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"Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac (Genesis 22:2)." God's test of Abraham began in this seemingly wordy sentence. Rashi explains this verse as a conversation with Abraham's responses redacted: God says, "Take your son," to which Abraham responded, "I have two sons." "Your only son." Abraham still will not budge, and says, "Each of my two sons is the only son of his mother." God clarifies further, "Whom you love." Abraham stubbornly remains unconvinced, "I love both." "Isaac."
Was Abraham sincere in his demand for specificity? Is it possible he did not automatically understand that God referred to Isaac, the son born to a hundred year old father and ninety year old mother? Did Abraham forget that Isaac was the promised child? Did he resent the son, for whose sake Abraham had to expel Yishmael and Hagar? Was he fighting with God for the sake of Yishmael? Did his devotion to Yishmael's place as a "son, an only son, whom he loved", contribute to his willingness to bind and offer Isaac on an Altar?
How exactly did this give and take play itself out? Did God say, "Take your son," only to be cut off by Abraham's response of, "I have two"? Would Abraham not wait until the instruction was complete, "and go for your benefit to the region of Moriah. Elevate him there as an offering on a mountain I will show you"? If Abraham was sufficiently respectful of God to allow Him to complete the instruction, his insistence on God specifying which son was a way of protecting Isaac.
The latter option would allow Abraham to share the instruction with Sarah: "I argued, my dear, but God insisted!" The former reading, Abraham interrupting God to protect Yishmael, excludes Sarah from the conversation. It is insulting to Sarah to have Yishmael so defended by Abraham. This reading goes beyond removing Sarah from the story; it implies that Abraham ignored her in his interactions with God! And it would not be the first time that Abraham seems to ignore Sarah.
The paragraph immediately preceding this terrifying story tells of the infamous Avimelech, King of Gerar, approaching Abraham, seeking a peace treaty. "Then Abraham complained to Avimelech about a well of water that Avimelech's servants had seized. But Avimelech said, 'I don't know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I heard about it only today' (21:25-26)."
Abraham wholeheartedly accepted Avimelech's denial, "So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Avimelech, and the two men made a treaty (Verse 27)." Did Abraham ignore what Avimelech did to Sarah? Did he forget his own words describing Avimelech, "There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife (20:11)?" How did he allow Avimelech and his commander of forces to even approach his home? Where was Sarah? Where was she in Abraham's mind?
In The Burden of Anger I suggested that Abraham was haunted by Sarah's anger, but now I wonder whether he was burdened by his own anger, so much so, that God had to demonstrate to Abraham how his anger was literally killing Isaac.
When Sarah insisted that Abraham expel Hagar and Yishmael, "The matter was very evil in the eyes of Abraham because it concerned his son (21:11)." "His son," the word that stimulated the strange conversation with which we began. "The Lord said to him, 'Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned' (Verse 12)." Words seemingly ignored by Abraham in his stubborn conversation with God.
No wonder Abraham bound his son upon the Altar; a child living with a father so angry is bound by the rage.
Abraham was stopped by an Angel, and, "Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son (22:13)." The ram, "caught by its horns," represents people who are caught up in a maelstrom of emotions and confusion. Abraham offered the ram as a statement he understood what he, caught up by the horns of his anger was willing to do to his son.
I always wondered whether Abraham untied Isaac and lifted him from the Altar before offering the ram. I think not! He wanted Isaac to understand his father's process. He wanted to acknowledge his anger to Isaac, who, although repeatedly described as Abraham's son, his only son (Verses 12 & 16), is never again described as "whom you love!"
I do not, I dare not, question Abraham's devotion to God. Abraham surely stood at the peak of holiness, for only the holiest of fires can burn and clean away the animalistic rage and confusion. I simply wonder what God wanted to demonstrate to Abraham about his potential for good and for the not so good. It is not unusual to watch a parent destroy a child in anger, often religiously self-righteous anger. It is not unusual to recognize a child tied up in a parent's rage, bonds far stronger and more dangerous than rope. It is never the child who should be sacrificed. It is the animal, those feelings caught up in the tentacles of rage and frustration we should burn upon the Altar.
The small flames of the Shabbat candles provide us with the necessary holy fire, which completes its destruction of negative emotions in the double flame of the Havdalah candle.
Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
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