Rethinking the Akedah

Perhaps no narrative in the Tanach challenges us more than the Akedah – the Binding of Isaac.  How are we to find meaning in this tale?  Even though Isaac is saved at the last moment by an Angel of God, how can we not be outraged by a God who would ask a father to sacrifice his only son?  How can we not be heartbroken for the days of terror and anguish that God has inflicted upon Abraham and Isaac?  How are we to embrace a God and a religion that causes such heartbreak?

Perhaps, the wisdom of the Akedah comes by viewing it not as the story of an individual, but part of the story of the evolution of our people.

The Akedah begins with the words:

א  וַיְהִי, אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, וְהָאֱלֹהִים, נִסָּה אֶת-אַבְרָהָם; וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּנִי.

The standard translation is as follows: “And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said unto him: 'Abraham'; and he said: Here am I."

In this verse, the Hebrew word for God is HaElohim”.  The word HaElohim is used in two additional verses:  In verse three:

ג  וַיַּשְׁכֵּם אַבְרָהָם בַּבֹּקֶר, וַיַּחֲבֹשׁ אֶת-חֲמֹרוֹ, וַיִּקַּח אֶת-שְׁנֵי נְעָרָיו אִתּוֹ, וְאֵת יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ; וַיְבַקַּע, עֲצֵי עֹלָה, וַיָּקָם אֶל-הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר-אָמַר-לוֹ הָאֱלֹהוַיֵּלֶךְ, 

“And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he cleaved the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.”

Again in verse 9:

ט  וַיָּבֹאוּ, אֶל-הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אָמַר-לוֹ הָאֱלֹהִים, וַיִּבֶן שָׁם אַבְרָהָם אֶת-הַמִּזְבֵּחַ, וַיַּעֲרֹךְ אֶת-הָעֵצִים; וַיַּעֲקֹד, אֶת-יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ, וַיָּשֶׂם אֹתוֹ עַל-הַמִּזְבֵּחַ, מִמַּעַל לָעֵצִים.

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood."

But a literal translation of the Hebrew word “HaElohim” is quite different than “God” as generally presented in the English translation.  It literally means ‘the gods”  “The Hebrew letter hey -  הָ  translates as “the”  and the word Elohim  אֱלֹהִים - is plural - gods. What are we to make of this?

Jews began their evolution as a nomadic tribe dwelling in and around the Judean hills of the Levant.  They lived amongst tribes and peoples who engaged in paganistic practices, including human, and most notably, child sacrifice. 

We know that the ancient Canaanites and Phoenicians worshipped the god Moloch and that this worship was marked by child sacrifice.  Moloch is mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy and in the Book of Leviticus: Leviticus 18:21: "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch”.

We also know that the Valley of Hinnom on the southern edge of Jerusalem was the site of ancient child sacrificial rites. 

In Second Chronicles 28 we read regarding King Ahaz:

"He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for the Baalim. 3 Moreover he offered in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel."

In Jeremiah chapter 7 we read:

"And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into My mind."

Our Jewish tradition tells us that Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, the site of the first and second Temples and the current site of the Dome of the Rock, is where Abraham brought Isaac to be sacrificed.  Thus, when “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Genesis 22:4), he would have been overlooking the Valley of Hinnom the site of child sacrifices to Moloch.

In translating the word הָאֱלֹהִים in the Akedah, what if we read it as “the gods” and, in this context, the gods refer to the pagan gods worshipped in Canaan during the time of Abraham.  In this reading, it would not be unusual to be told that the gods asked Abraham to sacrifice his son.  That is what the gods – specifically Moloch - did at that time. 

But, as we read in the text in Genesis, at the last moment, an angel of God tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son.

יא  וַיִּקְרָא אֵלָיו מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה, מִן-הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיֹּאמֶר, אַבְרָהָם אַבְרָהָם; וַיֹּאמֶר, הִנֵּנִי. יב  וַיֹּאמֶר, אַל-תִּשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֶל-הַנַּעַר, וְאַל-תַּעַשׂ לוֹ, מְאוּמָה:  כִּי עַתָּה יָדַעְתִּי, כִּי-יְרֵא אֱלֹהִים אַתָּה, וְלֹא חָשַׂכְתָּ אֶת-בִּנְךָ אֶת-יְחִידְךָ, מִמֶּנִּי

11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said: 'Abraham, Abraham.' And he said: 'Here am I.' 

12 And he said: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him; for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.'

But here’s the thing, in this verse and in each subsequent verse in the accounting of the Akedah in the Tanach, the Hebrew name for God is the tetragrammaton, YHWH.  One can argue that it is a different God whose angel now tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son Isaac.  It is a God who desires to steer Abraham away from the horrific practices of child sacrifice.  And thus:

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Adonai-jireh; as it is said to this day: 'In the mount where the LORD is seen.'

We can unpack the Akedah a bit further by looking at the word   נִסָּה   “to test” as in “And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham”.  But what if we change our translation to: “And it came to pass after these things, that the gods tested Abraham” – as in testing Abraham’s resolve.  We can also translate נִסָּה as “tempted”.  Thus, Abraham, the first believer in the one God was tempted to return to worshiping those pagan gods that were popular among other nations.  

While the historical accuracy of the Tanach can be questioned and debated, what cannot be denied is that it recounts and frames the evolution of our people from a wandering tribe immersed in paganistic culture and beliefs to a nation, guided by an omnipotent divinity and framed by laws and values that guide our lives. 

This evolution is recounted through the myriad of laws and statues that, according to the Torah, are handed down from God through Moses.   But we also know that the Torah seeks to guide the mores and values of the Jewish people through stories of our ancestors.  And critical to the evolution of the Jewish people is the transition of our system of belief; the way we worship and honor God.  Perhaps the Akedah not only speaks of that transition but it was, in fact, a tale told thousands of years ago to our ancestors to wean them away from the barbaric practices of child sacrifice; Just like Abraham, you will be tempted to worship pagan gods, but you must resist the temptation. 

Perhaps the evolution of Abraham’s belief is reflective of the evolution of the religious belief of the Jewish people.  Abraham, thus, represents not only the “proto-Jew”, the first of our fore-parents, but, more broadly, a literary construct to represent the religious and cultural evolution of our people.

Thus, gods that that demand human sacrifices speaks of a system of belief grounded in misguided superstition and purposeless and inhumane practices.  But that is not the God of our people.  Our God seeks not human or animal sacrifices but asks that we: “Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Isaiah, I;17)