The Akedah and Its Meaning (Column 333)
On the eve of the second holiday I was asked to speak at a minyan in the parking lot of our building, and I thought that presenting those words here would be worthwhile, both in their own right and because they touch on several points I’ve dealt with in the past.
On both days of Rosh Hashanah we read in the Torah the passages of the Akedah. On the first day we read what Muslims call the “Binding of Ishmael,” and on the second day the Binding of Isaac. It seems that the coronation (hamlakhah) of the Holy One, blessed be He, on Rosh Hashanah requires some foundation of “binding.” I will try here to dwell a bit on that elusive foundation.
Kierkegaard on the Akedah
The Danish existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (see a bit about him in column 140) sees the Akedah and our forefather Abraham as among the most important foundations of his religious outlook. He wrote an entire book on the Akedah in which he explains this, known in Hebrew as Ḥayil Ve-Re‘adah (Fear and Trembling). Kierkegaard explains that a person’s progression toward a religious life proceeds in three stages: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious (and as an existentialist, he of course locates them in his personal biography as well). In the aesthetic stage a person goes with the flow and enjoys life (hedonism is an example of an aesthetic life, though not necessarily the only one). One lives according to what one’s nature dictates, and not by principles that seek to subject one’s life to them. After that one rises to the ethical stage, in which nature and the flowing life are subordinated to binding ethical principles. He presupposes—rightly, in my view—a Kantian morality of a heteronomous character. The third stage, the religious, is the highest. A person at this stage binds his desires and nature, and even his reason and his moral principles, before religious obligation (the will of God). Kierkegaard views a “religious” life in this sense as a lofty human (indeed super-human) peak to which everyone should aspire, but which only a few attain (in its fullness). The one and only person who reached it fully is our forefather Abraham at the Akedah. Not for nothing does Kierkegaard call him the “knight of faith,” the most refined and purified believer.
Kierkegaard explains that Abraham at the Akedah did not bind only his son Isaac on the altar. Together with him he bound his reason (for God had promised him that through Isaac he would have offspring, and now demands that he kill him) and certainly also bound his morality, and even his paternal feelings, which are the essence of positive natural life. This is the religious stage that demands the absolute binding of everything that is not it, positive and negative alike. The aesthetic and the ethical are bound roughly and mercilessly before religious commitment.
According to Kierkegaard, the main lesson of the Akedah is the religious exemplar Abraham gave us. The knight of faith gave us a pure model of living by religious obligation—one that demands a person bind everything he has, in fact himself, before religious duty. Here we can see the conception that sets “the religious” against “the human,” living in paradox. If an ordinary person is called to live by reason and morality, a religious person is required to live in paradox. Reason and morality are not bad things, of course; and yet we are required to bind them and live contrary to them by force of the religious command. In a certain sense, pure religiosity is conceived as opposed to reason and morality, or at least as something not subordinate or obligated to them. This is a prevalent Christian conception, and one of its most distilled expressions is Tertullian’s saying (?), Credo quia absurdum est, that is, “I believe because it is absurd.” Note well—not “despite it being absurd,” but “because it is absurd.” For him, faith must be bound up with absurdity; otherwise, religious life is merely the life of a rational person, and that’s all (cf. Pietism).
Pietism in Judaism
Tomer Persico drew an interesting comparison between this approach and the commitment to mitzvot in Judaism. Yet despite that, it is commonly thought that in Judaism this is not the central approach. It is hard to deny that pietism is not the mainstream stream in Jewish thought and religiosity. Even before Maimonides, who expressed this rather sharply, Judaism appears to be a more rational (or rationalist) religion than Christianity, despite the mystical and non-rational elements it contains (the mitzvot do not look like the embodiment of purely rational life, morality, and logic). Certainly in its mainstream there is no glorification of those non-rational elements, even though in recent generations this has entered Jewish thought with great force. I think this process gained strong momentum (even if it didn’t begin there) from Kabbalah through Hasidism, and continued in contemporary postmodern apologetic currents that try to sidestep critiques of faith by fleeing into subjective-mystical realms (and not coincidentally lean on Kabbalah and Hasidism). And here we arrive at Rav Kook.
As is well known, Rav Kook’s thought is open to various interpretations (there is no idea I have ever said or written that someone didn’t tell me is found in Rav Kook’s writings)[1]. It is therefore difficult to speak of Rav Kook’s “doctrine,” or of his mode of thought. We are dealing with eclectic writings, and it is doubtful whether at their foundation there is a systematic doctrine.[2] Someone once told me that Rav Kook had three central disciples, and each took his thought in a different direction. R. Harlap created a Haredi stream among Rav Kook’s students (many early Jerusalem Ḥaredim, such as R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and R. Elyashiv, belong there). R. Tzvi Yehuda, his son, fashioned from his thought a rather fanatical messianic-Zionist doctrine (which in recent years has been distilled into the “line” of R. Tau). And “the Nazir” turned Rav Kook’s thought into a philosophical system standing in relation to philosophical approaches circulating in the wider world (though here there is no defined beit midrash but rather a cluster of individuals). It is no wonder that the renewed Jewish irrationalism hangs upon Rav Kook’s thought, mixed with Hasidic-Kabbalistic elements.[3] I think it combines those three streams. Against this background, it is especially interesting to examine Rav Kook’s interpretation of the Akedah.
Rav Kook on the Akedah
It has already been noted that Rav Kook’s description of the Akedah (as with many rabbinic midrashim) parallels Kierkegaard’s description (I won’t enter here into the question of influence or its direction; that’s of no interest to me). He addresses the matter in his commentary on the Akedah in his siddur ‘Olat Re’iyah. Rav Kook goes with Kierkegaard the whole way in a very similar fashion, but there is a dramatic difference at the end that turns the bowl upside-down. He argues that the conclusion of the Akedah is not the obligation to bind and be bound before religious duty, but in a sense the exact opposite: “Do not stretch out your hand to the lad.” In his view, God wished to teach Abraham that true faith does not require a person to bind himself, his values, and his common sense and reason before religious duty. On the contrary: there should be an identity between all these and God’s demands. Seemingly this is the exact opposite of the lesson Kierkegaard learned from the Akedah. According to Rav Kook, the Akedah primarily came to take us out of Kierkegaard’s conception.
Combining the Two Conceptions: Binding or Willingness to Bind
Briefly, we can present it like this. Rav Kook argues that the lesson of the Akedah is that there cannot be a contradiction between God’s will and our reason, morality, and emotion. The religious does not contradict the ethical, and not even the aesthetic. Kierkegaard, by contrast, maintains that the lesson of the Akedah is that there is an inherent contradiction, and the religious person is required to bind the ethical—and certainly the aesthetic—on the religious altar. Yet both of them cannot ignore the facts described in Scripture. There we see, on the one hand, that there was a demand for binding, but on the other hand Abraham is ultimately commanded not to bind his son. On the face of it, both Rav Kook and Kierkegaard are right, but both are also wrong. The picture each describes is apparently only partial.
It seems to me we can integrate their two pictures with the biblical description as follows: what is required of the religious person is the willingness to bind his son and himself, but not necessarily binding in practice. That may in fact contradict God’s will. If we adopt this description, there is no impediment to saying that Kierkegaard would accept it as well, for he too agrees that in the final analysis God tells Abraham, “Do not stretch out your hand to the lad.”
