Questions for the Shabbat Table: Vayera
A printable study booklet: one question per page, the Rav’s answer, its source, and a lesson to discuss as a family.
This lecture continues the reading of Vayera and reaches the last chapter of the parashah — the one usually called the sacrifice of Yitzchak, and which ought rather to be called his binding. From the outset the Rav states that the common translation is wrong: akedat Yitzchak means to tie, to bind someone to a reality, and the whole question is what exactly was bound. The lecture asks why the prayer of Rosh Hashanah invokes the binding of Yitzchak and not the trial of Avraham, when it was Avraham who was put to the test. The answer lies in the conflict between two attributes that might govern the world: kindness and justice.
Rav Raphaël Benizri starts from the preceding chapter — the covenant concluded between Avimelech and Avraham concerning coexistence in the Land of Israel — and from the reading given of it by Rashi’s grandson, the only one to see in it a danger for Avraham’s descendants. He recalls that between G-d and Avraham there is as yet no commandment, no Torah, nothing but the prospect of the land, and that everything turns on this promise.
The lecture then proceeds through an analysis of the trial itself: what the Satan is, what the nissayon is, the parallel with Iyov, the first sacrifice that was the sending away of Yishmael, and then the discussion between Yishmael and Yitzchak about the merit of circumcision. It arrives at the reading of the three “here I am”s of the story and at the gesture of the angel who stops the hand, in which the Rav reads the synthesis he has been seeking: a world governed by justice, but by a justice overflowing with kindness.
What this lecture teaches
It is not a sacrifice but a binding. Akedat Yitzchak is rendered as “the sacrifice of Yitzchak,” and that is a mistake: the word says that one ties, that one binds someone to a reality. The whole lecture then consists in asking what was bound, what was conditioned, in this story. The Rav adds that there is always a link, both outward and inward, between the order of the chapters of the Torah and what follows them: the preceding chapter governs how this one is to be read.
The covenant concluded between Avimelech and Avraham is a problem. The grandson of Rashi is the only one to point out the danger that this pact of coexistence between the Philistines and Avraham’s descendants in the Land of Israel represents. His reading is that accepting such coexistence will force us to concede a great deal, to remain open to other beliefs and other cultures, and that in the end it will affect the children, with marriages on one side and on the other. The Rav notes that the midrash makes no allusion to this and that it remains this commentator’s own view — but he considers it very apt, and it is what explains why the binding follows.
Between G-d and Avraham there is as yet nothing but the land. No mitzvah has been commanded, there is no Torah yet, and everything revolves around the promise of the Land of Israel. Avraham’s first revelation is the fact of setting out toward that country. His whole story must therefore be read in the light of this one thing that was said to him, and every trial must be measured by what it does to that promise.
Avraham does not leave because he is fleeing. He leaves neither his homeland nor his family under the blow of a pogrom, of antisemitism or of any kind of poverty: he comes from a noble and wealthy family, he lacks nothing, and he nevertheless decides to go up to the Land of Israel. This will not be the case of his descendants, who will leave Egypt at a run, driven out — between the two departures lies a whole world, and that is the entire difference between the Fathers and those who came after them. What he undertakes, moreover, he undertakes with his eyes closed: when one sets oneself a goal and begins to analyze every facet of the problem, one never gets out of it and one does not get far. One must close one’s eyes and set one’s direction from an inner call, which is subjective; but when one moves on to carrying it out, one must on the contrary do so with open eyes, with reason and with wisdom.
We do not go to the Land of Israel to found a nation, but to fulfill ourselves there. The point is to give the world an example of what it means to sanctify a life here below, and to make of the land a state of Eden, for the Promised Land is the mirror of the Garden of Eden. Adam received that garden without any merit and was driven out of it; here, man rebuilds this land and it is the work of his own hands. That is why he has the duty to stand guard, to raise an army and to build a state — but a state carried toward an ideal. A covenant with an idolater, by allowing other cults to coexist with that ideal, could only slow the country’s momentum.
