Tag Archives: Isaac

Did Abraham Pass the Test?

This week’s parasha, Vayera, contains one of the most difficult passages in the entire Torah, the Akedah or “Binding of Isaac”. Just about everyone reading this narrative will inevitably ask: how could Hashem have commanded child sacrifice? Even though He stopped it from happening, and Abraham didn’t go through with it, how could this have even come up? How is it that Abraham is seemingly blessed for “not withholding” his son from Hashem (Genesis 22:12)? Does God really want child sacrifice, or demand that level of obedience? Is it even morally acceptable? Many more questions emerge from the narrative:

Why is it that here, with the Akedah, Abraham does not question God at all? Previously, when God tells Abraham that He is about to obliterate everyone and everything in Sodom, Abraham challenges God. Yet here, Abraham is silent. Why is that the Torah says “Abraham returned to Beer Sheva” (22:19) but Isaac is not mentioned? In fact, Isaac doesn’t go to Beer Sheva at all, but lives in a totally different place in Be’er Lachai Roi (24:62). We don’t see Abraham and Isaac speaking ever again, and strangely Abraham does not even bless Isaac on his deathbed, as we find with all the other forefathers. It’s not only Isaac that seemingly never speaks to Abraham again, but neither does Sarah, who tragically passes away immediately upon hearing of the incident. Finally, we don’t see Hashem ever speaking to Abraham again either! It begs the question: Did Abraham really pass the test?

Of course, the Torah explicitly tells us that he did, and that God blessed him for it. The Mishnah in Avot adds that Abraham passed all ten of his tests (5:3). But we also know that there is a difference between passing a test with a C grade, and passing with an A+. Surely and undoubtedly, Abraham was a huge tzadik and beloved by Hashem, as the Torah repeats multiple times. That said, many of our Sages questioned the whole Akedah episode, and struggled with its mysteries and implications. The Midrash (Beresheet Rabbah 56:8) states that Abraham misunderstood the test:

Rabbi Aha said: Abraham began to express his confusion, [saying to God]: “These events are nothing short of bewildering! Yesterday, You said: ‘For it is through Isaac that will be called your descendants’ (Genesis 21:12), then You said: ‘Take you your son […and offer him up]’ (Genesis 22:2), and now You say to me: ‘Do not extend your hand against the lad’? This is bewildering!” The Holy One blessed be He said to Abraham: ‘“I will not violate My covenant, nor alter the utterance of My lips’ (Psalms 89:35) – when I said to you: ‘Take you your son,’ I did not say: ‘Slaughter him,’ but rather, ‘elevate him.’ I said this to you in affection. You have elevated him and fulfilled My word, now take him down!”

The Midrash points out that God never told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac; He literally just said to “elevate” him! Of course, there was never any intention of an immoral child sacrifice. The Midrash continues:

They said a parable; this is analogous to a king who said to his friend: “Bring your son up to [eat at] my table.” He brought him to him, knife in hand. The king said: “Did I say to bring him up in order to eat him? I said: Bring him up out of affection for him!” That is what is written: “[They built altars on which to burn their sons and daughters in fire, something that I never commanded] and which never entered My heart” (Jeremiah 19:5) – this refers to Isaac.

When Jeremiah, like many prophets, critiques the idolaters for their cruel pagan child sacrifices, he quotes Hashem as saying that such “devotion” never entered God’s heart. The Midrash says this refers to Isaac himself, and God never wanted nor commanded a child sacrifice. Abraham misunderstood the assignment. Yes, he passed the test on one level, and showed his unwavering devotion. But that wasn’t quite the point. The point was to recognize that God would never demand an immoral child sacrifice. It was to realize that Judaism is not pagan, and would never involve any kind of human sacrifice, God forbid. Even if God Himself commands a person to do something like this, the correct response is to refuse! This is similar to the way Moses refused God’s offer to expunge the Israelites following the Golden Calf and make a new nation out of Moses. Moses boldly countered: “Erase me, then, from Your book!” (Exodus 32:32)

It is also similar to Rabbi Yehoshua’s bold reply to the Bat Kol during the incident of Tanur shel Achnai. Even when God’s own voice resonated through the study hall to insist that Rabbi Eliezer was correct in his halakhic ruling, Rabbi Yehoshua looked up and said lo bashamayim hi, “It is not in Heaven!” (Deuteronomy 30:12) The rabbis overruled God. When Rabbi Natan later met Eliyahu and asked how God had responded up in Heaven, Eliyahu related that God laughed and said nitzchuni banai, “My children have overruled Me!” Our rabbis passed the test by refusing to heed the Bat Kol! Moses, too, passed the test by refusing God’s offer. God gave us a divine intellect and commanded us to use it wisely. He made us His partners in Creation, and wants us to think for ourselves. We are not meant to be brainless drones. This is the very meaning of the name Israel, “for you have struggled [sarita] with Elohim and with people, and prevailed!” (Genesis 32:29)

