NOVEMBER 14 • 2024 | 45

his son: Then God said: “Take your 
son, your only son, the one whom 
you love — Isaac — and go to the 
land of Moriah. There, offer him 
up as a burnt offering on one of the 
mountains, the one that I will show 
you.” Gen. 22:2
How can this make sense? It is 
hard enough to understand God 
commanding these things of any-
one. How much more so given that 
God chose Abraham specifically 
to become a role model of the par-
ent-child, father-son relationship.
The Torah is teaching us 
something fundamental and 
counterintuitive. There has to 
be separation before there can be 
connection. We have to have the 
space to be ourselves if we are to be 
good children to our parents, and 
we have to allow our children the 
space to be themselves if we are to 
be good parents.
It takes a certain maturity on our 
part before we realize this, since our 
first reading of the narrative seems 
to suggest that Abraham was about 
to set out on a journey that was 
completely new. Abraham, in the 
famous midrashic tradition, was the 
iconoclast who took a hammer to 
his father’s idols. Only later in life 
do we fully appreciate that, despite 
our adolescent rebellions, there is 
more of our parents in us than we 
thought when we were young. But 
before we can appreciate this, there 
has to be an act of separation.
Likewise in the case of the 
Binding of Isaac. I have long argued 
that the point of the story is not 
that Abraham loved God enough 
to sacrifice his son, but rather that 
God was teaching Abraham that we 
do not own our children, however 
much we love them. The first 

human child was called Cain 
because his mother Eve said, “With 
the Lord’s help, I have acquired 
[kaniti] a man” (Gen. 4:1). When 
parents think they own their child, 
the result is often tragic.
First separate, then join. First 
individuate, then relate. That is 
one of the fundamentals of Jewish 
spirituality. We are not God. 
God is not us. It is the clarity of 
the boundaries between heaven 
and earth that allows us to have a 
healthy relationship with God. 
It is true that Jewish mysticism 
speaks about bittul ha-yesh, the 
complete nullification of the self in 
the all-embracing infinite light of 
God, but that is not the normative 
mainstream of Jewish spirituality. 
What is so striking about the 
heroes and heroines of the Hebrew 
Bible is that when they speak to 
God, they remain themselves. 
God does not overwhelm us. That 
is the principle the Kabbalists 
called tzimtzum, God’s self-
limitation. God makes space for us 
to be ourselves.
Abraham had to separate himself 
from his father before he, and we, 
could understand how much he 
owed his father. He had to separate 
from his son so that Isaac could 
be Isaac and not simply a clone of 
Abraham. 
Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the 
Rebbe of Kotzk, put this inimitably. 
He said: “If I am I because I am I, 
and you are you because you are 
you, then I am I and you are you. 
But if I am I because you are you, 
and you are you because I am I, 
then I am not I and you are not 
you!”
God loves us as a parent loves 
a child — but a parent who truly 
loves their child makes space for 
the child to develop their own 
identity. 
It is the space we create for one 
another that allows love to be like 
sunlight to a flower, not like a tree 
to the plants that grow beneath. 
The role of love, human and Divine, 
is, in the lovely phrase of Irish poet 
John O’Donohue, “to bless the 
space between us.” 

QUESTIONS TO PONDER 
• How does God make space for us to 
be ourselves?

• Do you think it is hard for parents 
to make space for children to be 
themselves? Why?

• Does this approach prevent parents 
(and God) from protecting their 
children from making mistakes? Do 
you think this is a good approach, or 
is it too risky?

Following 
 
a Mission

I

n previous commentaries, I 
have queried which of the major 
protagonists of the akeda (binding 
of Isaac) story suffered the greater test: 
Abraham, the father who had to take 
the responsibility for the sacrifice 
of his son, or Isaac, the son who 
had to undergo the anguish of 
being laid out upon the altar. 
I have offered that Abraham 
received the command 
directly from God, which 
made his acquiescence almost 
understandable; Isaac is more 
praiseworthy because he only 
heard the command from his 
father, yet he was willing to 
submit himself. In doing so, 
Isaac becomes the paragon of the 
ideal Jewish heir, who continues the 
traditions of his father even though he 
has not heard the Divine command.
Maimonides bases his view of 
Abraham as “rebellious son” upon the 
fact that the Bible is silent about why 
God suddenly commanded Abraham 
to leave Ur and considered him worthy 
of becoming a great nation and a 
blessing for the world. Why Abraham? 
Maimonides concludes that 
Abraham must have discovered ethical 
monotheism through his own rational 
thinking and merited God’s election. 
However, the last verses of Noach 
record that “Terah took his son Abram 
… and they departed … from Ur 
Kasdim to go to the Land of Canaan; 
they arrived at Haran, and they settled 
there … and Terah died in Haran.
” 
Why must scripture tell us that 
Terah had originally set out for the 
Land of Canaan if he never reached it 
because he died on the way? The Bible 

will then record a meeting between 
Abraham and Melchizedek. The text 
identifies him as a “priest of God 
Most High” to whom Abraham gives 
tithes. Is it not logical to assume that 
there was one place where the 
idea of a single God was still 
remembered and that place 
was Jeru-Shalem, Canaan, 
Israel? And if Terah had left Ur 
of Kasdim to reach Canaan, 
might it not have been because 
he wanted to identify with 
that land and with that God 
of ethical monotheism? And 
if Abraham, Terah’s son, had 
joined his father in the journey 
may we not assume that 
Abraham identified with his 
father’s spiritual journey? 
From this perspective, we 
understand why this story is followed 
by God’s command to Abraham: 
Conclude the journey you began with 
your father and reach the destination, 
and the destiny, which unfortunately 
eluded him.
Abraham, then, emerges as the true 
continuator of his father’s mission. 
The biblical message, through the 
lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
behooves us to continue in our 
parents’ footsteps and to pass down the 
mission of ethical monotheism from 
generation to generation. Indeed, we 
must improve upon their vision and 
accomplishments and take proper 
advantage of the possibilities the 
unique period in which we live may 
provide for us. 

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah 

Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

Rabbi 
Shlomo 
Riskin

Parshat 

Vayera: 

Genesis 

18:1-22:24; II 

Kings 4:1-37.