The paradigm test: the binding of Isaac

Avot 5:4 teaches that the patriarch Abraham faced ten tests and passed them all, to show how great was either his love for God or God's love for him (depending on which view one takes of the open weave of the text). This mishnah does not however say what the ten tests are. Browsing through the Torah, midrashim and commentators I have so far identified over 30 candidates for tests -- and there may be even more.

The paradigm test of Abraham is however God's command that he take Isaac to a place indicated by God and sacrifice him there. This is the only event in Abraham's life that the Torah actually describes as a test. It is therefore the test that is most frequently discussed and analyzed by Jewish scholars.

Being omniscient and beyond the limitations of time, God would have known the outcome of this test before it took place, which was why He made sure that the test was halted just before what would have been a tragic conclusion. The fact that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son may not have been something Abraham needed to be told, since the Torah records his unswerving obedience to God’s commands. We could infer then that the function of this test was to show us, as Abraham’s physical or metaphorical descendants through Isaac, something of the quality, the steadfastness under stress and the deep love for God that the Patriarchs possessed. This demonstration of Abraham’s mettle would also act as a lesson for all subsequent generations as to how we should serve God, with love, fear and complete trust.

But there is more to this test than meets the eye. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son and knows that Abraham will do so if God does not stop him first. However, God wants to establish why Abraham is prepared to carry out his instruction to the very end.

We have a tradition, enshrined in the Talmud, taught by Rabbi Chanina, that “everything is in the hands of Heaven—except for fear of Heaven" (Berachot 33b). This teaching appears to provide the key to Abraham’s test by giving it a clear and unambiguous purpose: to discover whether Abraham has fear of Heaven or not, this being something over which God has deliberately relinquished control. However, if Abraham was allowed to see the test through and kill Isaac because God told him to do so, this filial sacrifice would be viewed with horror by all right-thinking humans. They would not be wrong to ask: “why should we or anyone else want to know whether Abraham feared Heaven or not, if he commits such appalling and barbarous acts as this?”

The reason behind the reason

If the reason for testing Abraham with the sacrifice of his son was to establish that he was prepared to do so on account of his fear of Heaven rather than his love for God, we must ask a further question: what is the reason why we need to know why he was so motivated?

Each of the patriarchs is traditionally associated with a middah, a character trait, which became a byword for his conduct. Abraham is always associated with chesed (“kindness”) and his son Isaac with gevurah (“physical strength” but also “self-discipline”). Chesed is a by-product of love and relates to positive actions, while gevurah is a by-product of fear and relates to more negative ones. The issue to be resolved by this test was whether Abraham, whose very fabric was that of great kindness, would be able to overcome his own trait of extreme chesed and, drawing on his gevurah, steel himself to the task of killing someone as precious to him as the son whom God had promised him.

In the event, it is as a result of the test that we know that Abraham had sufficient gevurah to counterbalance his chesed and enable him to sacrifice Isaac. Since gevurah is an aspect of fear, we now have an explanation of God’s words at the very moment when He halts the test:

Don’t stretch out your hand against the lad and don’t do anything to him because now I know that you are God-fearing and did not withhold your son, your only son, from me (Genesis 22:12).

God left it to Abraham to feel the pull both of his chesed towards his son and his fear of God, and to demonstrate whether he had sufficient gevurah to carry out his task. This explanation has a take-away message for us too: we must take care to train our own characters so that we can draw on both chesed and gevurah when the need arises. It is not enough to say, “I’m a chesed man myself; I leave the gevurah to others who do it better.”

The unexpected test

The fifth chapter of Avot (at 5:4) recites that Abraham was tested by God with ten tests (all of which the Patriarch passed) in order to make a show of how dearly Abraham regarded Him. Much has inevitably been written on this topic. Questions such as (i) which are the ten tests, (ii) why any number from one to nine wouldn't have done just as well and (iii) which was the greatest test continue to be debated.