The binding therefore comes as a final test of Avraham’s unconditional commitment. It is not his attachment to one divinity among others, but to hesed — the attribute of kindness, the one that embraces every stream of belief, every movement of ideas, every thought. It is hesed that includes all the attributes within itself, so much so that the enumeration of the attributes begins with hesed and ends with kingship. It is this attachment that will be tested to the very end.
The Satan is pure reason. He takes on the appearance of Elokim and can borrow its language. He is the evil inclination, but the word carries a misleading moral connotation, for it is a tendency of the mind, bound up with the nature of things. Creation itself is the work of Elokim, who coordinated things in such a way that there is an order in nature and a causality by which the world functions; the Satan belongs to that order, and that is why he espouses pure reason. His objection, moreover, is an accountant’s objection: You have done so much for Avraham, but has he offered You anything in gratitude? Not a sacrifice, not a gesture — though You surrounded him with all Your goodwill and promised him descendants and a people. The answer is that were he asked to sacrifice his son, he would do it — and so one passes to the deed, one passes to the trial.
The scene recalls what happens with Iyov. Iyov is a righteous man, kept from all evil, blessed, surrounded by his wife and children, and every day he brings an offering for all the good he receives. Pure reason, which scrutinizes every deed of the earth’s inhabitants, comes one day to object: this servant of Yours of whom You boast is blessed on every side, he lacks nothing; for him, serving G-d is the icing on the cake — it costs him nothing and puts him to no test. And the answer is that this man is truly righteous, whole and sincere, and that even stripped of his children and of all he owns, he would not utter the slightest word of revolt.
The nissayon (trial) seeks out the limits of the soul. It is pure reason that wants to know how far the fear of G-d goes. For if we observe the commandments because we understand them well, and that is why we observe them, then in the end we serve only ourselves, and they are no longer the expression of our faith. The mitzvot ought to stand beyond reason: understood or not, we do not perform them because we have absorbed them, but because they remain the expression of the Divine will and because we believe in it. That is the object of every trial: to set aside every subjective meaning.
The word that opens the chapter is a cry of distress. “And it came to pass after these things”: the word is a painful one; it lays bare our future and draws a thick cloud before our eyes. This is the second of two trials of the same kind — the first invited Avraham to sacrifice his past, this one invites him to sacrifice his love. Yet the purpose of every trial is to allow him to pass to another level of spiritual life. The Ramban says that a trial is always to the benefit of the one who undergoes it, because it gives him a new impetus in his spiritual dimension and makes him — in the sense of the word nes — a banner, a standard-bearer, a sign of recognition for the whole world.
There had been a first sacrifice: that of Yishmael. Avraham had to part from him and send him into the wilderness, and it was not easy. But there, there was a reason, and so it was not regarded as a trial nor counted to Avraham’s credit: rather, it was counted to Sarah’s credit. For Yishmael was squandering the present, and in squandering the present he was heavily mortgaging the future. The binding of Yitzchak, by contrast, had apparently no reason to be.
“Now I know that you fear G-d” is the one gain of the trial. You do not fear for your person, you do not fear the theories that challenge you, you do not fear what people will say, nor the consequences, nor the misreadings of your acts: you act only out of the fear of G-d. And because you have given proof of it, and did not hesitate to bind your only son, the Promised Land will come to be, and you are given the guarantee that, whatever happens, I will always be at the side of your own. Here the Rav opens a parenthesis: this promise recalls the blessing given to Rivkah at the moment of her departure, the one that says her descendants will inherit the gate of those who hate them.