The Role of Satan

The Zohar (I, 10b) takes a very different approach to the Akedah, and suggests that the whole thing was a punishment:

Whom do we have in the world greater than Abraham, whose benevolence extended to all creatures? However, on the day that he prepared a feast—as it is written: “And the child grew, and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned” (Genesis 21:8)—to that feast Abraham invited all the great men of the age. Now we have been taught that whenever a banquet is given, that “Accuser” [Satan] comes to spy out whether the host has first dispensed charity and invited poor people to his house. If he finds that it is so, he departs without entering the house. But if not, he goes in and surveys the merry-making, and having taken note that no charity had been sent to the poor nor had any been invited to the feast, he ascends above and brings accusations against the host.

Thus, when Abraham invited to his feast the great men of the age, the Accuser came and appeared at the door in the guise of a poor man, but no one took notice of him. Abraham was attending on the kings and magnates… The Accuser then presented himself before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to Him: “Master of the world, You have said “Abraham is My beloved”, yet he has made a feast and has not given anything to You nor to the poor, nor has he offered up to You so much as one pigeon…

Said the Holy One, blessed be He: “Who in this world can be compared to Abraham?” Nevertheless, the Accuser did not stir from there until he had spoiled all the festivity; and God then commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac as an offering, and it was decreed that Sarah should die from anguish on account of her son’s danger—all because Abraham did not give anything to the poor!

The Zohar states that both the Akedah and the death of Sarah was because of a lack of kindness and charity on the part of Abraham, who was usually the very epitome of kindness and charity. It appears the test itself came much earlier, at the weaning feast of Isaac, and Abraham the paragon of Chessed was tested with Chessed. The Zohar suggests Abraham failed this test, and the punishment was the Akedah!

It is worth noting that the ancient apocryphal Book of Jubilees has a similar suggestion, saying that the whole Akedah was Satan’s doing. In Chapter 17, Satan (called “Mastema” here) comes before God and questions Abraham’s devotion. The passage is reminiscent of the way Satan appears before God in the Book of Job, and gets permission to harm and test Job. Satan suggests the Akedah to prove that Abraham’s devotion is complete. Apparently, it was Satan’s idea! That would explain both the Midrash quoted above where God says He never commanded the Akedah (and it never “arose in His heart”); as well as the well-known Midrash that Satan tried to stop Abraham from going up to the Akedah, including by creating a mirage of a raging river to block Abraham’s journey. Satan had to do what he could to stop it, since it was his idea to begin with, and he thought Abraham would never go through with it!

A Diversity of Perspectives

While we commonly hear rabbis praising Abraham for being so devoted to Hashem that he was willing to sacrifice his own son, others were far more critical. Perhaps the most explicit statement came from the Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel, c. 1250-1327), in his comments on the verse “Jacob is God’s own allotment” (Deuteronomy 32:11). The literal reading of the verse, Ya’akov chevel nachalato, implies that Jacob is the start of God’s “rope” of inheritance. The Rosh asks: why Jacob? Why not Abraham, the first patriarch? And he says it is because “Abraham was cruel [akhzari] to want to sacrifice his son and not pray for him instead… But Jacob had compassion for all of his children.” Jacob thus merited to be “Israel”.

Indeed, the Tanakh speaks out so many times against cruel human and child sacrifices, and calls out the wicked Canaanites, Moabites, and others for engaging in these practices and sacrificing children to their gods Molech and Chemosh. It is one of the 613 commandments not to sacrifice a child or “pass a child through a flame” (Deuteronomy 18:10). So how could God ever demand such a thing, and how could Abraham ever think to go along with it?

