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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Oct 11, 2007
Just as the Akedah has preoccupied the most important sages or students of the Talmud, the Middle Ages and their successors throughout the ages, it preoccupies Professor Wiesel. He analyzes Rashi’s interpretation of the text; the comparison between the test of Job and that of Abraham; the roles of Satan, the angel, and God; an interpretation offered by Don Yitzchak of Abarbanel that the word l’oleh did not mean “a burnt offering” but the opposite: “in place of an offering.” The walk to Mount Moriah was to serve as a sacrifice. Whether the test intended human sacrifice and whether father and son returned together remain open questions. But Professor Wiesel teaches us that Isaac, the survivor, “had to make something of his memories, his experience, in order to force us to hope.” Isaac therefore became a poet, the author of the afternoon service, and the defender of his people not because of his suffering but because of what he made of that suffering.
Explore The Book of Genesis, 22 on Sefaria, a living library of Torah.
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