“After these things” refers to a discussion between Yishmael and Yitzchak. Yishmael argues that at thirteen he accepted circumcision, whereas Yitzchak underwent it at eight days old, without even feeling it, without consenting to it: the merit would thus belong to the first, and the second would merely have performed a rite. Yitzchak replies that were he asked to sacrifice his life, it would no longer be a matter of a single limb only — he would give himself entirely; he is thirty-seven years old and can decide such a thing. It is immediately after this dialogue that the trial comes, and here again it is pure reason that steps in to find out where the limits of the soul lie.
The word used does not say “sacrifice”; it says “raise up.” Avraham is sent to the land of Moriah, which is once again the land to be consecrated, the Land of Israel that is to be made holy. And he is asked to raise his son up, not to slaughter him. That is why, when his hand is stopped, the answer is: I did not tell you to sacrifice him, I told you to raise him up; now you have raised him up — you have only to bring him down from the altar. Avraham, for his part, wanted to go all the way, because he wondered how else he would justify his act before all those who were watching and asking whether he was truly sincere, to the very end, in his attachment.
Then the real question remains: why the binding of Yitzchak and not the trial of Avraham? On Rosh Hashanah, when the whole world is judged, we ask that the binding of Yitzchak be remembered in favor of his descendants; yet it was Avraham who was tested, and still the whole merit is credited to the son. The reason is that Avraham is the source of everything, but he is entirely hesed — and Yishmael too was marked by it, so much so that he had to be sent into the wilderness. Yitzchak, however, is not carried by his father’s attribute: he is carried by rigor, by the sense of justice, of fairness, of just apportionment. The world, moreover, was created by Elokim, that is, by the attribute of justice, and this attribute is hard: it imposes the law, it imposes judges and officers who rule the whole universe by compulsion. That is why it was judged that the world would not endure if it remained governed by the laws of causality alone, and the attribute of kindness was joined to the first to ensure the survival of the universe. The question then remains wide open: which of the two is to govern?
An aggadah in Tractate Shabbat puts this question to the test of the Fathers. Weary of Israel’s conduct, yet bound by the promise made to the Fathers, G-d comes to Avraham and tells him that his children have only grown worse with regard to everything he stood for in their eyes; Avraham answers that he has nothing to say and that they may be wiped out, and Yaakov, asked next, gives the same answer as his grandfather. Yitzchak alone defends them: they are Your children as much as mine; You brought them out of Egypt and called them Your firstborn son. Then he counts: a generation is seventy years; he takes half of it upon himself, and from the remaining thirty-five he subtracts the hours of prayer, the Shabbatot and the festivals, so that some twenty years are left to be divided in two — and if need be, he will take them all upon himself. He bases this right on his silence: I did not stir for a single moment when You asked my father to bind me; You did not even address Yourself to me, and yet I answered in the affirmative, when I could have told him that he had dreamed it, that he was the victim of a hallucination.
The story counts three times “Here I am.” The first is Avraham answering G-d, and it means that he disregards everything, without recalling that only yesterday he was promised a great people, a land for his descendants and this son who came late — the son of his own body and not of his disciples. The second is the one Avraham addresses to his son, who questions him on the way: here I am, I am wholly yours, my love for you knows no limit. For three days Avraham asked himself what he would do, how he would justify himself, who was right, whether this world should be governed by kindness or by justice — and he himself was torn. The third comes when the angel calls him and stops his hand: the first two, one entirely kindness and the other entirely justice, find their synthesis in it. The binding of Yitzchak thus confirms that this world must be governed by justice — yet neither by an unbending justice nor by pure justice, but by a justice overflowing with kindness. What was bound, what was conditioned, is the attribute of justice itself.
That is why it is not Elokim who stops the hand. Throughout the story it was this name alone that appeared; but at the moment of halting the gesture, it is an angel of Hashem who cries out not to touch the boy, and it is the angel of kindness. It had to be this call that interrupted Avraham’s hand. And that is why on Rosh Hashanah, a day of justice, we ask that the binding of Yitzchak be remembered in our favor: because he alone, being justice itself, could defend us.
