. The relevant take away as it relates to Abraham is that he did not simply accept being told of divine cleansing of these peoples without thought or question. In fact, unwilling as he might have been to be even tangentially related to the total destruction of two cities through this knowledge, he actively and deliberately haggled with regards to the number of righteous individuals present in the cities order to save the entire lot of them. He argued down from the necessity to find fifty of these people to a mere five, though in the end even this greatly reduced number was not enough.
Later, when Issac was conceived and born of Sarah, the presence of Ishmael and Hagar caused tension enough that Abraham was called upon to cast them out by his wife. Abraham, obviously caught in a quandary because both boys were his biological sons, was told that if he cast out Ishmael and Hagar, that he would not need to worry for their safety or survival. It was the reassurance of divine intervention – and the later account in the chapter of it coming to pass – that convinced Abraham to follow through with his wife’s wishes. Again, this was not a situation wherein Abraham blindly followed what he was told; rather, he had to be given assurances that he would not be condemning his flesh and blood to die before he was comfortable with undertaking the action.
In the first example, Abraham advocates for tens of thousands of people – by way of the possibility of a relatively minimal number of righteous few – whom he does not know personally that they might be spared from a destruction that he is neither directly nor indirectly bringing to them. In the second, he is given assurances backed by divine promise that no harm would come to his son Ishmael, his own flesh and blood in order for him to follow through with his wife's wishes. So, when we come to the point where Abraham is directly commanded to sacrifice his only remaining son, his silence seems a little uncharacteristic to the man we have come to know. Abraham does not haggle, does not ask for assurance, does not require a reason, and does not even raise a single question. He just goes and does.
The commentary that I have read suggests that we are to look favorably upon this action for a number of reasons. In the commentary of the Soncino Press translation of the Pentatuch and Haftorahs, we are told that from the outset, Abraham would not be allowed to complete the sacrifice; that he was merely commanded to, “offer him up,” though Abraham was not aware of the nuance at the time.i That he did what he was told was an indication that Abraham had passed a test designed to illustrate that he was willing to do as commanded by divine imperative, “with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might.”ii An additional teaching given by this source is the rejection of child – and by extension human – sacrifice as a requirement of Abraham and later Jews as part of the faith. However, the emphasis upon both of these lessons is Abraham's unwavering devotion to undertaking the commandment that he is given.
It should be pointed out that the chain of events in this parsha, and the one before it, could be illustrative of a man who's faith and devotion is steadily increasing until it reaches this one pinnacle moment. Having seen the events unfold as they have, Abraham has reached a point of such high dedication that his unquestioning commitment to fulfilling the commandment as he believed it to be was absolute. In this context, we can see the journey of a man from doubter to the great patriarch that we know him to be.
On the other hand, I also like to see this story as a cautionary tale against the possibility of the transformation of faith as a positive trait into fanaticism of ideology. The sparse amount of dialogue attributed to Abraham before the act of sacrifice was to be carried out shows a man using very precise language to others – his servants and his own son – in order to keep the true nature of what he was about to do from people who had the opportunity to stop or even question him. Perhaps Abraham was so in danger of falling into a sort of fugue state and carrying out the act without any thought at all that we punctuate this by speaking, rather than chanting, the first utterance of his name in Genesis 22:11.
I sometimes think that the lesson here is that it was desirable for Abraham to have questioned the task that he was given. As a student of history and politics, there is much to be said about those who have fallen into an absolute blind devotion to a religion or ideology, and who think that their faith and duty are a substitute for considering the morality of what they are doing. Faith can be a very positive trait that can help give us the discipline to endure hardship for the greater good or comfort us during times of great distress. However, there is also a very fine line between this and using it consciously – or even more dangerously – unconsciously as a justification for what another tells you to do, no matter how bad it may be. We must never forget that our ability to question and analyze is one of the gifts of free will. While there is not always appropriate time or circumstances to do this, and as a former Marine I know this concept very well, those who would seek to take it away from us completely are usually people who do not have our best interests in mind.