A Thought on Parshas Vayera

"...'v'hinae ayal achar..." "...and behold! A ram, afterwards, caught..." (22:13) We would not want to go through this parsha without some chidush, some new perspective, on the Akeida. There is so much to understand, so much to learn here. It was the tenth of the trials which Avraham Avinu faced. Incidentally, ibn Shu'aib notes that there are two central lessons taught here: one is that the prophets took their visions very seriously, and believed in them with the same convictions with which they believed in consensual reality. The second lesson is that whatever a prophet was instructed, he acted on immediately without hesitation. This helps us understand how Avraham responded with speed and with alacrity to HaShem's instruction to sacrifice Yitzchak. But now, back to the "chidushim." A point which is pondered by many Rishonim is how HaShem could issue a commandment and then rescind it. Avraham understood that he was meant to sacrifice his son. That was his commandment. How is it, then, that he could then be told not to sacrifice him? Ibn Shu'aib cites many approaches. Some suggest that he was not told to sacrifice, but to "elevate" him on an altar, which he did. Some suggest that he was actually told that he should "raise" his son's stature, but not end his life. Some suggest that the prophecy saying (22:2) that this would happen "on one of the mountains...asher Omer elecha - that I will tell you about" really translates as "if I will tell you"; HaShem did not end up giving the order, so it was only tentative. Others suggest that the word "v'ha'alehu sham la'ola" does not mean "and you will sacrifice him" but rather means "you will sacrifice it", meaning the ram which had been prepared in advance. Each of these approaches were posed by great sages, yet ibn Shu'aib remarks "these are all desperate attempts to explain the passage, when in fact the passage facilely removes the question without any desperation." He explains that the Torah itself (24:1) tells us that this was all a trial, a nisayon. This means Avraham needed to go through this process in order to implant within our nation specific tools. The means were the end, rather than the process being a means to achieve an end result of the sacrifice of Yitzchak. The objective was to negate all adversarial forces against the Jewish nation. Citing a little-known midrash, ibn Shu'aib demonstrates that "whatever Avraham succeeded in uprooting on earth resulted in HaShem uprooting above". What does that mean? Avraham enacted the symbolic annihilation of the entire Jewish people r'l. He did not stall with any question about what would become of HaShem's promise to grant him descendants. He brought his only son to the precipice of extinction, then stopped. This reverberated Above, so that never again would "a final solution" prevail. After the Akeida, HaShem swore that this scene would forevermore be imprinted in reality. At the brink of extinction, there would always come a geula. There would also be an ultimate end to Jewish suffering. Just as Divine intervention blocked this imminent death, Divine forces would forever after stop liquidation of the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation would never be sacrificed into oblivion. Ibn Shu'aib writes that the keren ha'geula - the Horn of Salvation - is hinted at in our verse. When the Torah writes "behold! A ram afterwards", we should read the verse as "and Avraham lifted up his eyes and saw afterwards - in the end of days - when we are caught up in strife and suffering - there will be the two horns of a ram." One horn will be the shofar which we blow on Rosh HaShanna to help release us from the bonds of our misdeeds. The other horn will be the great shofar which shall be sounded on the day we are redeemed from all suffering - yitaka ba'shofar gadol (Yeshayahu 27:13). Speedily in our days. Good Shabbos. D Fox