Full transcript of the lecture
This is the non-sacrifice of Yitzchak — which is nonetheless regarded as a sacrifice. We translate it as “sacrifice,” but that is wrong. Akedat Yitzchak means the binding of Yitzchak. To bind, you see, is to tie, to tie someone to a reality — we shall see what this is about. The fact is that, as […] teaches, there is always a link, both outward and inward, between the sequence of the chapters in the Torah and what follows them. The covenant concluded between Avimelech and Avraham concerning coexistence in the Land of Israel poses a problem, according to the Rashbam. The Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, is the only one to raise the danger represented by the covenant between Avimelech and Avraham over the coexistence of the Philistines and Avraham’s descendants in the Land of Israel.
A problem that is indeed a burning one today. But one thing must be recalled: between G-d and Avraham, no mitzvot at all have been commanded; there is no Torah yet; there is nothing other than the prospect of the Land of Israel. Everything revolves around the promise of the Land of Israel. The story of Avraham — Avraham’s first revelation — is the fact of beginning the march toward the Land of Israel. And note well: Avraham leaves neither his homeland nor his family because he is the target of a pogrom or of antisemitism, or the victim of some kind of poverty, or because he is subjected to some other power. He comes from a noble family, from a wealthy family; he lacks nothing — and yet he decides to make his aliyah to the Land of Israel. This will not be the case of his descendants, who will leave Egypt at a run, fleeing, in an expulsion — ki gorshu mi-Mitzrayim, “for they were driven out of Egypt.” And that is the whole difference between the Fathers and those who came after them. When they consider going to the Land of Israel, it is to flee the pogroms, to flee antisemitism, to rebuild a life, to leave economic conditions that are always precarious and try to build themselves up elsewhere.
That is what we have just read, and between Lech Lecha and Beshalach there is a whole world. […] Now, what Avraham undertakes, he undertakes with his eyes closed, because that is how it is when an individual makes a decision: when one sets oneself a goal, if one begins to analyze every facet of the problem, one never gets out of it and one does not get far. One must close one’s eyes on one’s path to the Land of Israel and set one’s directions in life from that inner call — which, it is true, is subjective. But when one moves on to the stage of carrying it out, then of course it must be done with open eyes, with reason, with wisdom — that is true. The settling of the Jewish people coming out of Egypt is a different matter from what Avraham does, because the people must first shed that shell of exile, that shell of life among the various cultures and civilizations which means that it is not itself, that it has not yet recovered its identity, and that it has not yet managed to overcome all its divisions, all its differences, all its fears, and to achieve a unity with a view to building a country that was destined for it — is that not so? […] We do not go to the Land of Israel to found a nation; we go to the Land of Israel to fulfill ourselves, to help ourselves, to give the world an example of what it is to sanctify a life here below — to make of Israel a state of Eden, because the mirror of Israel, the mirror of the Garden of Eden, is the Promised Land.
But man — Adam was driven out of that promised land; it had been offered to him, he had no merit of his own. But this man will rebuild the Promised Land, he will make of it a state of Eden, and this time it is the work of his own hands. That is why he has the duty, indeed, to mount a guard, to raise an army, to establish a state — but one that is carried toward an ideal. Now, the covenant concluded with Avimelech, who is an idolater, will in a sense allow those idols, those cultures, to coexist with the ideal forged by Avraham, and that will slow the momentum of this country — hence, indeed, the danger to Avraham’s descendants. That is how the Rashbam sought to explain the link between the covenant of Avimelech and Avraham, saying: yes, if in the end we allow this coexistence, it will force us to concede a great deal, to remain open to the various beliefs and the various cultures, and it will end up affecting our children — and G-d knows where we will end up, with marriages on one side and on the other. But this remains the Rashbam’s own view. In the midrash there is no allusion to it. Yet it is a very apt view, and it explains the vayehi — because the chapter of the binding of Yitzchak (we will always speak of the binding of Yitzchak, and I will explain why later on) comes as a final test of Avraham as to his unconditional commitment, in his attachment to G-d. But careful: it is not, as people say, “his attachment to G-d” in general. It is the G-d of Avraham, and the G-d of Avraham is the G-d of hesed. I believe I said it once: we do not say that Elokim is Hashem, as though the divinities were Hashem, because Hashem would then be one divinity among others, like Elokim. We say Hashem hu ha-Elokim — “Hashem is the Elokim.”