Here I recall a difficulty I once heard regarding the midrashim and piyyutim that speak of “Isaac’s ashes” being piled upon the altar. The rhetoric is quite puzzling, for Isaac in the end was not bound. The ram was offered up in his stead. So whence Isaac’s ashes on the altar? According to my suggestion here, it is the willingness to bind that was constructed and expressed in the Akedah, and in that sense “Isaac’s ashes” are the willingness to bind him and not the result of his actual binding. Perhaps it is more correct to say that they are more Abraham’s ashes than Isaac’s.
This picture raises two difficulties: one theoretical and the other educational. The theoretical: what value is there in a willingness to bind if binding is not required? And the educational: even if theoretically there is value in the willingness to bind, how can one educate toward a willingness to bind if one knows in advance that no binding will be required? We shall address them now, one after the other.
The Theoretical Difficulty: What Is the Value of Willingness to Bind Without Binding?
One can certainly wonder what value there is in the willingness to bind if in the end no binding is required. Is this not needless vexation? We can understand this through the discussion about the value in processes, which I addressed in my article on Zeno’s arrow. The assumption underlying the difficulty is that a process is always instrumental, and the goal is the state to which the process leads. When I move to some place, my aim is to arrive there. The movement is a means to being in the intended place. When I renovate a house, that is a means to fashioning a complete, beautiful, or more sophisticated house. Yet in that article I argued that this is not necessarily the case. Sometimes a process has value in and of itself, and not merely as a means to the state to which it leads.
In column 32 I addressed this in the context of repentance. The Sages say that a ba‘al teshuvah is preferable to a perfectly righteous person, which is puzzling. A perfect penitent can at best become a perfect person—that is, a perfectly righteous person. How can he be preferable to a perfectly righteous one? It would seem that the point is that the process of repentance has value in and of itself, not only as a means to reaching a more complete spiritual state. Therefore, a penitent who has reached the level of a perfectly righteous person has two advantages: he traversed the path of repentance (he improved), and he is now in a complete spiritual state. He is therefore preferable to a perfectly righteous person who has only the latter advantage.
In light of this, it may be that the willingness to bind and sacrifice has value not only in the sense that it will cause me to act accordingly when necessary. The willingness to sacrifice is not merely a means so that I will behave correctly if I am required to sacrifice. The willingness to sacrifice has value in and of itself. One can see in it an expression of connection to God, but in that column I noted that improvement has intrinsic value as a complement to God. There I quoted Rav Kook regarding perfection and perfecting, and in column 170 I further discussed this in relation to “the secret that worship serves a need on high,” and I will not repeat myself here.
Accordingly, what is required of a person is the willingness to sacrifice, even though in practice he will never be required to sacrifice and bind. The willingness to bind oneself before God has value in and of itself. This resolves the theoretical difficulty of why willingness to sacrifice is required without the need for sacrifice itself. But here a knotty educational question arises: how can one educate a person to sacrifice when it will never be required of him? In particular, one who has learned the Akedah with Rav Kook’s commentary knows that in the end he will never be required to sacrifice. How, then, can he be educated toward the willingness to sacrifice? From his perspective, ultimately this is mere lip service.
The Educational Difficulty: Why Is the Thorny Path Required?
To understand this, I will begin with a question that follows from Rav Kook’s approach: if indeed in the end no actual binding is required, why did Abraham have to undergo all this trauma to reach the conclusion that none of it was necessary? Could this not have been said from the outset, and that would be that? It turns out that if one tells a person in advance that his values and reason always and necessarily align with the divine demands, this is a sure recipe for emptying his faith and religious commitment. Nothing is easier than to do and think whatever I want and hang it on God. For by definition, He does not want me to bind my reason and my morality—and not even my natural feelings (like a father’s love for his son). In short, the religious becomes the ethical and perhaps even the aesthetic. In this sense Rav Kook actually connects with Kierkegaard’s picture, for he emphasizes that something at the religious level indeed demands binding. Only that the binding is not required in practice, but rather a willingness to bind. Therefore, before we are taught that in fact there is no need to bind, it is very important to traverse the path that demands binding, and only at the end may a heavenly voice come forth and tell us: “Do not stretch out your hand to the lad.” This thorny path was meant to solve the educational difficulty I described.
It seems to me that in our world as well one can see a similar phenomenon. On the one hand, there are people (and your humble servant is often accused of this) who readily hang everything they themselves think on God. What seems to me rational and/or moral—that is God’s will. I can thus do what I think and what I want, and think what seems to me reasonable, and still call myself a servant of God. This is a tried-and-true recipe for walking a path that is not God’s will while spreading the illusion that it necessarily is. Do whatever you like, and in the end just say that this is God’s will (and quote Rav Kook). On the other hand, there are people whose starting assumption is that if something aligns with reason and morality, it cannot be God’s will—It’s too good to be Kosher.
What Rav Kook proposes is that indeed it is possible and fitting to live that way—but only after you have undergone a process of binding. After a person has shown that he is ready to bind his reason and morality before the divine command and will, then one can give him credit and allow him to conduct himself according to his natural and rational way. After he passes a trial and forging, his inner will is an authentic will and not a random impulse. Only an authentic will, according to Rav Kook, necessarily aligns with God’s will. The aim of the forging process (the Akedah) is to create and consolidate the authenticity of our will.
This has educational ramifications. When a child is raised with the policy that what he thinks and wants is necessarily God’s will, this is a tried-and-true recipe for non-commitment, cutting corners, and “lightness.” The person will grow up such that what he wants is God’s will; God thus takes no real part in his deliberations and serves merely as a fig leaf for ordinary aesthetic (and at best, ethical) life.
This complement to Rav Kook’s picture provides the solution to the educational question I raised above. Indeed, a person who already knows the final lesson of the Akedah—that is, one who has learned ‘Olat Re’iyah and knows the bottom line—can likely no longer be raised on a willingness to sacrifice. From his perspective, the game is rigged. Therefore it is very important to expose a person to this complex doctrine at a relatively late stage. At first one must raise him on willingness to sacrifice, and demand of him the sacrifice of his thoughts and desires to God’s will. At this stage there is certainly logic in presenting to him a “Kierkegaardian” religiosity, namely, a demanding religiosity that assumes the divine command owes nothing to my reason or to my moral values. But this is only an initial educational stage, and it presents only a partial picture of the world. After that, one must also teach the child ‘Olat Re’iyah and the verse “Do not stretch out your hand to the lad.” To raise a person whose religious outlook is “It’s too good to be Kosher” is a grave religious failure.
This, as I understand it, is Rav Kook’s proposal. But on this proposal, education necessarily involves holy lies or at least a partial presentation of the world. I described my view on holy lies in column 21 and elsewhere. Below I will propose an upgrade that obviates the element of falsehood in this path.
“Conqueror” and “Upright”
In chapter six of Shemonah Perakim, Maimonides discusses whether preferable is the person he calls “the superior,” who does good naturally, or the person who conquers his inclination—that is, one whose nature tries to draw him elsewhere, but he subjects himself to the principles of the good and the fitting. In Rav Kook’s terminology, this dilemma is formulated in several places (see e.g. ‘Ein Ayah, Berakhot 6:24) as a dilemma between the “upright” (yashar) and the “conqueror” (kovesh). In the end Maimonides concludes that in rational/moral commandments the “upright” is preferable, whereas in “heard” (i.e., purely revelatory) commandments the “conqueror” is preferable.