Some rabbis held that the whole Akedah episode must have only been a dream, and didn’t physically happen. (This was explored fully in Garments of Light, Volume Two, in the chapter titled ‘The Shocking Opinion that the Akedah Never Happened’.) According to this view, Abraham only saw the Akedah in a vision, and proved his devotion virtually. Of those who held this view, perhaps the most notable is the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204) who, as a general rule, believed that any time an angel is mentioned in the Torah, it must be a dream. The Rambam wrote that “in the case of everyone about whom exists a Scriptural text that an angel talked to him or that speech came to him from God, this did not occur in any other way than in a dream or in a prophetic vision.” (Moreh Nevukhim, Part 2, Ch. 41)

Yet a third approach holds that the test was not Abraham’s at all, but Isaac’s! Targum Yonatan records:

And it was after these things that Isaac and Ishmael contended; and Ishmael said: “It is right that I should inherit what is our father’s because I am his firstborn son.” And Isaac said: “It is right that I should inherit what is our father’s, because I am the son of Sarah his wife, and you are the son of Hagar the handmaid of my mother.” Ishmael said: “I am more righteous than you, because I was circumcised at thirteen years; and if it had been my will to hinder, they should not have delivered me to be circumcised; but you were circumcised a child eight days; if you had knowledge, perhaps they could not have delivered you to be circumcised!” Isaac said: “Behold, today I am thirty-six years old; and if the Holy One, blessed be He, were to demand my whole body, I would not delay.” These words were heard before the Master of the Universe, and the Word of God immediately came to Abraham, and said to him: “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am”…

The Targum suggests it was Isaac’s test more than Abraham’s, to prove his devotion to God and to prove himself more worthy than his half-brother Ishmael.

Whatever the case, what we can say for sure is this: the Torah explicitly forbids child sacrifice, and it is one of the 365 prohibitions of the 613 mitzvot. God does not demand such cruel obedience, and never did. Judaism is a religion of life, not death. Unlike other religions that glorify death and martyrdom, Judaism’s highest value is life. The Torah is a “tree of life for those who grasp it” (Proverbs 3:18). Abraham may have passed the test and showed his unwavering devotion, but as the Midrash states, he seems to have misunderstood the whole assignment. It is Jacob that ultimately merits to become Israel, embodying our mission to “wrestle with Elohim, and with people, and prevail.”

For a deeper understanding of sacrifices and further discussion of the Akedah, see the following class:

Sacrifices & Veganism

Where did the concept of animal sacrifices really come from? Why are there so many sacrificial procedures described in the Torah? Will there be sacrifices in the future Third Temple in Jerusalem? And what does it all have to do with human consumption of meat? Is the vegan diet of Adam and Eve ideal for mankind? Find out in this eye-opening class! Plus: Did God really command Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac? What did meat consumption have to do with the Great Flood? And what did the fallen angels have to do with it?

Hashem’s Mathematical Justice

In this week’s parasha, Vayeshev, we read about the unfortunate sale of Joseph. Two big questions come up: First, why did Jacob deserve the cruel experience of not only losing his beloved son, but then also being tricked by his other sons? Second, why did Joseph deserve to be sold into slavery and spend a dozen years in prison? We know that God always acts justly, middah k’neged middah, “measure for measure”, so why did these two righteous figures deserve such tribulations?

The Zohar (I, 185b) on this week’s parasha points out some incredible parallels between what Jacob’s sons did to him, and what Jacob did to his father Isaac. Jacob had slaughtered some goats, was dressed up in “goat skins”, and presented his father with delicious goat meat in order to trick his father into a blessing. Jacob’s sons did the same in slaughtering a goat and dipping Joseph’s tunic in its blood to trick their father. Isaac had asked Jacob “Are you my son Esau, or not?” (ha’atah ze bni Esav im lo?) and Jacob’s sons similarly told him “Do you recognize this tunic to be your son’s, or not?” (haker na haktonet binkha im lo?) The result was that Isaac experienced a “great terror” (charadah gedolah), just as Jacob did. Thus, the Zohar says, what Jacob’s sons put him through is precisely what he had put his own father through! And this all came from God, who is medakdek when it comes to tzadikim: He is perfectly, mathematically, precise in His justice, measure for measure.

We can take this teaching in the Zohar one step further. We find that after Jacob tricked Esau, the latter was so angry he resolved to kill Jacob, which prompted Rebecca to send Jacob to her uncle in Haran. Although there are different opinions as to how long it took him to get to Haran, the pshat of the Torah is that he went to Haran immediately and spent twenty years with Lavan (Genesis 31:38). After he came back to the Holy Land, he reunited with his father Isaac whom he hadn’t seen for at least twenty years (Genesis 35:27). In the case of Joseph, the Torah tells us he was seventeen when he was sold (Genesis 37:2), and thirty when he became viceroy of Egypt (Genesis 41:46). There was then a seven-year period of plenty—until Joseph turned 37 years old—followed by the start of the famine, during which time Jacob was reunited with Joseph. Doing the math, we find that Jacob and Joseph were also separated for just over twenty years. Again, God’s retribution is exact!