Hesed, which is the attribute of kindness — it is hesed that embraces all the streams of belief, all beliefs, all movements of ideas, all thoughts; it is hesed that indeed includes within itself all the middot, all the attributes, so much so that in the middot one begins with hesed and ends with malchut, kingship — the title that deserves sublime royalty. So we say: Hashem hu ha-Elokim. And Avraham is put to a severe test by the Satan, because the Satan takes on the appearance of Elokim. He can borrow its language; he is the evil inclination. Once again: “the evil inclination” has a moral connotation […], but it is a tendency of the mind; it is bound up with the nature of things.
Creation itself is the work of Elokim, and it is He who coordinated, so to speak, all these things, so that there is an order in nature, a causality such that the world functions — and the Satan is part of that. Consequently, at times, he can espouse pure reason. Pure reason is Elokim; pure reason is also the Satan. And what does the Satan say? What does the Satan say? Achar ha-devarim ha-eleh — after these words, after these events — what does the Satan say? What the Satan says is this: well now, You have done so much for Avraham, but has he offered You anything in gratitude — not even a sacrifice, not a single gesture? And yet You surrounded him with all Your goodwill.
You promised him descendants, You want to make a people of his offspring — and look, he shows nothing in return. And so the Holy One, blessed be He, defends Himself before the Satan, before pure reason, and answers: No — it is because I do not insist on it; but if I ever asked him even to sacrifice his son Yitzchak to Me, he would do it. And one passes to the deed, one passes to the trial: ve-ha-Elokim nissah et Avraham, “and Elokim tested Avraham.” This somewhat recalls what happens with Iyov. Iyov too — a righteous man, kept away from all evil, blessed by the Holy One, blessed be He, with a wife and children — brings an offering every day to the Holy One, blessed be He, for all the good He gives him. And this pure reason, which scrutinizes every deed of the inhabitants of the earth, comes one day before the Holy One, blessed be He, and answers G-d’s question — “So, how do you find My world?” It says to Him: everything is going well, but I find that Your servant Iyov, of whom You boast — well, he is blessed everywhere, of course he lacks nothing; for him, serving G-d is the icing on the cake. It poses him no problem, it puts him to no test — does it, in the end, affect his life at all?
“No,” G-d then answers him, “you will see: in reality this man is truly righteous. He is sincere, he is whole in everything he does, and even if I deprived him of his children, deprived him of his wife, deprived him of everything, and even afflicted him with illnesses, he would not utter the slightest word of anger, of revolt.” We are not studying Iyov, but I say this to show you that here the nissayon — the nissayon is the trial — the Satan is pure reason, which would indeed like to see what the limits of the fear of G-d are, the limits of attachment, of nature — what the limits of the soul are.
Of course: because if we seek to observe the commandments because we understand them well, and that is the reason we observe them, then in the end we serve only ourselves, we do not serve G-d; they are not the expression of our faith in G-d. The mitzvot ought to stand beyond reason. Whatever the case — whether we do not understand them or whether we do — it is not because we have absorbed them that we observe them, but because they remain the expression of the Divine will and because we believe in it. And that is the object of every trial: to set aside every subjective meaning that man gives. […] So: va-yehi achar ha-devarim ha-eleh — vayehi is indeed a cry of distress, and it is a painful one, this cry, because it lays bare our future; it draws a thick cloud before our eyes. And this is the second: the first was the one that invited him to sacrifice his past; the second is the one that invites him to sacrifice his love. But the purpose of every trial to which the Holy One, blessed be He, subjects him is to allow him to pass to another level of spiritual life. It is always so: it is le-tovat ha-menuseh, “for the good of the one who is tested,” as the Ramban says. The Ramban says that the nissayon, the trial, is always profitable to the one who goes through it, because it gives him a new impetus in his spiritual dimension, and it places him — the nissayon raises man — at the level of nes: of a pennant, a standard-bearer, a sign of recognition for the whole world.