At first glance this dilemma mirrors ours. But that is not necessary. A person can be a “conqueror” on the ethical plane—i.e., be formed such that his natural tendency is to do harm (or not always to do good), but he conquers his inclination and subjects it to moral values. Such a person is not Kierkegaardian, for what dictates his path are moral values and not religious duties. He identifies the divine commands with moral values, yet he conquers his inclinations before them. One can also be “upright,” namely, formed such that one’s nature draws one to do good, while espousing a Kierkegaardian conception that demands subordinating the good to the divine command. Thus, apparently the two discussions are independent.
Even so, it is fairly clear there is a connection between them. For example, a person who holds Rav Kook’s conception—that is, who identifies halakhah (the divine command) with morality and reason—is more prone to fail in the non-commitment (“lightness”) described above. No wonder Rav Kook demands prior binding as a training path intended to consolidate authentic will, only after which one may act “naturally.”
Now I can present my proposal, according to which there is no need for holy lies even in the initial educational stage. I will illustrate and sharpen this through questions of halakhah and morality.
Applying This to Halakhah and Morality
Rav Kook is among those who identify these two categories. For him, no contradiction can exist between halakhah and morality; indeed the entire purpose of halakhah is to conduct oneself according to the perfect divine morality. It is no surprise that there are quite a few people who lean on him when they easily choose the moral course even when it appears to contradict halakhah. They are unwilling to perform an immoral act, yet do not see in that a religious problem.[4] In contrast, those who demand subordinating morality to halakhah will not fail in this way. But they will fail in the opposite way: acting in a manifestly immoral manner simply because halakhah seems to direct us thus. They will not always bother to check whether this is indeed the halakhic command, for in their view there is no connection between halakhah and morality—and perhaps the opposite: if this is ordinary natural morality, then what is religious/divine about it?[5]
In column 15 I proposed a third way (spelled out more in the beginning of the third book of the trilogy, and even more in the lecture series here): halakhah and morality are two independent categories that both derive from God’s will, and both are binding. I further argued there that, unlike halakhah, morality is not learned from the Torah but mainly from the conscience planted in us, and that there is no such thing as “Jewish morality,” etc. Morality is morality, for every person, Jew or gentile. I explained there the logic of this view and showed that it resolves most of the difficulties the other two paths fail to overcome. Here I will only note that this path parallels the conclusion of my analysis of the Akedah, and I will show its educational advantages.
Commitment to a divine command unrelated to morality is essentially the “conqueror”—that is, the willingness to bind reason and morality before God’s will. I am obligated to the commands of halakhah even if I do not understand their purpose and why it is correct and fitting to act thus. But alongside this, it is clear to me that God also wants us to conduct ourselves morally and act by moral values, and this, as noted, is implanted in us and in our natural feelings (the conscience). Such a structure creates conflicts, of course, but this is the meaning of walking a middle path. As I explained in the sources cited, in the proposed picture there is no priority to morality over halakhah or vice versa. Both have equal standing, and when there is a conflict, sometimes this prevails and sometimes that.
In light of the description I proposed above, one can say that a person committed to halakhah in this (Kierkegaardian) sense may also act according to his natural moral values, and the concern that he is hanging God’s will to realize his impulses is reduced (though it always exists—these are the “biases” of moralists). In the end there is here a combination of Kierkegaard’s and Rav Kook’s pictures: on the ethical plane Rav Kook is right, and on the religious plane Kierkegaard is right, and the synthesis of both brings us to a picture they share (willingness to bind and sacrifice together with following our natural values and insights).
Upgrading the Picture of the Akedah
This is the educational upgrade I mentioned above. Note that according to the picture described here there is no need for holy lies even at the initial educational stages. The child here is raised on intellectual and moral integrity—that is, on commitment to morality and reason as he himself understands them (without talk of “upper, divine, Jewish morality” that no one understands). But alongside this there is commitment to halakhah that is not grounded on the foundations of morality and reflects a different value system. And here there is commitment to a-moral and sometimes even anti-moral principles. The dual commitment to these two systems does combined work: there is in it a willingness to sacrifice without relinquishing what I myself believe. I present here an educational advantage of my theoretical conception of halakhah and morality—though of course adopting it rests on its theoretical advantages. This is merely an added bonus.
What About the Aesthetic?
The description above touches the seam between the ethical and the religious. What about the aesthetic plane? Do our natural desires also have standing? Is this too a normative category with independent standing? For Rav Kook, it seems clear that the answer is yes. He speaks at length in his commentary on the Akedah about the importance of natural feeling and simple human desires as expressing ethical principles. My humble self does not accept this. In my view, feeling has no normative standing; it does not express values but mainly juices (as opposed to intuition, which is a cognitive faculty).[6] Therefore, in my opinion our natural desires ought indeed to be bound before the ethical (morality) and also before the religious (halakhah).
Yet I will add one remark: before binding, one should check very carefully whether such binding is indeed required. Contrary to a conception that sees a built-in opposition between the planes, I believe there is no necessity that our natural desires be bad or that there is always a need to overcome them. Quite a few of our desires are entirely legitimate (even if they lack value in themselves), and there is no reason to suspect that everything pleasant and enjoyable is forbidden. Once again I reject the anti-principle that accompanies us along the way, namely: It’s too good to be Kosher.
[1] As well as R. Tzadok, the Maharal, and R. Naḥman.
[2] Well known are the Nazir’s words about the editing of Orot Ha-Kodesh (according to him, this was done after he asked Rav Kook whether his words constitute a systematic doctrine, and received an affirmative answer).
[3] A salient example is the thesis of the “unity of opposites,” discussed in my article on belief in logical contradictions. Its source is the Christian Nicholas of Cusa, but many attribute it to Rav Kook (see Meir Munitz’s article, and two notes in Benny Ish-Shalom’s book, Rav Kook – Between Rationalism and Mysticism, that attribute to Rav Kook Łukasiewicz’s three-valued logic. See note 5 in my article cited, and also a paragraph in chapter 2 of my article “What Is ‘Applicability’?”). This thesis is the bluntest manifestation of religious irrationalism, for it claims the possibility of believing logical contradictions. I assume I need not present my view on such a thesis (see, for example, the articles cited and also elsewhere on the site).
[4] I note that other disciples of his define the halakhic command as the ultimate morality, and therefore trample morality without batting an eye—but out of a feeling of absolute moral completeness. This approach approaches the opposite view that recognizes no morality other than halakhah.
[5] Similar to the approach Maimonides describes in Part III of the Guide of the Perplexed regarding ta‘amei ha-mitzvot (reasons for commandments): that they cannot have reasons, for if so—what is religious/divine about them?!
[6] Therefore, sometimes those who speak of the value of feelings mean intuitions, in which case there is no disagreement. But I have shown more than once that the disagreement is real, and there are situations and claims regarding which there is no agreement (attributing value to a state that is manifestly a feeling and not an intuition). For example, in my view a father’s love for his son has no value. By contrast, the value whereby a father sees himself as obligated to care for and provide for his son is of course important. See column 22, the series beginning with column 311, and also my article On Commandments of Emotion in Halakhah.
Discussion
Conflicts are a Torah unto themselves, and there are no criteria for them. But that is also true of a conflict between two religious values or two moral values. I elaborated on this in the above-mentioned sources.
Rav Kook’s proof is of course only valid according to his own view, which identifies halakhah with morality. I disagree.