This post focuses on one small issue: the consideration that a person being tested may know perfectly well that he is being tested, but might still not know what the test actually is. The following episode, drawn from the lower strata of the world of finance, illustrates the point well.

Back in the 1980s a friend of mine was a trainee bank manager with the National Westminster Bank in London. Part of the way through the training programme, all the trainees were given a test. They were ushered into a room full of desks, on each of which was a test paper that was several pages in length, together with an answer book. The test paper opened with the following rubric: “Please read this paper carefully. Do not attempt to answer any of the questions before you have finished reading this paper”.

My friend obediently read through the questions without writing anything, even though he knew most of the answers and didn't need to think too deeply about them. He could so easily have completed those questions as he went along. At the very end of the test paper, he was surprised to read the following rubric: “Do not write any of the answers to the questions on this paper”.

It transpired that the real purpose of the test was not to see what the trainee bank managers knew but to reveal whether they were capable of carrying out the simple instruction of not writing anything until they had finished reading the test paper. My friend was the only person who passed that test.

The salutary lesson of this exercise—we may know that we are being tested but still not recognize what we are being tested on—is even more applicable when it is God and not a bank that sets the tests. We do not know how greatly aware Abraham was that he was being tested, but we do see from the Torah how his willingness and determination to carry out God's instructions as closely as possible meant that he could pass his tests whether or not he was aware of how he was being tested.

Ten tests for Abraham -- but why not Jacob too?

Mishnah 5:4 of Avot cites the ten tests of Abraham, which he passes and which demonstrate the great love between him and God.

Abraham is the only one of the three Patriarchs to feature in Avot; there is no mention of Isaac or Jacob, notwithstanding their importance and notwithstanding the many lessons we learn from studying their lives. God speaks to all three and there is no reason to doubt either His love for them or their love for Him. We know relatively little of Isaac’s life, but Jacob is by far the best-chronicled Patriarch: the narrative of his life and death occupies more than half the Book of Genesis, rather more than twice as much space as is given to the Torah’s account of Abraham. From this narrative it is clear that Jacob faced at least ten tests of his own [listed below], yet these are not mentioned as such in Avot or in the commentaries on it. Why should this be?

In the absence of guidance from our Sages, we can only offer rationalizations for the fact that Avot does not teach us anything about Jacob’s tests. Possible explanations are that 

(i) what applies to Abraham applies equally to Jacob, so there is no need to repeat the lesson; 

(ii) the reason why Jacob passed his ten tests was because, in some way, his task was made easier by the knowledge that his grandfather had been tested ten times and had come away successful; 

(iii) Jacob did not pass his tests with the same high level of trust in God as Abraham possessed and his tests therefore provided a less powerful lesson; 

(iv) while, from our perspective, Jacob passed all his tests, God in some way expected more from him.

Looking at the Patriarchs at a distance of three millennia or so, it is easier for us to recognize the high level of faith, love and confidence in God that Abraham possessed, but to identify with Jacob—a more frail and troubled personality, whose anxieties and life experiences more closely resemble our own. Reading the Torah, one never expects Abraham to fall short of the mark. Jacob however stumbles through from crisis to crisis, much as so many of us do in our own lives.  If we accept the notion that every one of us will have our own “ten tests” to cope with, Jacob epitomizes the fate we share with him. We have to cope with trials and tribulations, whether forced upon us or of our own making—and none of us can expect to be praised and held up as examples from whom later generations can learn. However, as Avot reminds us, the rewards we receive for passing our tests are commensurate with our struggle to pass them, as was the case with Jacob himself.

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 The tests, in chronological order, look like this: 

(i) having to masquerade as Esau in order to obtain the latter’s blessing; 

(ii) having to flee from his home to escape the threat of being murdered by Esau; 

(iii) having to work a full seven years for the hand of his promised bride Rachel; 

(iv) waking up the morning after his marriage to discover that his wife was not Rachel but her sister Leah; 

(v) having his wages constantly changed by Laban; 

(vi) having to face Esau and his militia after leaving Laban, 

(vii) Rachel’s death in the course of Jacob's travels; 

(viii) the abduction and rape of his daughter Dinah; 

(ix) the loss, presumed dead, of his favourite son Joseph; 

(x) having to part with his youngest son Benjamin in exchange for food. 

