Abraham, the Father
 
 
 
Abraham, the Father, at Mount Moriah
Traditional Jewish and Christian interpretation has seen Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son as the ultimate proof of his absolute and unswerving belief in God and of his determination to obey all of his commands without reservation. However, from what is known of Abraham’s behavior till then, the accounts of several earlier events in his life suggest that this is a simplistic approach to the momentous story of the Akedah.
Perhaps...the last test imposed by God is not one of faith and belief, but of Abraham’s spirit of humanity, his independence of mind, his courage at heart. The Bible does no more than tell us that God tested Abraham—but what specifically was at stake is left open to interpretation. Was the test to see if Abraham would immediately and implicitly obey (as he had done with the casual divine comment to listen to Sarah’s voice, seeking to be rid of her rival and her rival’s son), or was it to see if Abraham had the inner resources (as he had displayed in the Sodom and Gomorrah incident) to challenge God’s words? Was God looking for a pliant, blind believer, or for an independent, courageous personality?
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For Abraham, the divine command to sacrifice his son must clearly have been an ambiguous statement. On the one hand, it appears to be a total denial of the earlier promise of the great nation that was to emerge from Isaac; one the other hand, the demand itself presented no special monotheistic pattern, since child sacrifice was part of the normative practices of that time and in that area amongst the heathens. To do as his neighbors were in any case doing was to diminish the very uniqueness of the monotheistic concept that Abraham was struggling to conceptualize and appreciate.
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The possible alternative explanation of the three days which constitute the Akedah story, is of a deep soul-searching undertaken by Abraham, desperately trying, on his own perhaps, or in communion with his God, to understand one of the basic facts of social life, the ambivalence, so often expressed within the family setting—of love and concern and pride, mingled on occasion with hostility, indifference and anger. Abraham, uniquely capable of interaction through belief, with a divine being, was surely no less capable of sensitive perception of his immediate surroundings within his family.
The trauma of Ishmael’s expulsion with Hagar was a catalyst for understanding the complexities of his relations with his remaining son. In order to come to terms with this disturbing situation, he embarked, through interaction with God, on a three-day trek that allowed him to reflect on his relationship with his son, his capacity as a father, to harm him (even unto death), but also his desire to protect and guide him.

In modern terms Abraham was undergoing a mimesis, a concept that describes acting out behavior in order to fully appreciate its meaning. One performs certain actions in certain roles in order to vividly experience the total sensation. The negative aspect of generational contacts was the binding of Isaac prior to his imminent demise through sacrifice. The closer the actor (Abraham) came to actually performing the deed, the more precisely would the problem confronting him (of the relationship between fathers and sons) be clarified. This is what happened on Mount Moriah—or, to be more exact and fair—this is possibly what happened on Mount Moriah. Abraham was creatively setting up a situation that would enable him to better comprehend and cope with his own confused feelings, exposing them to symbolic reality.
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And so Abraham is, at the end of the biblical account, rewarded by God with a renewed promise of the future power and plenty of his progeny, for listening to the voice, for obeying what presumably was God’s command. But which one? The initial directive to take the son for sacrifice, or the last-minute intervention to desist? For the text puts in the mouth of the emissary the words of obeying “My” word. Is the reference to the actual words of God at the beginning of the story, or the words of the emissary at its conclusion? Let me suggest the latter.
At this moment, according to Erich Wellisch, a critical juncture in world history was reached. There is no room for human sacrifice on the altar of a monotheistic God. Human life is precious, filicide is an abomination. Religious rituals, important for social life, may instead focus on animals (vide the nearby ram) as a core for sacrifice. Many generations later, the site of the Akedah was to become the presumed site of the Temple, where animals were indeed sacrificed to the honor and glory of God. But to establish a ban on human sacrifice, given generational frictions, given prevalent surrounding norms that sanctioned it, words alone are not sufficient—the drama must be acted out in vivid reality. The only question remaining is whether (given generational tensions) the message will be understood.
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Religious thinking holds that by his action, Abraham assured God’s compassionate protection of his people. Secular thinking suggests that by his action, Abraham exposed the problematics of parenthood, and provided a message that may well resound through the generations, of a warning of parental power, but also of an example of parental devotion. Not love of God was the test (for Abraham had already proved that in manifold ways), but love of progeny, despite the dilemmas and difficulties of parenthood, which are so much easier to ignore or deny.
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Abraham’s action cannot be understood in terms of normative values and customary practices of that time; such an approach is to deny his innovative creativity. Certainly today, it must be understood in universal terms, perhaps more easily because of the twin facts of a secular age (not bound by rabbinical and priestly interpretations) and a scientific one (allowing the use of sociological and psychological knowledge). By these terms, Abraham’s last-minute withdrawal from completing the sacrifice of his son is the mark of his positive qualities, of his passing of the test, of the real lesson to be learned by others, of the true message.
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