I read the article. Excellent as usual. I would note that, in my opinion, nowadays the need for an “Akedah,” in practical day-to-day terms, is almost irrelevant, and everything is theoretical to begin with. After all, how many of us encounter in everyday reality a situation in which, for example, in the most banal way, we have to decide whether to save a dying gentile child on Shabbat, or whether to lower a heretical professor who incites and leads astray into a pit? The polemics that take place around the issue mainly concern the way our consciousness operates—that is, how theoretically willing we are, if necessary, to disregard moral values. In the most fundamentalist circles—and this is a very strong trend among certain kinds of Orthodox Jews today—the very sense of obligation or moral consciousness is a disgrace. For there is a certain latent assumption that the more something contradicts moral instinct or human reason, the more divine it is.
In my opinion, what you wrote about how, if one serves the Holy One, blessed be He, in a rational way—that is, out of a rational decision, simply following what we think—there is a danger that this indicates we are serving ourselves, and that one must undergo a process of refinement, is not correct in the case of Judaism. For the moment there are mitzvot and a concrete practical religious command that one fulfills, in any case there is acceptance of the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. That may perhaps be true of a light traditional-bourgeois lifestyle, where religiosity amounts to pleasant prayers and moving events (combined with a strong affection for ancestral tradition together with a very weak level of commitment). And this is true both of the type of “Israeli traditionalists” and of the bourgeois Christians in most of the wider world, as well as progressive religions where ethical rules are the entirety of the real religious acts and nothing more. In such a case there really is concern that a person is worshipping his own values and saying that the source of his authority comes from God (and even then it is not certain; it is quite possible that someone who studied Judaism all his life reached the conclusion—even if, in my opinion, it is very far-fetched—that the complete and supreme divine will is דווקא in the writings of Abraham Geiger). But in any case, in my opinion Leibowitz’s determination—that only religiosity expressed in practical mitzvot in daily life brings true acceptance of the Kingdom of Heaven—was and remains correct, in most cases.
The authors of the Bible aktualized ancient stories (as Bible commentators always do), stories that in their day were already hundreds of years old, and adapted them to their own time. The biblical writers explained reality with theological tools of reward and punishment and always placed the blame on Israel for the troubles that befell them. The story of the Akedah was needed in order to mark and promote the highest threshold of that belief in reward and punishment—a threshold that supposedly only one person in Israel met, namely Abraham. And behold, to this very day, now that we are already beyond one-fifth of the twenty-first century, that foolish belief remains, and of course it has again and again been aktualized. Until when, Michi, will the wicked (who go against morality because of words in a book) rejoice?
Can Rav Kook’s approach express the idea that there were two tests in the Akedah? Both the test of the binding itself and the test of not binding him in the end?
I think you merely translated my claim. In the essay I distinguished between moral acts and religious-halakhic acts.
There are people for whom not binding him is indeed a test. It seems to me that Rav Kook wrote this interpretation for them.
These remarks are illuminating.
And I would add that, along the lines of your answer, I resolved the contradiction between the baraita of R. Pinchas ben Yair and Mesillat Yesharim regarding abstinence as opposed to holiness. In abstinence there is a demand for… abstinence, whereas in holiness there is holiness expressed through matter, as on Shabbat or in eating a sacrifice. And I answered that these are two stages. A person must be prepared to abstain, and also to abstain in practice, but for a certain period. The ultimate goal is full holiness that is expressed also through matter. But in order that the holy person not be acting falsely, a glutton and drunkard under the guise of sanctifying matter and elevating sparks, there must first come the readiness for abstinence.
I would suggest a simple interpretation of the Akedah: Abraham understood that the Holy One, blessed be He, is omnipotent, and therefore there is no contradiction between the promise of the land to his seed and the command of the Akedah. Isaac would be bound, and afterwards the Holy One, blessed be He, would bring him back to life. This explains “and we will bow down and return to you.” Not in order to calm the servants, but because it was clear to him that they would return. You may say: if so, then what is the great test? Let’s see you bind your son out of faith that the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring him back to life! And apparently one also needs very deep conviction that the instruction really did come from God and not from delusions. That takes a great deal of faith. But this interpretation greatly empties out the need to grapple with the contradiction between a non-ethical command and obedience to a religious command.
According to what you say, there is no value-decision here at all, only an epistemological doubt about the certainty of the prophecy—whether it really is God speaking to him. For if God is speaking to him, and the explanation is very simple—that Isaac will rise from the dead—then this is not a test of decision but a scientific conjecture about what reality is and what God’s will is. And besides, if God is omnipotent, then what is the problem with Isaac being bound and dying and nevertheless Abraham having seed from him by way of a miracle? (And one could further say that God is omnipotent in such a way that there is no contradiction between the fact that there cannot be a contradiction in the promises and the fact that in practice there will be a contradiction—ve-dok.)
Hello, thank you for a very interesting article. In connection with this article and with the article in column 15, which I just read, I would be glad to hear an explanation of a verse I often wonder about—Abraham’s words in Genesis 20:11—“For I said, Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife…”
Perhaps. Though one could quibble about whether, when Isaac rises, he will be the same son who is Abraham’s seed. As is known, R. Elhanan Wasserman discusses Elijah’s wife—whether she is permitted to him after he returns to life—and likewise the Rishonim regarding someone who vowed not to enter his father’s house, and the house collapsed and was rebuilt.
I did not understand the question. Because there was no fear of God, he was afraid they would kill him.
With all due respect, who appointed you to write what “God’s will” is? That is exactly what you wrote!
This is not “peer-good,” where you know what is behind the curtain.
The question is what this says about universal morality. Is it conditional on fear of God?
Absolutely. See the Fourth Notebook (and in the first book, fourth conversation).
The hero of the Akedah is the thicket.
The matter of the Akedah is tangled—and keeps tangling up our lives everywhere, not only on Mount Moriah
With God’s help, 4 Tishrei 5781
Did Rav Kook say that there cannot be a contradiction between God’s will and “a person’s moral values,” or rather that there is no contradiction between God’s “religious” command and the moral values that God commanded man?
After all, not everything that a person thinks of as “moral values” is truly moral. The people of Sodom thought it moral to prevent helping “free-loading parasites,” and all the peoples of Canaan thought it moral that a king had the right to take by force any woman who was not another man’s wife; and sacrificing children to the gods was considered an exceptionally moral act, a supreme expression of gratitude to the idol.
Apparently not every social convention that a person grows up with, until it seems to him the summit of “natural morality,” is truly moral. Only after Abraham and his disciples subordinate themselves absolutely to God’s commandments can they learn from them which social conventions are moral and which are not.
Regards, Shatz
Paragraph 3, line 2
… subordinate themselves absolutely …
One should note that after the Akedah Abraham is told for the first time, “And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” For the first time it becomes clear to Abraham that his influence on the peoples of Canaan by ways of pleasantness and kindness will not suffice, and that there may be a need to inherit the land through war, in which one may, God forbid, also have to sacrifice one’s life, and in which, when necessary, one must also kill enemies. For this, complete trust in God, who commanded man to go out to this “obligatory war,” is required.
Regards, Shatz
In line 2
… for the first time it becomes clear to Abraham …
So there is no such thing as universal morality or natural conscience. There is only divine morality. And where is it learned from? From the Torah alone, beginning with God’s rebuke of the first murderer.
Kierkegaard’s ethical stage is a fiction.
?
And likewise, the Torah is not a second story built on top of some first story. It also constitutes the first one.
?