So what would the sign of recognition be here? You know that on Yom Kippur we have two goats: one destined to be sent away into the wilderness, and the other which is indeed offered — la-Hashem, “to Hashem.” If one may speak of sacrifice, this is Avraham’s second sacrifice. There had already been a first sacrifice — which one? That of Yishmael. Avraham parted from Yishmael […]. He sent him into the wilderness. It was not easy. But there, there was a reason; it was not regarded as a trial, it was not counted as a deed to Avraham’s credit, but rather to Sarah’s credit, because Yishmael was metzachek — he was “making sport.”
He was squandering the present, and in squandering the present, the future was heavily mortgaged. The second one, that of Yitzchak, had apparently no reason to be. But the purpose was atah yadati ki yere Elokim atah — “now I know that you fear G-d.” You do not fear for your person. You do not fear all the theories that challenge you. You do not fear what people will say, the consequences or the misreadings of your acts — you do it only out of the fear of G-d. And because you have given proof of this, and did not hesitate to bind your only son, then know that the land I have promised you — you will indeed bring it about; you will be able to obtain from Me the guarantee that, whatever happens, I will always be at the side of your own.
This promise of G-d somewhat recalls the blessing given to Rivkah by Lavan and her family: Achotenu, at hayi le-alfei revavah, ve-yirash zar’ech et sha’ar sona’av — “Our sister, may you become thousands of myriads, and may your descendants inherit the gate of those who hate them.” […] And your descendants will inherit from your enemies. Enemies must be fought — those who harm us. […] We must let them talk. […]
We must be able to convince them, we must be able to prevail over them. So — that was a parenthesis. Well then, let us return to our first verse. Va-yehi achar ha-devarim ha-eleh — after these events. Which events? Ah yes! There was a discussion between Yishmael and Yitzchak. Yishmael says to Yitzchak: I, at thirteen, agreed to undergo the milah, circumcision. You were eight days old; you did not even feel it, it was imposed on you. I consented; I have the merit of the milah, and you do not have the merit — it is a mitzvah that you performed because it has become, as it were, a rite, a ritual. “No,” Yitzchak then said, “if I were asked to sacrifice my life, it would not only be the milah that I would have done — I would have given myself entirely to the Holy One, blessed be He.”
“I am thirty-seven years old today, and I can decide such a thing.” And immediately: ve-ha-Elokim nissah et Avraham. So here too there is pure reason stepping into this dialogue: what are the limits of the soul? We said that these limits are meant to make us pass to another plane, to a higher level — whence our Sages drew this teaching. From the fact that in the text, when G-d invites Avraham to take his son, his only one, Yitzchak, and to go toward the land of Moriah — and the land of Moriah is, once again, consecrated; the Land of Israel is the goal: to make it holy — it does not say “you will offer him as a burnt offering.” Ve-ha’alehu sham le-olah: “raise him up there as a burnt offering.”