Let’s turn to Joseph: why did he have to be sold into servitude and spend twelve years in an Egyptian prison? We read that he was an excellent servant in the house of Potiphar, and was put in charge of all of Potiphar’s affairs (Genesis 39:3). He lived very well there, until Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him incessantly. When he kept refusing, she put in a false report of sexual assault, leading to Joseph’s arrest and imprisonment. This is not a coincidence either, for the parasha begins by telling us that Joseph would bring “bad reports” about his brothers to his father (Genesis 37:2). Just as Joseph made false reports about his siblings, Potiphar’s wife made a false report about Joseph! The result was twelve years in prison, and it is easy to suggest why specifically twelve since, after all, Joseph had a total of twelve siblings (including Dinah). The Midrash (Beresheet Rabbah 84:7) further emphasizes God’s exacting punishment:

“Joseph brought evil report of them to their father” – what did he say? Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, and Rabbi Shimon [taught]: Rabbi Meir says [that Joseph would report]: “Your sons are suspected of eating the limb of a living animal.” Rabbi Shimon says: “They are directing their gaze at the girls of the land.” Rabbi Yehuda says: “They are demeaning the sons of the maidservants [Bilhah and Zilpah] and calling them slaves.”

Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon said: He was punished for all three of them, for “Balances and scales of justice are Hashem’s…” (Proverbs 16:11) The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: “You said: ‘Your sons are suspected of eating the limb of a living animal.’ As you live, even at their time of corruption, they will slaughter and only then will they eat [as it is written:] ‘and slaughtered a goat.’ (Genesis 37:31) You said: ‘They are demeaning the sons of the maidservants and calling them slaves.’ [And so,] ‘Joseph was sold as a slave.’ (Psalms 105:17) You said: ‘They are directing their gaze at the girls of the land.’ As you live, I will incite the same against you [as it is written,] ‘His master’s wife cast her eyes [upon Joseph, and she said: Lie with me.]’” (Genesis 39:7)

‘Joseph Makes Himself Known to His Brethren’ by Gustav Doré

One thing that we learn from this is that the brothers of Joseph were not all that wrong in being suspicious of him, and perhaps even wanting to rid of him. He did have a dangerously large ego, and we go on to read in the Torah how Joseph consolidated more and more power in Egypt, eventually enslaving the entire Egyptian populace (Genesis 47). It isn’t surprising that the angry and subdued Egyptians later turned the tables and enslaved the Israelites! Because of this need to dominate, the Zohar (I, 200a) says Joseph was not given his own flag among the Tribes. The Zohar points out there was no degel machane Yosef, but only a degel machane Ephraim. The flag of Joseph was replaced with the flag of his son, serving as something of a “demotion” due to Joseph’s desire for superiority. The Talmud (Berakhot 55a), meanwhile, points out that Joseph was first to die among his brothers for similar reasons of ego.

Now, all of this is not to take away from Joseph’s righteousness. After all, he is called Yosef haTzadik, the epitome of righteousness, and embodied sexual purity, restraint, and great wisdom. Nonetheless, no one is perfect, and the Torah highlights the flaws of its heroes so that we can learn from them. The Torah was given to guide us in refining ourselves and becoming better people; to teach us that God is merciful and longsuffering, giving us many opportunities to repent and rectify, even across multiple lives and eras.

In fact, Joseph was reincarnated in his descendant Joshua, the humble servant of Moses (see Sefer Gilgulei Neshamot, Letter Mem). Both Joseph and Joshua are described in the Torah as being filled with a Godly spirit, and both died at the exact same age of 110 (see Genesis 50:26 and Joshua 24:29). Joseph was the reason the brothers came down to Egypt in the first place and ended up staying there “in exile” for centuries, so fittingly it was Joshua that brought the Children of Israel back into the Holy Land. Humble Joshua—who spent the first part of his life enslaved to the Egyptians—was the rectification for haughty Joseph. And the final incarnation of that soul is in Mashiach ben Yosef (Sefer Gilgulei Neshamot, Letter Pei), to once more bring all the Children of Israel back to the Holy Land at the End of Days, and usher in a better world for all mankind.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah!

Chanukah Learning Resources:

Chanukah’s Electrifying Secret (Video)
Chanukah & the Light of Creation (Video)
Did the Jews Really Defeat the Greeks?
When Jews and Greeks Were Brothers
Death of Hellenism, Then and Now
Rabbi Akiva and the Maccabees
Where in the Torah is Chanukah?