This parsha includes the famous account of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. This story has been a head-scratcher for all; for many, it becomes a springboard for reflection or a subject for synagogue sermons and blog posts. Here’s how it starts out:

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. (Genesis 22:1–3)

I have questions. At one point Abraham tells the young men who accompanied him: “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you” (verse 5). Did Abraham somehow expect that Isaac would not be sacrificed in the end? Or was it just something he said to cover his tracks, so to speak?

Did Abraham intuit that Isaac would not be sacrificed?

A bit later, Isaac asks why they had fire and wood, but no lamb for a burnt offering. Should we then assume that Abraham told Isaac as they started out that they were going to make a burnt offering, but provided no further information? In response to Isaac’s question, Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (verse 8). Did Abraham intuit that Isaac would not be sacrificed, or again, was this something he said to put Isaac at ease—planning to follow that up by killing his own son?

The narrative only tells us that “Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son” (verses 9–10). Not a word about whether Isaac resisted. Nothing about Isaac’s reaction. We only know that the angel of the Lord stopped Abraham and that God said:

“Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. (verses 12–13)

What a strange story! And those are just my questions. Rashi, the premier medieval sage, read the start of the passage, “After these things” (verse 1) as “after these words,” since the Hebrew word davar can be translated either way. This of course lead Rashi to the question: What words?

Following the Talmud, Rashi suggested one interpretation is that the words were the words of Satan, who challenged God as to Abraham’s willingness to make a great sacrifice. Alternately, the words could have been words exchanged between Isaac and Ishmael—Ishmael claiming that his circumcision was better than Isaac’s, and Isaac claiming that he would offer to God not just one member of his body but his entire body. That interpretation frames the Akedah as a result of Isaac’s initiative, or at least his foreknowledge of what was about to happen.¹

Either way, the point of the story is character: Abraham’s willingness to make a great sacrifice, and Isaac’s willingness to offer himself.

Fast-forward to the 20th century and an illustration I return to often: Marc Chagall’s painting of The Sacrifice of Isaac. (Google can find it easily enough for you). In this painting, we see Abraham in red, knife poised— ready to kill Isaac, the one in yellow, bound on the altar. In blue above them, the angel of the Lord is ready to stay Abraham’s hand. Behind a tree, we find the ram that Genesis tells us was substituted for Isaac; and behind the ram, Sarah nervously watches the scene, though she is not mentioned in the biblical account.

Then at the top is a very strange addition (especially if you are not acquainted with Chagall’s iconography). We have a scene of Jesus carrying the cross, with a flow of red paint seeming to connect Jesus and Abraham.

Chagall, be it noted, was not a believer in Jesus, but he used images of Jesus and his crucifixion to stand for Jewish martyrs and Jewish suffering. The connection here is even more startling than usual, because it connects Jesus not with martyrs who died in European pogroms, but with an ancient biblical story.

There is a verse in the New Testament—I do not know whether Chagall ever read it. It is fairly well known and reads: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

There is a midrash² that envisions Genesis 22:2 as a conversation between God and Abraham, to which we are only privy to hear one side. The midrash follows the order of the Hebrew phrases, which can differ from English translations:

God: Take your son.

Abraham: Which son? I have two.

God: Your only son.

Abraham: But Isaac is the only son of Sarah, and Ishmael is the only son of Hagar.

God: Whom you love.

Abraham: I love them both!

God: Isaac.

Back to John 3:16. God “gave his only Son.” Unlike this midrash, there is no doubt as to who is meant. Like Abraham à la Rashi, God in the New Testament is willing to offer his only son.

The New Testament son was willing to offer himself.

And similarly to the way Rashi described Isaac, the New Testament son was willing to offer himself. In Jesus’ own words:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. (John 10:17–18)

The Akedah, on the above interpretations, is about the character of Abraham and the character of Isaac. As Chagall’s painting leads us to connect the Akedah to Jesus in some way, we are reminded of another father and another son whose willingness, each in their own way, is said by the New Testament to lead to the redemption of the world.

What do you think the Akedah says?

Endnotes

1 See Michael A. Signer, “Rashi’s Reading of the Akedah,” Journal of Textual Reasoning 2, no.1 (June 2003): 48-57.

See also “A Random Walk With Rashi: The Akedah? It’s About Isaac,” TC Jewfolk, November 16, 2012.

2 “A Random Walk with Rashi” (see previous note).