I am asking you to raise him up — we are speaking of elevation, not of sacrifice. And that is the reason why, when the Holy One, blessed be He, stops Avraham’s hand — Avraham says that he wanted, and would still want, to go all the way, because how is he going to justify his act before all those who are watching and asking: is Avraham truly sincere to the very end in what he undertakes, in his attachment to his beliefs, to his idealism? […] He says: listen, I did not tell you “sacrifice him”; I told you ve-ha’alehu, raise him up. Now you have raised him up — stop. You have only to bring him down, you have only to bring him down from the altar. […]
Yes — and now, where does the problem really lie? Where does this problem lie that calls for this binding? For we invoke it on the day of Rosh Hashanah. When the whole world is judged, we say: va-akedat Yitzchak le-zar’o ha-yom be-rachamim tizkor — “and the binding of Yitzchak, remember it today in mercy for his descendants.” I stress that we no longer speak of the sacrifice of Avraham, of the trial of Avraham. The sacrifice of Yitzchak, the binding of Yitzchak — in other words, it is Yitzchak who has all the merit. Why Yitzchak? It is Avraham! It was Avraham who was tested — why Yitzchak? There is a reason. You know very well that the middot, the attributes that govern the world and are distributed over the seven days, begin with hesed — that is the or, the light.
In that light, moreover, are all the elements of the seven days, and our Sages point this out in the fact that when it says yehi or, “let there be light” — that is the light of kindness. Then there is the light of gevurah, the light of rigor. Then the light of truth, of tiferet, of splendor — the one that makes the synthesis between hesed and gevurah. And then there is the separation between the light and the darkness […]. Why? Because […] it is netzach, that which prevails — which wrests the light from the darkness — and it creates […] the light of day.
That is yesod: the essential, the foundation — it is Shabbat, it is Shabbat. So the seven middot are contained in this light of the first day, which means that over the days of creation they are distributed. The second day is the separation between the waters: so it is reason, distinction, analysis — rigor. The third day — it is said ba-yom ha-shelishi, “on the third day”: the Torah, given in the third month, which was given […] to the third of the Fathers. And Moshe and Aharon — they are the me’orot, the great luminaries. And indeed […], since life — universal life — begins on the fifth day, and the sixth day is Adam. And so the problem is this Avraham, who is the source of everything. How, in the end, is he to be contained? Is it possible to found an entire world on hesed? Yishmael too was marked by this hesed. He had to be sent away into the wilderness.
Now Yitzchak is not at all carried by his father’s attribute. Yitzchak is carried by gevurah, by midat ha-din: the sense of justice, the sense of fairness, of just apportionment. And there is a real problem as to what the driving force of this world ought to be: is it hesed, or is it midat ha-din? Now the world was created by Elokim; it was created by midat ha-din — and midat ha-din, careful, is kochaniyut, the rule of force; it is alimut, violence. You cannot […]. Justice imposes the law; it imposes shoftim ve-shotrim, judges and officers — people who execute the law, who compel, who by means of the law rule the whole universe. The law is hard, unbending. And the Holy One, blessed be He, perceived that the world would not endure if He left it thus, governed by the laws of causality, the laws of kochaniyut, of violence […], which are inscribed in the laws of nature. So He Himself judged it necessary to join to it midat ha-hesed, the attribute of kindness; and when He joined midat ha-hesed to it, it was to ensure the survival of His universe.
So now, what is to be done? Is it Avraham’s midat ha-hesed that will govern the world, or midat ha-din? At the foundation of this discussion there is an aggadah in Tractate Shabbat which says that the Holy One, blessed be He, somewhat weary of Israel’s conduct, yet bound all the same by the promise He had made to their fathers, goes to see them, and He asks Avraham: “Avraham, your children have transgressed; they only grow worse in their conduct with regard to morality, with regard to all the values you have represented for them.” And Avraham says: yimachu al kedushat shemecha — “let them be wiped out for the sanctification of Your Name.” You have only to do away with them; before the holiness of Your Name, I have nothing to say — enough.
One would of course have expected him to seek to defend his children. But kindness has its limits — he knows it himself, and therefore he is aware of it. Then He goes to ask the grandson, Yaakov, who is rachamim, who is mercy; He puts the same question to him, and Yaakov gives Him the same answer as his grandfather. He says to Himself: the old do not understand, and the young do not understand either […]. Then He questions Yitzchak apart. And Yitzchak says to Him: listen — You called them Your children when they accepted the Torah; You brought them out of Egypt and You said beni bechori, “My firstborn son,” and You made of them a people that represents You on earth.
