U ffiz i Ga lle ry v ia W ikime d ia Co mmo ns

Reimagining and rewriting
the Binding of Isaac.

T

here are only 19 verses in the
story of the Binding of Isaac,
which we read in synagogue
each Rosh Hashanah, but there are —
without exaggeration — hundreds, if
not thousands, of commentaries on this
story.
These commentaries ask: How could
a good God command a father to kill his
child, and how could a good father pos-
sibly obey? What was it like on the three
days when Abraham and Isaac journeyed
together toward the place where the
sacrifice would take place? Did they talk
along the way, or just ride together in
silence? Did Sarah know? What does it
mean when the text says that Abraham
"returned to his servants"?
Above all, in this age of jihad and sui-
cide bombers who train their children
to be killers and martyrs for the sake of
Allah, how can we still read this story,
which seems to praise murder in the
name of God?
The nuances of every word of the
Binding of Isaac story — and of the
silences in the story — have been
weighed and studied in every genera-
tion. Yet every year, when we confront

A depiction of the Binding of Isaac

this awesome tale on Rosh Hashanah, we
wince.
If you are a father, you wonder: Could
I do this to my child? If you are a son,
you wonder: Could my father do this
to me? If you are a human being, you
wonder: What kind of a God is this? And
whoever you are, you ask yourself: Why
do we read this story on Rosh Hashanah?
James Goodman's new
book, But Where Is the
Lamb? Imagining the Story of
Abraham and Isaac (Schocken
Books; 2013; $25; available
Sept. 10), is a fresh and excit-
ing take on the different ways
in which the Binding of Isaac
has been understood down
through the centuries, and
also covers how we should
understand it today.
A professor of history and
creative writing at Rutgers
University, Goodman also is
the author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist
Stories of Scottsboro, a narrative history
of the Scottsboro case (in which nine
African Americans, framed for rape,
eventually led to the end of all-white

juries in the South), written from many
different points of view; and Blackout,
about the blackout and blackout looting
in New York City in the summer of 1977.

Points Of View
Goodman writes as one who is both a
son and a father, both a Jew and a person
in search of meaning, and, above all, as
a storyteller who is fascinated
by this ancient tale and lets
his imagination run free over
what it meant and what it
means.
It is impossible to deter-
mine exactly where a story has
its origin, because every story
has a story that came before
it. Goodman imagines a writer
whom he calls "G," who was
asked to do a rewrite of this
story, but who turned it in to
the editors before he was com-
pletely satisfied with it.
G wanted to struggle some more with
the silences in the story, but the editors
took it away from him and published it
before he could finish it.
Then G learned the lesson that every

writer must learn: Once you have pub-
lished a story, it no longer belongs to
you. It is out of your hands, and every
reader who picks up your tale has the
right to see in it whatever it means to
him.
I once saw a famous novelist listen to
someone's interpretation of one of his
stories. He took out a pen and made
some notes, and said, "I never realized
that this was what my story meant." Such
is the case with the Binding of Isaac
story.
For the author of the Book of Jubilees
(a midrashic commentary), the Binding
of Isaac was a precursor to the Passover
story, in which the Israelites were res-
cued at the last minute by the sacrifice of
a lamb, and the purpose of the story was
to show the envious angels why Abraham
was worthy of being so beloved by God.
For Philo, who wrote in the midst of
Greek culture, Abraham was a stirring
example of stoicism. He understood
Abraham as a noble example of the wise
man who suppresses emotion for the
sake of reason. A weaker man might

Commentary on page 121

JN

August 29 • 2013

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