The Legends of the Jews, vol 1 by Louis Ginzberg (most inspirational books txt) 📖

of thy Creator, delay not. Turn up thy garment, gird thy loins, and after that thou hast slaughtered me, burn me unto fine ashes.

Then gather the ashes, and bring them to Sarah, my mother, and place them in a casket in her chamber. At all hours, whenever she enters her chamber, she will remember her son Isaac and weep for him.”

And again Isaac spoke: “As soon as thou hast slaughtered me, and hast separated thyself from me, and returnest to Sarah my mother, and she asketh thee, Where is my son Isaac? what wilt thou answer her, and what will you two do in your old age?” Abraham answered, and said, “We know we can survive thee by a few days only. He who was our Comfort before thou wast born, will comfort us now and henceforth.”

After he had laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac on the altar, upon the wood, Abraham braced his arms, rolled up his garments, and leaned his knees upon Isaac with all his strength.

And God, sitting upon His throne, high and exalted, saw how the hearts of the two were the same, and tears were rolling down from the eyes of Abraham upon Isaac, and from Isaac down upon the wood, so that it was submerged in tears. When Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son, God spoke to the angels: “Do you see how Abraham my friend proclaims the unity of My Name in the world? Had I hearkened unto you at the time of the creation of the world, when ye spake, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?

who would there have been to make known the unity of My Name in this world?” The angels then broke into loud weeping, and they exclaimed: “The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth, he hath broken the covenant. Where is the reward of Abraham, he who took the wayfarers into his house, gave them food and drink, and went with them to bring them on the way? The covenant is broken, whereof Thou didst speak to him, saying, ‘For in Isaac shall thy seed be called,’ and saying, ‘My covenant will I establish with Isaac,’ for the slaughtering knife is set upon his throat.”

The tears of the angels fell upon the knife, so that it could not cut Isaac’s throat, but from terror his soul escaped from him.

Then God spoke to the archangel Michael, and said: “Why standest thou here? Let him not be slaughtered.” Without delay, Michael, anguish in his voice, cried out: “Abraham! Abraham! Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him!” Abraham made answer, and he said: “God did command me to slaughter Isaac, and thou dost command me not to slaughter him! The words of the Teacher and the words of the disciple-unto whose words doth one hearken?”[242] Then Abraham heard it said: “By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.”

At once Abraham left off from Isaac, who returned to life, revived by the heavenly voice admonishing Abraham not to slaughter his son. Abraham loosed his bonds, and Isaac stood upon his feet, and spoke the benediction, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who quickenest the dead.”[243]

Then spake Abraham to God, “Shall I go hence without having offered up a sacrifice?” Whereunto God replied, and said, “Lift up thine eyes, and behold the sacrifice behind thee.”[244] And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and, behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket, which God had created in the twilight of Sabbath eve in the week of creation, and prepared since then as a burnt offering instead of Isaac. And the ram had been running toward Abraham, when Satan caught hold of him and entangled his horns in the thicket, that he might not advance to Abraham. And Abraham, seeing this, fetched him from the thicket, and brought him upon the altar as an offering in the place of his son Isaac. And Abraham sprinkled the blood of the ram upon the altar, and he exclaimed, and said, “This is instead of my son, and may this be considered as the blood of my son before the Lord.” And whatsoever Abraham did by the altar, he exclaimed, and said, “This is instead of my son, and may it be considered before the Lord in place of my son.” And God accepted the sacrifice of the ram, and it was accounted as though it had been Isaac.[245]

As the creation of this ram had been extraordinary, so also was the use to which all parts of his carcass were put. Not one thing went to waste. The ashes of the parts burnt upon the altar formed the foundation of the inner altar, whereon the expiatory sacrifice was brought once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the day on which the offering of Isaac took place. Of the sinews of the ram, David made ten strings for his harp upon which he played. The skin served Elijah for his girdle, and of his two horns, the one was blown at the end of the revelation on Mount Sinai, and the other will be used to proclaim the end of the Exile, when the “great horn shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.”[246]

When God commanded the father to desist from sacrificing Isaac, Abraham said: “One man tempts another, because he knoweth not what is in the heart of his neighbor. But Thou surely didst know that I was ready to sacrifice my son!”

God: “It was manifest to Me, and I foreknew it, that thou wouldst withhold not even thy soul from Me.”

Abraham: “And why, then, didst Thou afflict me thus?”

