In this week’s parsha we encounter the momentous and challenging account of the Akeida, the Binding of Yitzchak. We struggle to comprehend the ethical value of the Akeida or the Divine justice of such a command to the great tzaddik Avraham to offer his own son as a sacrifice. Some of the greatest philosophers in history, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have wrestled with this problem.
In one of the few of his essays published during his lifetime, Rav Shagar (Shimshon Gershon Rosenberg) anthologized a number of these to make a powerful statement about the nature of faith in our modern world in light of the trial of Avraham. (The essay was translated to English and published in 2017 as “Uncertainty as the Trial of the Akeida.”) Rav Shagar juxtaposes the approach of Chazal (principally in the Talmud and Midrash) to the questions raised by the philosophers. He positions himself as a student of Rav Kook, who taught (as we discussed previously in this column) that the value of the Akeida lay in the manner in which it launched Avraham – and Yitzchak – toward spiritual transcendence so that they were outside of any questions or doubts concerning morality. This directly opposes the view, most famously promoted by Kierkegaard, that the lesson of the Akeida is that faith and obedience supersede rational thought or ethical morality.
For Kierkegaard, Avraham was the spiritually perfect man – the embodiment of the “knight of faith,” for whom everything was done in service of G-d and who had no needs or desires not part of that relational framework. For Kierkegaard and, with very minor deviations, for Rav Soloveitchik, humanity is ennobled by our willingness to become pure and unquestioning agents of the Divine. When given a direct command, it was Avraham’s nature to comply, regardless of the substance of that command.
Rav Shagar points out certain thematic similarities between the trial of Avraham and that of Iyov. But Avraham excels and demonstrates his qualities by virtue of the outcome of his test while Iyov is criticized by Chazal for his responses. Yet on the surface, they seem to be very similar. In fact, Avraham’s overall approach seems perfectly consistent with the advice given to Iyov by his friends – even though they are broadly seen as spiritually inferior to Iyov. The difference seems to inhere in the internal process of the one being tested, the one whose faith is to be demonstrated. For example, when Eliphaz exhorts Iyov to acknowledge the authority of G-d and to surrender his willingness to rebel against this authority, he is pushing Iyov toward a stance of abandonment of moral responsibility for his own conduct. Iyov is compelled, in this reading, by the Divine Will. He ceases to be an independent agent who is capable of moral choice at all. Avraham, on the other hand, is described repeatedly in the Gemara as someone who struggles with the inducements of the Satan to rationalize his way out of the command and to defy the express will of Hashem out of a commitment to rationalism and ethics. This is an interesting parallel to Iyov in and of itself, as we find the role of the Satan prominently in both accounts, explicit for Iyov and homiletically for Avraham.
Rav Shagar points out that Chazal understand the role of the Satan as being synonymous with Avraham’s own’ evil inclination (cf. Baba Batra 16a). Thus, in a sense, the true work of the Akeida is in Avraham (and also Yitzchak) overthrowing his own less refined, less actualized self. Avraham, not unlike Kierkegaard’s knight of faith, cannot be swayed from his purpose, and he doesn’t even engage in the intellectual hair-splitting that is intended to rationalize non-compliance.
But his obedience is not mute and blind; there is no antinomy between nature or ethics on the one hand and religion (qua obedience) on the other. Avraham has a commitment to the service of Hashem which is more aesthetic than it is ethical. He understands what is left obscure in so many traditional discussions of the Akeida – that Divine justice will prevail and that the word of Hashem is more powerful than the arguments of the Satan. Avraham isn’t deferring his judgment; he isn’t merely abandoning agency or personal responsibility in the face of the Divine decree. Avraham has perfect faith that by following the words of Hashem, he will bring about the best possible outcome, and indeed this is what happens.
