CHAPTER 64

ON ABRAHAM THE FATHER; ON ISAAC THE SON

my father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. he taught me with silence. he taught me to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. the tzaddik sits in absolute silence, saying nothing, and all his followers listen attentively, there’s more truth to that than you realize. the chosen, by chaim potok genesis 22: 1–19 is perhaps the hardest and harshest text in the torah. this is the story of the binding of isaac by his father abraham in response to god’s commandment. the “happy ending,” i contend, is utterly irrelevant from a spiritual point of view, but clearly, it is highly significant from a theological perspective. the story’s importance lies in abraham’s own free will. god orders abraham to take “your son, your only son, the one you love” and sacrifice the boy to him. much has been written about this biblical story. kierkegaard, on account of his deeds, called abraham “the knight of faith.” others have marked with sadness abraham’s failure to stand up to god to protest the killing of his son, his only son, the son he loved. i am one of the saddened ones. i want to consider these non-orthodoxical exegetical possibilities.

1. the sacrifice of isaac was not god testing abraham’s faith, but to the contrary: it was abraham testing of god’s faith. the god of abraham knew the depths of abraham’s soul, and in that sense, the testing of his faith, as far as god was concerned, was entirely unnecessary. but abraham, who could not possibly know the depths of god’s soul, and did not know how to test him, decided to agree to take his son, his only son, the son he loved, to the rock of sacrifice and make this a test of the soul of god. after the angel stopped his hand from killing his son, i can see abraham smiling and saying to his god: “now i know that you are my god and you are faithful to me and always will be.” and with that abraham sealed the fate of god. at that moment abraham became our father. but there is a deeper answer in this story clamoring to be heard: every time a father sends his son to war, the father and the son are abraham and isaac. and at those times both father and son fail the test of faith time and again.

2. in order to carry out the murderous task, abraham had to extinguish his “self.” in other words, everything that constituted the meaning and contents of his own life -using master dogen’s terms- had to be “dropped” and abolished. no doubt

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abraham’s own life was being sacrificed together with the life of his son. to kill isaac, abraham had to die to his own self together with the dead of his son, the son he loved. no-self, in this case, was not only a mental or spiritual realization, it was a deed. a terrible deed. we learn that if no-self is not an existential deed, it is just another one of samsara’s ploys.

3. the god of abraham already knew the contents of abraham’s heart. god did not need to test abraham on the extent of his faith in him. but god wanted abraham to go through the emotional and physical experience of agreeing to kill his own son, the son he loved. experiencing these deeds will leave in abraham an indelible tragic mark which will become part of his own inner world for the rest of his life. god also wanted isaac to go through this same experience, but from his own opposite perspective, and likewise make that terrible silent moment part of his own inner self.

4. both abraham and isaac responded to their existential challenges by offering radical submission to the call they had heard. abraham radically submitted to his god and issac to his father. the abraham who in the name of compassion and justice stood at the gates of sodom and challenged the god of compassion and justice, remained silent in the face of this unspeakable demand to kill his own son, his only son, the son he loved. by doing so, both abraham and isaac became victims, each in its own opposite ways. one for agreeing to kill, the other for agreeing to be killed. all of us, in our own personal lives, are either abrahams or isaacs. sometimes both at the same time.

5. abraham killed his son the moment he agreed to walk him toward the rock of sacrifice. and this is so regardless of the final outcome of their long journey. abraham’s gesture was his deed. it was an angel who had to step in and stop his hand, it was not abraham’s own consciousness. but abraham’s hand did kill the son and the son did die at that moment when the hand rose clutching a knife. abraham was no longer a father but isaac never ceased being the son. and from his death, isaac rose to build a nation.

6. god did not ask sarah to pass this same test of faith. we would feel revulsion, perhaps, at the asking of a mother to kill her own son. but not of a father.

7. god was not interested in testing the mother’s faith, only the father’s. god was not interested in testing a woman’s faith, only a man’s. god was not interested in testing the son’s faith, only his father’s. god was not interested in testing a boy’s faith, only a man’s.

8. obviously, had god asked abraham to sacrifice himself, he would have done so without hesitation. humans seem always all to-ready to give their own lives for causes they deem sacred. but killing one’s own son is seen as a task much harder

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