Now You complain and tell me, “They are your children” — but they are Your children too. So if You consider that we are partners in this, then I take half upon myself. And you know the aggadah: the life of a generation is seventy years. So, half and half: thirty-five years. You take away the days — the hours — of prayer, you take away the Shabbatot, you take away the festivals: how much is left? Twenty-two and a half years — twenty-two, twenty-three years. So You take eleven and a half upon Yourself, I take eleven and a half upon myself — and if You do not want that, count on me: I will take it all upon myself, agreed? I did not stir for a single instant when You asked my father to bind me; I accepted. You did not even address Yourself to me!
And I answered in the affirmative. I could have said to my father: perhaps you dreamed it, you must have had a hallucination, you only imagined that He spoke to you. But no — I did not say a single word. And it is a fact that in the account of this chapter of the binding of Yitzchak there are three times hineni, “here I am.” The first hineni is Avraham’s, when G-d speaks to him, and he says: I disregard everything, I set everything aside. I do not say to You that only yesterday You were telling me, “I will make of you a great people”; I do not say to You that only yesterday You were telling me that this land would belong to my descendants; and now — You promised me a son whom You gave me at a certain age, because You did not want my disciples, You wanted only the child of my own body — and now You tell me, “Go, offer him to Me.” I did not argue. I said hineni. Very well — with G-d I have settled my problem; I trust Him; I am sure that everything He does is for my good.
[…] Then his son asks his question — ayeh ha-seh le-olah, “where is the lamb for the offering?” […] He says to his father, “My father,” and Avraham answers hineni beni — “Here I am, my son: I am wholly yours, I am wholly yours.” You said to G-d, “I am wholly Yours”; today you say to your son, “I am wholly yours” — that is to say, my love for you is without limit. Indeed, for three days Avraham asks himself: what is he going to do, how is he going to justify himself, who is right, how must this world be governed — with kindness, or with justice, with reason? Is Yitzchak right, or am I? And he himself is torn.
And when the angel of Hashem stops his hand, he calls out “Avraham, Avraham,” va-yomer hineni, “and he said: here I am.” The third hineni. This time the two hinenis — the first two hinenis, one which was wholly kindness, the other wholly justice — find their synthesis in the third hineni, when the Holy One, blessed be He, stops Avraham’s hand. That is to say, the sacrifice of Yitzchak — the binding of Yitzchak — in the end validates that this world must be governed by justice, but […] always with an inclination toward kindness. It is not an unbending justice, it is not a pure justice; it is a justice overflowing with kindness. And that is the purpose of the sacrifice, if you will — of the binding. What was bound? What was conditioned? The attribute of justice was conditioned.
It was bound. Why? Because there had to be a call from Hashem that would stop the hand. For until then it was Elokim, Elokim, Elokim throughout the story. But when Avraham’s hand is stopped, it is malach Hashem, an angel of Hashem. It is the angel of kindness, of the attribute of kindness, who cries out: “Do not touch — al tishlach yadcha el ha-na’ar, do not lay your hand upon the boy.” That is it — I will stop here, I think […] — that is the meaning of this binding of Yitzchak, and that is the reason why on the day of Rosh Hashanah we pray and say: va-akedat Yitzchak le-zar’o ha-yom be-rachamim tizkor. Although it is a day of justice, remember that he was the only one who could defend us — because he is justice itself; yet he could defend us because […]
Continue studying
- ← Previous lecture: Vayera: The Promises to Avraham (Part 1)
- Next lecture: Chayei Sarah: The Source of Life →
- Parashat Vayera: Summary, Themes and Booklet
- All lectures in the series: Weekly Parasha
- Who is Rav Raphaël Benizri?