To P.S. – greetings,
A person has natural moral feelings, but sometimes they “go a bit out of tune,” and therefore the Torah’s critique is needed. The Torah also deepens the moral obligation. Natural morality may be satisfied with “live and let live,” whereas the Torah’s morality calls for “Love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord,” to look at the other through the loving gaze of his Creator.
Regards, Shatz
It seems a slight scribal error has occurred, and it should read: the Torah flattens the moral obligation and is suited to the savages who lived in its time; and over the generations people have pulled and bent it, each person according to his own era and his own taste.
“Love your neighbor as yourself” is the first story.
“Live and let live” doesn’t last a minute and a half.
To Yaakov – greetings,
It seems it should read: “And over the generations the Torah pulled humanity along and raised humanity’s moral bar” in certain respects, such as the vision of education for all, the rejection of slavery, a weekly day of rest, and the like. After all, they were raised for thousands of years on the Bible and learned something 🙂
However, there are things in which humanity is on a downward slope. See “Honor your father and your mother,” “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not covet,” “Do not go about as a talebearer among your people,” etc. Even in “Do not murder” humanity regressed until it reached twenty million dead in the First World War and sixty million dead in the Second World War.
But here the nadir of decline also marked the halting of the cycle of murder, for they developed weapons of mass destruction so lethal that they made war impossible. And still, the world supports terrorist organizations, or is indifferent to them.
In short: the world still has much to learn from the Torah’s morality.
With blessings for a good conclusion, Shatz
To P.S., I think what Rabbi Michi wanted to tell you is that morality depends on God, not on the Torah; and likewise, he was not speaking about its very existence but about the obligation to follow it. This is not an existential disagreement.
What is God without the Torah? Rather, the Torah itself is universal and inherently contains both levels.
Apparently I’ll have to read all of Rabbi Michi’s writings in order to understand anything.
Have a good day.
Not all my writings, but if one wants to understand my approach to morality and halakhah, one must read or listen about it. There is a series in the video lessons where I elaborate, and also at the beginning of the third book in the trilogy.
We, the “religious,” see the Akedah as the pinnacle of religious life, even if it contradicts today’s morality—obedience to the divine command despite its contradicting natural morality (which is apparently also divine…). Many attempts have been made to interpret it, and in your article you referred only to two: Kierkegaard (the gentile) and Rav Kook. What is surprising is that in your article you departed from the realm of halakhah and wrote about a “story” from the Torah, which to the best of my understanding, according to your approach (as I understood from the trilogy), is less important and not binding. In addition, it seems to me (perhaps mistakenly) that as an avowed rationalist, I am not sure this is indeed your opinion. Do you agree with the sentence: “After a person has shown that he is willing to bind his reason and his morality before the divine command and will, then one can give him credit and allow him to conduct himself according to his natural and rational way” (!) or, in relation to morality and halakhah: “The double commitment to these two systems does combined work: it includes a readiness to sacrifice without giving up what I myself believe in.” Is that possible?
How does the Holy One, blessed be He, command an act that is blatantly immoral? Many answer that in its time, at the giving of the Torah, this was the norm, the morality of the time (human sacrifice, etc. etc.), but afterwards man and his morality changed. In your books you called this “a change in God’s policy.” Others answer this according to the “approach of changes”; there are still other possibilities. But in my humble opinion this is not an adequate answer for a modern person. Must there really be a contradiction between religion and reason? To the best of my understanding, you do not accept this view.
Of course, interpretation and tradition proceed from the point of departure—namely, the interpretation of the Torah passage—that Abraham withstood the terrible and awe-inspiring test. In our prayers on the High Holy Days, and every day, we mention the event and ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to remember the “merits of the fathers.”
I would like to suggest a different interpretation, one that accords with both divine and human morality: the test with which the Holy One, blessed be He, tested Abraham was indeed whether he would sacrifice his son. The Holy One, blessed be He, expected Abraham not to sacrifice his son, from a moral and human standpoint, just as Abraham himself expressed with regard to the overturning of Sodom. That is, Abraham did not pass the test with which God tested him! We do not find in the Torah that as a result of the “test” Abraham’s stature was elevated. After the Akedah, the Holy One, blessed be He, no longer spoke with him. And the reaction to the Akedah was voiced by the angel, not by the Holy One, blessed be He Himself: “For now I know that you fear God.” In Scripture we find the title “God-fearing” applied to other people as well: Joseph testifies about himself that he fears God; so too the prophet Jonah, Nehemiah, and others. By contrast, who “did not fear God”? Amalek, the Egyptians, and others. In all these cases “fear of God” serves as a reason for not acting, for refraining from doing wrong or an evil deed.
This is not the place to elaborate….
A good year and good health
May you be sealed for good
In greater detail:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kwdud4y0dzk4c90/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D%20%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%93%20%D7%90%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%94%D7%9D%20%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F.pdf?dl=0
With God’s help, 5 Tishrei 5781
It is interesting that the path of all the patriarchs begins with a break from their father’s house. Abraham begins his way by leaving his homeland and his father’s house, never to return; Jacob leaves his father’s house for Haran without knowing when he will return; even Joseph is sold to Egypt with no natural chance of returning. Each one begins a new path without the support of the father’s house, “far from mother’s apron strings.”
So too Isaac’s life as “the son of” ends when his father is commanded to offer him up as a burnt offering. From this point he is recreated as an “olah,” wholly dedicated to God. From now on his life will be holy to God like a priest who is commanded, “He shall not go out of the sanctuary”; and unlike his father, his son, and his grandsons—Isaac will not leave the Land of Israel, to which he is bound and tied with an unbreakable bond.
Isaac’s unique connection to the holy land is also expressed in the fact that he is the only one of the patriarchs who engages vigorously in agriculture. He will find his wife when he goes out to meditate in the field—to plant shrubs and trees, according to Rashbam’s interpretation. And even in Gerar during the famine years, Isaac succeeds in sowing and finding “a hundredfold” in his labor; and for his son too Isaac designates the role of working the soil: “And God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.”
Like all the patriarchs, Isaac opens a new and different page: Abraham will be “the father of a multitude of nations,” Jacob will be father to his many sons, Joseph “a father to Pharaoh,” and Isaac is distinguished from them all by his complete attachment to the soil of the land.
Regards, Shatz
According to my suggestion, the pilpul is unnecessary. From Abraham’s perspective (“and we will return to you”), the Isaac who returns after the Akedah is the same Isaac through whom his seed will be called. If afterward halakhah determines that Elijah’s wife is permitted, that has no bearing on Abraham’s case. He is certain there is no conflict between ethics and the Akedah. But as I wrote, it is nevertheless a very great test.
It may be that when Abraham says to his servants, “and we will return to you,” he assumes and hopes that this is only a test. After all, Abraham had gone through several trials in which he entered great danger and was ultimately saved—for example, in the war with the four kings and in Sarah’s being taken by Pharaoh and later by Abimelech—so he has grounds to think that here too this is a test whose end will be rescue.
On the other hand, the doubt still gnaws—perhaps this time it is “for real,” especially since here he receives an explicit divine command to offer his son as a burnt offering, and a divine command is not supposed to be revoked. This doubt intensifies the inner turmoil on the way to the Akedah.
Regards, Shatz
And in fact one could say that there was no change in the divine command to offer his son as a burnt offering, but rather a renewed understanding of the meaning of the concept olah. An olah from the animal kingdom is indeed intended to be slaughtered and wholly consumed by fire on the altar, but an olah from a human being rises in the spiritual sense, becoming consecrated as most holy to a life of devotion and cleaving, ascending and being elevated spiritually to a lofty life.
