an interesting idea
Nov. 28th, 2001 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioRuth Levenstein posted an interesting idea to a Jewish mailing list that I'm on.
It is generally held that the binding of Isaac (the Akeidah) was a test, and that Avraham passed the test by obeying the order to sacrifice his son. But maybe Avraham *failed* the test. Maybe passing the test would have meant protesting, as he did to protect S'dom and Gemorrah a few chapters earlier.
The story takes on a very different tone if you read it from this perspective.
It is generally held that the binding of Isaac (the Akeidah) was a test, and that Avraham passed the test by obeying the order to sacrifice his son. But maybe Avraham *failed* the test. Maybe passing the test would have meant protesting, as he did to protect S'dom and Gemorrah a few chapters earlier.
The story takes on a very different tone if you read it from this perspective.
Problems with the interpretation
Date: 2001-12-05 02:59 pm (UTC)G-d saying do and an Angel saying don't would weigh it more heavily to G-d. There are traditions about Satan trying to stop Abraham and Satan is an angel.
Isaac was 37, Abraham was 137 - it's difficult to tie someone to a rock and sacrifice them if they aren't willing to do it.
And Abraham is talking directly to G-d. He knows that there's an afterlife. He will simply be putting Isaac there.
Two other interpretations are Rabbi Friedman's (http://www.rabbifriedman.org)interpretation that the Test was listening to the angel. And proving that this world is important. Just as important as the next.
Rav Kook saw it as a Paradox. Dogma is the premature resolution of a paradox (I think that's how it goes). Abraham passed by seeing the Paradox through to the end.