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