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… so that he has grounds to think that here too …
I do not know the collective in whose name you are speaking. I too belong to the religious, and I really do not see it as you do.
The fact that Kierkegaard was a gentile does not seem relevant to the discussion. Or perhaps you religious people use ad hominem in place of arguments?!
My remarks are not based on an interpretation of the Akedah. I use the Akedah to explain an idea. Exactly what everyone does when they “study” Tanakh.
I have explained in several places how the Holy One, blessed be He, can command something blatantly immoral. I referred to several such places, and I see no point in repeating it here.
The interpretation you proposed (that Abraham failed) already appears in several Spanish commentators (Ravitzky mentions them in his article). But you yourself said that the Torah testifies otherwise. We religious people believe the Torah, and it tells us that Abraham succeeded in the Akedah and did not fail. But perhaps your religious people think otherwise?… Apparently they are not accustomed to learning from Tanakh—not like my religious people.
Rabbi Michi, the path you presented at the end, according to which at times the plane of halakhah prevails, is somewhat forced. Because in the passage of the Akedah we learn that morality prevails. In practice, the concluding seal is “Do not raise your hand against the boy.”
To Reuven – greetings,
From Reuven’s words to Jacob, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you,” it seems that the morality current in those days gave a father authority even over the lives of his sons. The statement “Do not raise your hand against the boy” was the voice of “halakhah” that “bent” the accepted “morality.”
Regards, Shatz
Not at all. Were it not for the final command, Abraham would have had to bind his son. Once the cancelling command was given, halakhah and morality coincided.
In line 1
… that the morality current in those days …
I did not say “that the Torah testifies otherwise.” That is the traditional and accepted interpretation. My proposal is to understand it differently. The “reward” Abraham received for his heroic endurance in the trial is not all that great …
To Zvi – greetings,
Indeed, the “reward” Abraham received for enduring the trial is not great, just this much:
“That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Very little 🙂
Regards, Shatz
He received this reward before the Akedah…
May you be sealed for good.
With God’s help, 6 Tishrei 5781
To Z.G. – greetings,
Following the Akedah, several significant new elements were introduced into God’s promises to Abraham:
A. For the first time, God’s promise to Abraham is strengthened by an oath: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord.” Unlike a covenant, which is bilateral, and whose violation by one side can exempt the “other side” from commitment, an oath is a unilateral and absolute commitment.
B. As I mentioned in my response above, “The Akedah as basic training,” after the Akedah there was also added the promise, “And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies,” which had not been said previously. Now it becomes clear to Abraham that there will be situations in which his seed will have to fight its enemies, take its land, and impose its faith on the world by force and a strong hand.
D. To the dimension of power added to Abraham’s seed as a result of his courageous endurance in the trial of the Akedah, there is also added the image of “the sand that is on the seashore.” From now on Abraham’s seed will be not only “as the stars of heaven,” shining from on high and from afar—now there is added also the image “as the sand that is on the seashore.” The sand is the barrier that halts the surging flood of the sea and prevents it from inundating the land, as it is written, “who set the sand as a boundary to the sea, saying: thus far you shall come.” Thus the people of Israel, in their might, are the barrier protecting the world from being flooded by evil and idolatry, and all the tempests of the sea crash against the barrier of sand.
D. And despite the need for the people of Israel to stand firm and even fight against “the whole world and his wife” for its path—there will be fulfilled in Abraham’s seed, “And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” It is Israel’s courageous standing against the entire world, with absolute refusal to lose its path and identity, that will bring blessing to all humanity, which “at the end of the day” will recognize the justice of Israel’s way and be blessed through it.
In short:
The Akedah revealed and intensified the capacity of “Abraham’s seed” to stand courageously against all nations stronger than it, to struggle self-sacrificially against all humanity, and through this stubborn steadfastness to bring blessing to all humanity. The people’s faithfulness to its God, like God’s faithfulness to His people, is complete faithfulness, without conditions or reservations.
With blessings for a good final sealing, Shatz
Sections B–E are a summary of the Torah thought I delivered at the engagement of my daughter Shulamit-Berakhah to Captain (now Major) Yair Zand 0=sand9, on Saturday night, Parashat Vayera 5777.
Paragraph 4, line 1
C. To the dimension of power…
There, lines 5–6
… as it is written: “who set the sand as a boundary to the sea, an everlasting decree, and it cannot pass it; though its waves toss themselves, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass it” (Jeremiah 5:22). And thus the people of Israel…
Note::
The setting of a boundary for the sea that does not permit it to overstep it is also mentioned in Job: “And I broke for it My decree and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far you shall come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed” (38:10–11). And as we saw in Jeremiah, the grains of sand, small and poor, that every ordinary wind moves about—they are precisely what creates the “doors and bars” that block the pride of the sea’s waves.
Thank you very much for your response and for the distinctions, innovations, and the four additions in the blessings that were said to Abraham after the Akedah. Much appreciation.
In connection with our topic, the question is whether these additions are an addition to the blessings Abraham had already received before the Akedah. Are they highly significant? Do these rewards “fit” the magnitude of Abraham’s deed?
A. Regarding the change in the wording of the promise from “covenant” to “oath”: indeed, this is a change of “halakhic” significance—you are a clearly halakhic person—but is it significant in relation to the “event of the Akedah”? Does a human being discern the Holy One’s nuances? As far as he is concerned, God’s promise is a promise, just as Balaam already told us: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said and will He not do it? Or spoken and will He not fulfill it?”
B. “And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies”: the land had already been promised to Abraham several times before that. In the covenant between the pieces (15:18): “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates,” and afterwards there is a specification of the peoples living there. Must we understand from this that the land would be given on a silver platter, without war? If we adopt this approach, then the promise of war over the land is not an “improvement” but rather a “downgrading” of the earlier promise.
C. “As the sand on the seashore”: Abraham had already been promised, “And I will make your seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can count the dust of the earth, then your seed also shall be counted.” The distinction you made between them is very יפה, but it is only derash. The verse says explicitly: “That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” The sand and the stars refer to “I will multiply your seed,” like the symbol of “dust” earlier.
D. Blessing to humanity: Abraham had already been blessed in the past: “… and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
To clarify: my entire intention is to say, following the interpretation I proposed, that the Torah’s reaction to the Akedah does not match the magnitude of the terrible event. It is more like a father’s reaction to an act of his son who did not succeed especially well, and clearly did not excel.
Again, thank you very much for the article and the responses. By the way, I thereby also merited to receive a “midrashic” interpretation.
Shabbat shalom and may you be sealed for good
With God’s help, 6 Elul 5780
To Z.G. – greetings,
I will briefly repeat the points that were renewed in God’s promise to Abraham following his success in the trial of the Akedah.
A. “By Myself I have sworn” was added. Unlike a “covenant,” where each side’s commitment is conditional on the other side’s keeping the covenant—the oath is a unilateral and unconditional commitment, whatever happens.
B. Here it is said for the first time: “And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” For the first time Abraham is told that war may occur, and that his seed will be victorious in it. The Akedah was a test of Abraham’s and his seed’s willingness to enter states of war that require total self-sacrifice.
