The comments on yesterday’s post about the deadly effects of Biblical literalism promted me to write the following response the interesting question raised there. For me, the whole point of the Akeidah (Binding of Isaac) story – found in Genesis 22, is that it is possible to combine the readiness to commit the act of sacrificing even our kids WITH the notion that it should not happen.
In many ways, the story in Genesis is the precursor to the idea of having many biblical transgressions deemed worthy of the death penalty but only one story in the entire Five Books of Moses in which anyone actually gets executed for their transgressions.
It’s that combination which makes the story both so radical and so remarkable. Neither the classical/Kirkekardian/Soloveitchik “knight of faith” willing to do anything for God, nor the liberal/occasionally Hasidic model which sees Abraham as failing the test, are satisfactory on their own. Each isolates the part of the story they like best, so it becomes even more a story about the reader than the topic, than usual.
And let’s face it, both dying for, and killing for, God IS seductive. Who know’s that better than I? From Abraham to Jesus to jihadists, crusaders and my old teacher Meir Kahane, it’s part of being human. No they are not all morally equivalent, but they are all rooted in the same human fascination with one’s “all” for God.
What I love about the arc of the Abraham story, including the Binding of Isaac, is that it preserves the tensions — precisely what parents Neumann failed to do. But of course, if they are right, then both their kid’s death and their current travails are all part of God’s plan and there is nothing for them to worry about. I just don’t want that approach considered legal anywhere I, or any children, have to live.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
posted January 22, 2009 at 2:46 pm
So we are in a place where relegion needs to secular state to save it from its own dogma (or adapt…)
posted January 22, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I have had similar philosophical/religious dilemmas. I have struggled against my own namesake the epitome of killing for God. Joshua committed genocide supposedly at “God’s Command”. I have never reconciled this aspect of our history, and have come to the realization that this in fact was not God commanding anyone but a guilt-driven piece of war propaganda which directly contradicted the 10 commandments. After all when you believe this new land is yours and there are already people there, what better way to justify us taking it then to write a part of scripture saying that God tells us to kill them.
We can argue interpretation, and make justifications all day, but what if the truth is just this simple? I mean we are not alone in using sacred scripture to justify killing. Christianity has done it, Islam has done it, Hinduism, Paganism, etc. And we still do it today. Whether our sacred justification is a “War on Terror” or “National Security”. In reality we are causing far more death and terror then the “Terrorists” are, the only difference is the sophistication of our weaponry. This is why I am so against what Israel is doing to Palestine, because it feels like the same Karmic struggle being reenacted against the Canaanites and Philistines. And the truth they are innocent, we shouldn’t be there we never should have been, at least not in the way we have, by the sword. Its so sad. And the justifications we use are what let us sleep at night. Truth is ugly but realizing it is the key to true peace.
posted January 23, 2009 at 4:11 am
” . . . the decree of Genesis 9:5-6 is equally enduring and cannot be separated from the other pledges and instructions of its immediate context, Genesis 8:20-9:17; . . . that is true unless specific Biblical authority can be cited for the deletion, of which there appears to be none. It seems strange that any opponents of capital punishment who professes to recognize the authority of the Bible either overlook or disregard the divine decree in this covenant with Noah; . . . capital punishment should be recognized . . . as the divinely instituted penalty for murder; The basis of this decree . . . is as enduring as God; . . . murder not only deprives a man of a portion of his earthly life . . . it is a further sin against him as a creature made in the image of God and against God Himself whose image the murderer does not respect.” (p. 111-113) Carey agrees with Saints Augustine and Aquinas, that executions represent mercy to the wrongdoer: “. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” (p. 116). “A Bible Study”, by Dr. Gervas A. Carey, from Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992. Quaker biblical scholar Dr. Carey, a Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College
posted January 24, 2009 at 4:28 pm
The Binding of Isaac is a polemic against human sacrifice. It surprises me that our Rabbi’s do not teach it that way. The practice wasa commmon place in the time of Avraham.
Homo Mysticus
posted January 27, 2009 at 3:02 am
I mean come on. We all have to see the truth in Islam. It is true that people in those nations don’t have a choice who to follow. It is true that in the bible that god allows people to choose him. In Islam there is no god but Allah. hmmm Do you think god has to be chosen for you? I know the truth. Michael Jackson converted to Islam. Now we can see the truth. Thank you. I am glad that I can now be a PYT in the nation of Islam. Such a pretty young thang.