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“And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham, and He said to him, "Abraham,". and Abraham answered, "Here I am." And He said, "Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, yea, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and bring him up there for a burnt offering…” (Genesis 22:1-2).

Ever since my childhood the story of Binding of Isaac has hard for me. The picture of the father holding a knife over his son intending to kill him shocked me. When I became a father it was even more difficult. I could not bear the idea of a father intending to murder his child in the name of his belief. The question of what kind of God is a God who appreciates the willingness of a father to sacrifice his son as an expression to his strong belief, and even reward him for it, bothered me even more: “And he said, "By Myself have I sworn, says the Lord, that because you have done this thing and you did not withhold your son, your only one, That I will surely bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your descendants will inherit the cities of their enemies. And through your children shall be blessed all the nations of the world, because you hearkened to My voice."” (Genesis 22: 16-18).

The story of Abrahams “complete devotion” arouses in me some empathy to Motil the son of Peisi the Cantor, a hero in one of Shalom Aleichem’s books who said that he was happy to be an orphan, this is also my feeling towards this image of God.

The binding of Isaac is not another Biblical story, it is a founding story, that shaped the Jewish consciousness of  total devotion to God for thousands of years. The willingness to sacrifice, without hesitation, what is most precious to you, was the ultimate expression to an exalted belief in God.

I do not want to be a part of such a fundamentalist narrative. If a want to be connected to the next, I need to find another way to understand the story.

I am happy that I recently had the opportunity to read this parasha in a Torah which is not vowelized. (The known vowelization was developed in Tiberias a little more then thousand year ago). The reading without vowelization enables us to read the word חשכת (withhold) (in the sentence: “you did not withhold your son, your only one”) in two ways: you can read the letter ש as the letter S, as customary, and you can read it as SH and then you get the word חשכת (You did not darken).   In this way of reading the meaning of the sentence changes, and it is that God blesses Abraham for not darkening his son, which means that he did not caused his death. If Abraham would have killed his son,  God would have been denied of Isaac’s light. This way of reading gives a new meaning to the story of the binding of Isaac:

As idols existed at this time, God also ordered Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Abraham, who knew that the people worshiped idols and were expected to sacrifice their sons, was ready to do it as an expression of his devotion to God. We can assume that also for the people who believed in idols, it was very hard to sacrifice their sons. In order to do this terrible thing, the believer has to get emotionally ready and needs to be in a state of ecstasy of idol worship. That is the reason why, in order to go with Isaac to Mount Moriah,  God makes Abraham walk three days in the desert, during which his ecstatic excitement is becoming bigger and bigger. In his passionate believe and according to his Pagan ancestoral tradition, Abraham prepares himself to sacrifice his son. Abraham stands with his knife over his son, his emotions are blocked, his eyes burning, and he is ready to do God’s order:  “And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son" (Genesis 22:10).

When Abraham raised his hand to kill his son, something, that changes the course of  human history happens: " And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said: 'Abraham, Abraham." (Genesis 22:11) This is a very dramatic moment, a second in which the future of the Monotheism is very fragile. Will Abraham respond to God’s call or not? Abraham, in a split of a conscience moment did not let God down, stopped himself and answered " 'Here am I´(ibid). This is the moment when God knows that He has one believer and said to Abraham: " for now I know that thou art a God-fearing man, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me"  (Genesis 22:12) . 
God appreciates Abraham for not acting as one of the idol worshipers, who in the passion of their belief blocked themselves from the voices of conscience and moral. 

This little change, the place of the dot on the letter ש enabled to put Abraham in a place of a unique believer who was not ready to obey God in any circumstances but, despite of God’s order, and although he was carried away by his belief, he listened to the moral voice that called him not to do this horrible thing.
That night in the square a religious extremist was sent to kill in the name of Jewish idol worshipers rabbis. The knife was in his hand and with the blindness of his passion could not listen to Abram’s God voice that called him  “'Lay not thy hand" (ibid). That night in the square the Pagan Judaism spirit won.

Since then, I feel that the Jewish-Pagan extremists and the Islam-Pagan extremists gain power and shame Abraham's legacy. If these extremists Jewish and Moslems would have been in Abram's place, they would have fail the test, because of their fanaticism,  they would not have heard God call to stop the killing.
 
The story of Abrahams experience teaches us that religious fanaticism is the  way of idolaters and the faith is Abraham's God requires from the sons and daughters of Abraham to listen to moral and merciful voice.
Shabbat Shalom