C. For the first time there appears the image “as the sand that is on the seashore.” The sand, as explained in Jeremiah 5, is the barrier protecting the dry land from the stormy waves of the sea. This too teaches of a situation of constant struggle in which the people of Israel will have to stand against the entire world.
D. And after the wars and struggles, Abraham’s seed is promised that even in these there will be fulfilled the promise said to him personally: “and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Now this promise is also given to his seed: “and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” that after all the struggles and wars, “at the end of the day,” all the nations of the earth will recognize the value of Abraham’s seed and be blessed through it.
Success in the trial of the Akedah indeed did not bring the people of Israel a “prize” that would allow them from now on to live easy lives. On the contrary, success in the “test” qualified Abraham’s seed to be the “General Staff Reconnaissance Unit” of its God—the vanguard force that will struggle and succeed.
Regards, Shatz
Adjacent to the tidings that Abraham is given concerning the son who will be born to him, God informs him that He is about to destroy Sodom. A new mode of governance is entering the world—less tolerance and more firmness.
The reduction in tolerance is also expressed in the expulsion of Ishmael from Abraham’s house so that he should not challenge Isaac’s status and should not negatively influence him. Here God agrees with Sarah’s initiative.
In the Akedah, Abraham and Isaac are tested and examined for their willingness to give up life; success in the test marks the entry into a state in which the path of Abraham and his seed will require struggles and wars with all humanity, struggles that will end “at the end of the day” in victory and in all the nations of the earth recognizing the justice of Abraham’s path. But until that happens, Abraham’s seed will undergo not-so-simple adventures.
It is worth noting that the Akedah comes to Abraham “after these things,” after the agreement with Abimelech king of Gerar, in which Abraham obligated his seed to refrain from attacking the Philistines. It is possible that the Akedah came as a critique of Abraham, who was binding his son through a “restrictive arrangement” with the peoples of the land. The Akedah marks a “new page” in which one does not make covenants with the “inhabitant of the land” but rather fights them without compromise.
Regards, Shatz
In contrast to Abraham, who lives within the society of the inhabitants of the land, calls there in the name of the Lord and offers hospitality, and is regarded by his surroundings as “a prince of God in our midst,” who maintains a covenant with Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre and is connected with a group of his “trained men” and “the elder of his household”—with Isaac we hear of no connection whatsoever with the “inhabitants of the land.”
Nor do we find Isaac in Kiryat Arba except at the end of his life. He moves from the densely inhabited mountain ridge to the Negev region—Beer-lahai-roi, Gerar, and the like—perhaps in the hope that in the sparsely populated area he will find vacant land on which to live the life of a tiller of the soil who sows and finds “a hundredfold” in his labor. Isaac also does not enter into conflicts with his surroundings. When they trouble him in one place, he simply moves on to another.
Abraham’s dream of universal influence is shelved by Isaac, and it will wait for his grandson Joseph, and in a more distant generation—for Solomon and the future redeemer. In his blessing to his son, Isaac designates for him that he establish himself economically by working his land and produce from it “plenty of grain and wine,” and as a result of his economic success on his land, he will merit that peoples serve him and nations bow to him. He will not need to court them. They will come to him to learn from him the secret of success.
Regards, Shatz
Incidentally, in his blessing to his hunter son, he offers him a completely opposite destiny. He does not bless him with success in hunting, but suggests that he become a tiller of the soil like his father—as if to say to him: I appreciate your occupation as a hunter, but your real “career” will come precisely when you set adventure aside and settle on the land.
With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, “For it is your life,” 5781
It is possible that the insight that “offer him up to Me as an olah” means dedicating a person to the service of God was before Hannah’s eyes, when she promised God that if He gave her a son, “I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.” Likewise Jephthah’s vow to offer up as an olah whatever came out to meet him was, according to some commentators, fulfilled by dedicating his daughter to the service of God.
Regards, Shatz
It should be noted that both in the case of Isaac and in that of Samuel, dedication to the service of God does not mean withdrawal from family life and from involvement in settling the world. Even regarding Jephthah’s daughter, Rabbi Avraham Shaar-Yashuv, of blessed memory (chief rabbinical judge in Haifa, in the introduction to his book Netiv Avraham), explained that her refraining from marrying was not part of the vow, but rather because in that generation no man was found who was willing to marry a woman whose whole life was holy to God. And over this the daughters of Israel wept.
In paragraph 1, line 3
… “I will give him to the Lord” …
In paragraph 2, line 3
Rabbi Avraham Shaar-Yashuv, of blessed memory…
There, line 6
… And over this the daughters of Israel wept.
Paragraph 3, line 2
… that Abraham’s path will require his seed to engage in struggles …
I wanted to note that I read your book No Man Has Power Over His Spirit, and I think that in light of what is explained in this article one can resolve your difficulty regarding petitions in prayer, when in order to fulfill them nature would have to be changed.
If it is true that although the outcome of the Akedah is not required, Abraham was nevertheless required to recognize that, at the divine level, he really ought to be ready to sacrifice him, and that our feelings have no value—then with respect to asking things of God one can likewise explain that the only way in which it is indeed possible to express our recognition of His power to overturn the systems of nature is precisely in this way, by asking Him to help us with problems that in fact also proceed by way of nature.
For you too do not deny divine intervention following prayer at a certain spiritual level; and if so, even if we are not on that level, we are still required, as part of “standing before God,” to pray for it.
What do you think?
Your response is important to me
A wonderful article!
I don’t think I understood the suggestion. Are you suggesting that we should pray even though prayer is ineffective (that is, it would happen anyway, by way of nature)? If so, I don’t see what is new here. Indeed, we are supposed to pray, but it is not true that prayer causes divine involvement. True, the problem concerns the requests, and there it is hard to accept such a claim.
My claim is that just as we are obligated to acknowledge His reality at the level of readiness for Him to take our existence away from us, as in the Akedah—even though this is true specifically on the divine level that “fills all worlds,” and not with respect to our own level (from the standpoint of tzimtzum), where we are not practically required to do so—so too we are obligated to acknowledge His power to control nature (which is also true chiefly on the divine level and is less expressed on our natural level) through our requests, for the option that He will change nature does indeed exist.
In short, just as the readiness for sacrifice is a value in itself, so too the request is a value in itself.
I hope I was clear
As I wrote, it is very strange to require us to ask, when we know that this request is not really a request and is also not answered. What we receive or do not receive will happen even without the request. Conceptually too, this is not a request. It is like saying that there is value in relating to day as though it were night, even though that is not true.
It is also very strange to require us to be ready to give up our lives when we know that this will not really be required in practice, no?
That is really not similar. Readiness for sacrifice is well defined, even if in the end no sacrifice is required. It is also quite clear what value this readiness has. There is only an educational-technical problem of how to develop such readiness. Especially according to my view (unlike Rav Kook’s), where sacrifice is also required (at least in the cultic, non-moral sphere), where the problem does not exist at all. But a request that is merely lip movement is simply not a request.
With God’s help, Hoshana Rabbah 5781
In his piyyut for Hoshana Rabbah, “Please sustain the grace of those who long for Your salvation,” Rabbi Elazar Kallir gives us the novel idea that Isaac prayed for his rescue at the time of the Akedah, and thus says the poet: “Please fulfill the requests of Your crying people, one bound as on Mount Mor crying out to You.”
As Prof. Jonah Frankel pointed out (he who completed the festival prayer book of his father-in-law Dr. Daniel Goldschmidt for Sukkot), this point—that Isaac prayed for his rescue—is not found in the midrashim before us, and perhaps it is the poet’s own innovation.