God: “It was My wish that the world should become acquainted with thee, and should know that it is not without good reason that I have chosen thee from all the nations. Now it hath been witnessed unto men that thou fearest God.”[247]

Hereupon God opened the heavens, and Abraham heard the words, “By Myself I swear!”

Abraham: “Thou swearest, and also I swear, I will not leave this altar until I have said what I have to say.”

God: “Speak whatsoever thou hast to speak!”

Abraham: “Didst Thou not promise me Thou wouldst let one come forth out of mine own bowels, whose seed should fill the whole world?”

God: “Yes.”

Abraham: “Whom didst Thou mean?”

God: “Isaac.”

Abraham: “Didst Thou not promise me to make my seed as numerous as the sand of the sea-shore?”

God: “Yes.”

Abraham: “Through which one of my children?”

God: “Through Isaac.”

Abraham: “I might have reproached Thee, and said, O Lord of the world, yesterday Thou didst tell me, In Isaac shall Thy seed be called, and now Thou sayest, Take thy son, thine only son, even Isaac, and offer him for a burnt offering. But I refrained myself, and I said nothing. Thus mayest Thou, when the children of Isaac commit trespasses and because of them fall upon evil times, be mindful of the offering of their father Isaac, and forgive their sins and deliver them from their suffering.”

God: “Thou hast said what thou hadst to say, and I will now say what I have to say. Thy children will sin before me in time to come, and I will sit in judgment upon them on the New Year’s Day.

If they desire that I should grant them pardon, they shall blow the ram’s horn on that day, and I, mindful of the ram that was substituted for Isaac as a sacrifice, will forgive them for their sins.”[248]

Furthermore, the Lord revealed unto Abraham that the Temple, to be erected on the spot of Isaac’s offering, would be destroyed,[249] and as the ram substituted for Isaac extricated himself from one tree but to be caught in another, so his children would pass from kingdom to kingdom—delivered from Babylonia they would be subjugated by Media, rescued from Media they would be enslaved by Greece, escaped from Greece they would serve Rome—yet in the end they would be redeemed in a final redemption, at the sound of the ram’s horn, when “the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.”[250]

The place on which Abraham had erected the altar was the same whereon Adam had brought the first sacrifice, and Cain and Abel had offered their gifts to God—the same whereon Noah raised an altar to God after he left the ark;[251] and Abraham, who knew that it was the place appointed for the Temple, called it Yireh, for it would be the abiding place of the fear and the service of God.[252] But as Shem had given it the name Shalem, Place of Peace, and God would not give offence to either Abraham or Shem, He united the two names, and called the city by the name Jerusalem.[253]

After the sacrifice on Mount Moriah, Abraham returned to Beer-sheba, the scene of so many of his joys.[254] Isaac was carried to Paradise by angels, and there he sojourned for three years. Thus Abraham returned home alone, and when Sarah beheld him, she exclaimed, “Satan spoke truth when he said that Isaac was sacrificed,” and so grieved was her soul that it fled from her body.[255]

THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF SARAH

While Abraham was engaged in the sacrifice, Satan went to Sarah, and appeared to her in the figure of an old man, very humble and meek, and said to her: “Dost thou not know all that Abraham has done unto thine only son this day? He took Isaac, and built an altar, slaughtered him, and brought him up as a sacrifice. Isaac cried and wept before his father, but he looked not at him, neither did he have compassion upon him.” After saying these words to Sarah, Satan went away from her, and she thought him to be an old man from amongst the sons of men who had been with her son. Sarah lifted up her voice, and cried bitterly, saying: “O my son, Isaac, my son, O that I had this day died instead of thee I It grieves me for thee! After that I have reared thee and have brought thee up, my joy is turned into mourning over thee. In my longing for a child, I cried and prayed, till I bore thee at ninety. Now hast thou served this day for the knife and the fire.

But I console myself, it being the word of God, and thou didst perform the command of thy God, for who can transgress the word of our God, in whose hands is the soul of every living creature?

Thou art just, O Lord our God, for all Thy works are good and righteous, for I also rejoice with the word which Thou didst command, and while mine eye weepeth bitterly, my heart rejoiceth.” And Sarah laid her head upon the bosom of one of her handmaids, and she became as still as a stone.

She rose up afterward and went about making inquiries concerning her son, till she came to Hebron, and no one could tell her what had happened to her son. Her servants