44 | OCTOBER 21 • 2021 

T

here is a mystery at the heart of 
Jewish existence, engraved into the 
first syllables of our recorded time.
The first words of God to Abraham 
were: “Go out from your land, your birth-
place, and your father’s house … And I 
will make you a great nation …”
In the next chapter, there is another 
promise: “I will make your children like 
the dust of the earth, so that if anyone 
could count the dust of the earth, so shall 
your offspring be counted.”
Two chapters later comes a 
third: “God took him outside 
and said, ‘Look at the heav-
ens and count the stars — if 
indeed you can count them.’ 
Then He said to him, ‘So 
shall your children be.’”
Finally, the fourth: “Your 
name will be Abraham, for I 
have made you a father of many nations.”
Four escalating promises: Abraham 
would be the father of a great nation, as 
many as the dust of the earth and the stars 
of the sky. He would be the father not of 
one nation but of many. What, though, 
was the reality? 
Early in the story, we read that Abraham 
was “very wealthy in livestock and in silver 
and gold.” He had everything except one 
thing — a child. Then God appeared to 
Abraham and said, “Your reward will be 
very great.”
Until now, Abraham had been silent. 
Now, something within him breaks, and he 
asks: “O Lord God, what will you give me 
if I remain childless?” The first recorded 
words of Abraham to God are a plea for 
there to be future generations. The first 
Jew feared he would be the last.
Then a child is born. Sarah gives 
Abraham her handmaid Hagar, hoping 
that she will give him a child. She gives 
birth to a son whose name is Ishmael, 
meaning “God has heard.” Abraham’s 
prayer has been answered, or so we think. 
But in the next chapter, that hope is 
destroyed. Yes, says God, Ishmael will be 
blessed. He will be the father of 12 princes 
and a great nation. But he is not the child 
of Jewish destiny, and one day Abraham 
will have to part from him.

This pains Abraham deeply. He pleads: 
“If only Ishmael might live under Your 
blessing.” Later, when Sarah drives Ishmael 
away, we read that “This distressed 
Abraham greatly because it concerned 
his son.” Nonetheless, the decree remains. 
God insists that Abraham will have a 
son by Sarah. Both laugh. How can it be? 
They are old. Sarah is post-menopausal. 
Yet against possibility, the son is born. His 
name is Isaac, meaning “laughter.”
Sarah said, “God has brought me laugh-
ter, and everyone who hears about this 
will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who 
would have said to Abraham that Sarah 
would nurse children? Yet I have borne 
him a son in his old age.”
Finally, the story seems to have a happy 
ending. After all the promises and prayers, 
Abraham and Sarah at last have a child. 
Then come the words which, in all the 
intervening centuries, have not lost their 
power to shock:
After these things, God tested Abraham. 
He said to him, “
Abraham!” “Here I am,” 
he replied. Then God said, “Take your 
son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, 
and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice 
him there as a burnt offering on one of the 
mountains that I will show you.”

Abraham takes his son, travels for three 
days, climbs the mountain, prepares the 
wood, ties his son, takes the knife and 
raises his hand. Then a voice is heard from 
heaven: “Do not lay a hand on the boy.” 
The trial is over. Isaac lives.

WHY THE LONG WAIT?
Why all the promises and disappoint-
ments? Why the hope so often raised, 
so often unfulfilled? Why delay? Why 
Ishmael? Why the binding? Why put 
Abraham and Sarah through the agony of 
thinking that the son for whom they have 
waited for so long is about to die?
There are many answers in our tradi-
tion, but one transcends all others. We 
cherish what we wait for and what we 
most risk losing. Life is full of wonders. 
The birth of a child is a miracle. Yet, pre-
cisely because these things are natural, 
we take them for granted, forgetting that 
nature has an architect, and history an 
author.
Judaism is a sustained discipline in not 
taking life for granted. We were the people 
born in slavery so that we would value 
freedom. We were the nation always small, 
so that we would know that strength does 
not lie in numbers but in the faith that 

Rabbi 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

The Miracle
 of the Child