Perhaps this was one of the purposes of the Akedah: to awaken Isaac to become “a man of prayer,” one who turns to his God with requests.
In later days Isaac would ask for mercy “opposite his wife, because she was barren,” and indeed she would be remembered. When he dug the third well he thanked God and asked: “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land,” and later Isaac blessed his son: “And God give you,” etc.
With Abraham we find more prayers on behalf of strangers—on behalf of the people of Sodom and of Abimelech. Isaac dares more and asks also for himself and for his household; and from him courage is given to his seed to be “like a son wheedling favors from his father,” asking without embarrassment even for himself, something that Jacob and his wives too would later do often.
And for the host who married off his daughter not long ago, let us bless: “For the bride of Lebanon, save now; You are our Father” 🙂
With festival blessings, Shatz
Many thanks 🙂
It is interesting to note that the conclusion, “For the bride of Lebanon, save now and grant salvation now, You are our Father,” is attached specifically to the figure of Gideon, who cries out: “But if the Lord is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all His wonders of which our fathers told us, saying: Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us…”
The feeling gnawing at Gideon’s heart—that in the past the Lord brought us up from Egypt, but now “the Lord has abandoned us”—does not leave him even when he hears the angel’s words again and again and sees signs and wonders repeatedly.
And despite all the problem of faith, Gideon is prepared for mighty deeds of self-sacrifice and great risk. He tears down the altar of Baal and provokes his entire father’s house, who seek to kill him;
he summons his tribe and Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali to fight the enemy, and continues to ask for signs. When the fleece is filled with dew while all the ground is dry, he asks to see the opposite—a dry fleece while all the ground is wet—for fear that the first sign occurred “by way of nature.”
And even this does not fully convince him until he reaches the edge of the Midianite camp and senses the enemy’s demoralization and orders his soldiers to charge.
Perhaps this quality—to struggle and give up one’s life even while full of doubts whether the Lord is still with us—is what enables the “bride,” the congregation of Israel, to go with her beloved even to the “mountains of leopards and dens of lions,” to act courageously despite the nagging doubt.
With the blessing, “Teach us to see a good sign,” Shatz
With God’s help, 24 Heshvan 5781
I was always puzzled by the conclusion of the reading of the Akedah section on Rosh Hashanah with “And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah.” Is there no more “heroic” and exalted ending than a list of the sons of Nahor’s concubine?
This Shabbat, Parashat Vayera, I noticed that the reality described in the verses regarding the sons of Milcah and Reumah—one woman giving birth to eight children, and even four children—is exceptional even in the book of Genesis. Prior to the precedent of Nahor’s family, we do not find more than three children to one woman.
Milcah, who gives birth to eight children, remains exceptional even afterward. Even Leah, who bore seven children, did not reach this achievement.
Giving birth to a child and raising him involves great self-sacrifice on the mother’s part, beginning with the suffering of pregnancy, continuing with labor pains, and then long years of the “sorrow of raising children.” Birth involves not only great pain but also danger to life, especially in ancient times when the sophisticated knowledge and equipment that make it possible to solve the dangers did not exist.
And behold, despite the pain and suffering, Milcah is willing to be “bound” in the pangs of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood eight times! And even the concubine Reumah is willing to conceive and give birth four times, more than was customary among the other women of that period.
Abraham discerns in the women of his brother’s family their unique quality—the willingness to bear many children and raise them—and he “gets the message.” From there will come the fitting mother who, together with Isaac, will bring children “as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore,” and there he will send Eliezer to find Isaac his match.
The purpose of the story of the Akedah is to bring the willingness for self-sacrifice into everyday life: daily and ongoing devotion, bringing children into the world and patiently raising them to be good people and good Jews. That is the real test!
Regards, Shatz
A. Regarding a heroic ending: go and examine the words of the kabbalists. If by their incantations they made of the list of the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel, then the hand of their magicians is surely not too short to make the whole Torah into supernal mysteries.
B. Regarding there being no more than three children to one woman before Nahor’s family—not certain. Many others begot a named son, and after him “sons and daughters,” totaling at least five. True, it may be that he married several wives, but on the plain meaning the unspecified cases may be learned from the specified ones.
C. Regarding Milcah’s willingness to suffer: we are seeing an anachronism here. In all generations, in all places, until recently, married women gave birth as much as they could, like the beasts of the field. There is no reason to especially admire Milcah for it if, by a lucky stroke, she conceived and her children also survived.
You wrote very beautifully.
But Eliezer returned with Rebecca, who was barren.
So perhaps for us children are like rain. You need to pray for them.
And prayer does indeed help. At least Isaac’s prayer did.
What about the claim that there is no value in studying Tanakh?
P.S. This approach of readiness to sacrifice is also found in The Penitent by Rabbi Soloveitchik.
Zvi Gelbfish already noted this, and I answered him:
https://mikyab.net/posts/68866#comment-42337
I did not understand Rabbi Michi’s response in that he referred to my words—whether to the issue of “there is no value in studying Tanakh” or to “readiness to sacrifice.”
I repeat the essence of my remarks: in my humble opinion Abraham’s test was that God expected him not to sacrifice his son, with arguments similar to those Abraham argued before God concerning the overturning of Sodom. The conclusion of my remarks is that Abraham failed the test!
Rabbi Michi’s response to my remarks is, in my humble opinion, entirely unconvincing, as I replied. Despite his words, Abraham did not receive any real reward for the test. He had already received all the promises before the trial of the Akedah.
For elaboration, see the link I attached in my original response.
If you read the question here and reread my answer to you, I am sure you will understand.
I see no point in returning to that discussion. That is not the topic here.
With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, “A wholesome man, dwelling in tents,” 5781
It is worth noting that the usual expression in the Torah regarding an olah is not “bringing up” but “bringing near” (hakravah), which expresses removing the sacrifice from human possession and presenting it to on High. In the Torah, too, with respect to human beings we find the language of “bringing near”: “And you shall bring near the Levites”; as a sacrifice, the Levites underwent waving by Aaron the priest,
but unlike an animal sacrifice, which is slaughtered and burned—the human being who is presented as a “sacrifice” is dedicated to a life of labor and service to God. So too with Isaac: it became clear that the meaning of “offering him up as an olah” was dedicating him to a life of service to God. As it is written: “Happy is the one whom You choose and bring near, that he may dwell in Your courts.”
The expression “bringing up” is said several times regarding the daily lamp: “to keep a lamp burning continually,” “and he shall cause its lamps to burn.” There too the meaning is the complete opposite of destruction. The eternal lamp merits continual existence before God. That is its “being brought up.”
If hakravah is the human act, then ha‘alah expresses its being accepted favorably by God—“a burnt offering, an aroma pleasing” to the Lord, satisfaction before God that He spoke and His will was done. And so too in the future: “They shall come up with acceptance on My altar.”
May it be His will that our words and deeds come up favorably before the Master of all.
Regards, Fishel Guryon
Thank you for these interesting remarks.
And still, what is a person to do in a situation of conflict between the ethical and the religious? Which should he follow—his conscience or the command of halakhah?
To place the two planes under one heading, or at times even intensify them, when they point in the same direction, but sometimes cancel one of them out in a case of contradiction.
Does “Do not raise your hand against the boy” not prove, in the final analysis, that the moral command overrides, and that even halakhah is subordinate to it?
A good and sweet New Year