Jewish tradition has much to say about dying so that another might have
forgiveness. This page focuses on Jewish traditions about the Akedah.
The Hebrew word "akedah" means "binding" and refers
to the well-known story in Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to
offer up his only son Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham and Isaac thereafter
make the journey to Mount Moriah. Having arrived there, Abraham binds
his apparently uncomplaining son upon the wood and raises his knife in
order to slay him. But at the last moment an angel cries out to Abraham
and prevents the sacrifice from taking place. In place of Isaac, God provides
a ram for the burnt offering and commends Abraham for his outstanding
faith and obedience.
In Jewish tradition, this story has been elaborated numerous times. In
some traditions, Isaac becomes a symbol of Jewish martyrs of all times
and places. In others, the story is used to show that God does not require
a "human sacrifice." According to yet other traditions, the
sacrifice of Isaac actually took place and in fact brought atonement to
Israel.
Genesis explicitly tells us that Isaac did not die. Yet in spite of this,
the idea of Isaac's atoning death infused the popular imagination in pre-
and early- medieval times. Some surmise that this concepth arose in reaction
to Christian teaching. Others speculate that it is a reflection of medieval
Jewish life, when Isaac served as a model for those who would kill their
children and themselves rather than submit to forced conversion and torture.
In the rabbinic literature, we find traditions about the Akedah that
go beyond what the text of the Bible says and attribute atoning value
to the incident. These traditions show that even within Judaism, there
was a place for the idea that someone's death could function as an atonement.
Song of Songs Rabbah 1:14:1
MY BELOVED IS UNTO ME AS A CLUSTER OF HENNA.
CLUSTER refers to Isaac, who was bound on the
altar like A CLUSTER OF HENNA (KOFER): because
he atones (mekapper) for the iniquities of Israel.
--Soncino Midrash Rabbah (vol. 9, second part, p. 81).
Leviticus Rabbah 29:9
When the children of Isaac give way to transgressions and evil deeds,
do Thou recollect for them the binding of their father Isaac and rise
from the Throne of Judgment and betake Thee to the Throne of Mercy,
and being filled with compassion for them have mercy upon them and change
for them the Attribute of Justice into the Attribute of Mercy!
--Soncino Midrash Rabbah (vol. 4, p. 376).
Shibbole ha-Leket (13th c.)
When Father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes and his
sacrificial dust was cast onto Mount Moriah...
--Shibbole ha-Leket.
The Jewish Encyclopedia
In the course of time ever greater importance was attributed to the
'Akedah. The haggadistic literature is full of allusions to it; the
claim to forgiveness on its account was inserted in the daily morning
prayer...
...even in the Talmud voices are raised in condemnation of its conception
as a claim to atonement...These protests were silenced by the persecutions
in which Jewish fathers and mothers were so often driven to slaughter
their own children in order to save them from baptism. This sacrifice
is regarded as a parallel to that of Abraham....The influence of the
Christian dogma of atonement by vicarious suffering and death, it has
been suggested, induced the Jews to regard the willingness of Isaac
also to be sacrificed in the light of a voluntary offering of his life
for the atonement of his descendants.
--Rabbi Max Landsberg (1845-1928), "'Akedah,"
Jewish Encyclopedia.
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut
There was...a remarkable tradition that insisted that Abraham completed
the sacrifice and that afterward Isaac was miraculously revived....According
to this haggadah, Abraham slew his son, burnt his victim, and the ashes
remain as a stored-up merit and atonement for Israel in all generations.
--The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York: Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), p. 151 n. 5.
Encyclopedia Judaica
It appears that this notion was widespread in medieval times: Ibn Ezra
(commentary on Gen. 22:19) also quotes an opinion that Abraham actually
did kill Isaac...and he was later resurrected from the dead. Ibn Ezra
rejects this as completely contrary to the biblical text. Shalom Spiegel
has demonstrated, however, that such views enjoyed a wide circulation
and occasionally found expression in medieval writings.
--Louis Jacobs, "Akedah," Encyclopedia Judaica
2:482.