One can add further tests that are based on the Torah text, without the need to draw on midrashic teachings: for example, Jacob’s fight with the angelic stranger and his being told to leave Israel in the knowledge that he would not see his Promised Land again.

Trial and error

Here's the text of a piece I wrote on the trials of Abraham which was hosted on Rabbi Shmuel Phillips's Judaism Reclaimed Facebook group (declaration of interest: Rabbi Phillips is my son). Since it's relevant to this week's Torah reading, I thought I'd post it here too:

Trial and Error 

Parashat Vayera includes two of the most vividly memorable events in Avraham’s life: his argument with God over the fate of the inhabitants of Sodom and the narrative of the Akedah, God’s instruction that Avraham bind his son Yitzchak and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. The Akedah is the only test of Avraham’s that the Torah mentions explicitly. The statement that Abraham was set 10 tests and passed them all is Mishnaic (Avot 5:4). We can ask three questions here: (i) why did God test Avraham; (ii) why does the Torah account for one test when the Mishnah mentions ten and (iii) is Avraham’s negotiation with God over the fate of Sodom not also a test?  

Why should God need to test Avraham at all? The normal function of any test is to obtain a result or outcome that would otherwise be unknown. Its circumstances and methodology should reflect the objective to be achieved: for example the person being tested should be known to have the capacity to pass it and should not know that he is being tested. However, an omniscient God who exists beyond time and who has already selected Abraham for his destined role does not need to test him in order to ascertain information and is in any event already in possession of it. The fact that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son was not something Abraham needed to be told either, since the Torah records his unswerving obedience to God’s commands. 

The inference we can draw is therefore that the function of the Akedah was to show us, being Avraham’s physical or metaphorical descendants through Yitzchak, something of the quality, the steadfastness under stress and the deep love for God which the Patriarchs possessed. This demonstration of Abraham’s mettle would also act as a lesson for all subsequent generations as to how we should serve God, with love, fear and complete trust. Rambam appears to take this approach (Moreh Nevuchim 3:24). Significantly, the Hebrew word nisayon (“test”) is related to nes (“banner”), a word that conveys the need to wave a flag, as it were, to make a prominent display of Abraham’s exceptional qualities. 

Why does the Mishnah mention 10 tests when the Torah identifies only one as being such? The answer here lies in the different functions served by the Torah and by the mishnayot of Avot. Avot 5:4 is a short mishnah because, though it mentions Avraham’s successful negotiation of 10 tests, it does not list them. Nor is there any rabbinical consensus as to what they are. If one reads the Torah narrative of Avraham’s life and the midrashic literature that is based upon it (on which many rabbis rely when compiling their lists of 10), it is easy to put together a list approaching 30 events that could fairly be construed as such.  

It is plain that, by not listing the tests, the author of this mishnah was teaching something other than what those tests were. The important part of the mishnah is the statement that Avraham passed them. By concealing their identity the mishnah alludes to the fact that their identity was concealed from Avraham too—and that is where his greatness lies. Where a person knows he or she is being tested, that is no real test.  

Of all the many commentators on the mishnah, Rambam is unique: he is the only one to choose 10 tests from the Torah alone, rather than opting for a blend of Torah and often more exciting tests drawn from midrashic sources. However, neither he nor any other major commentator includes as a test Avraham’s argument with God over the ethical consideration of destroying the righteous together with the wicked in the sinful cities of Sodom and Gemorrah. There is not even any discussion of why it should be omitted. Why should this be so? 

Another mishnah in Avot may provide a hint that leads to a possible answer.  In Avot 5:6 the mishnah repeats a verse from the Torah in which God, with justifiable anger, states that our ancestors tested Him ten times during their sojourn in the desert. This statement admits of the possibility not just of God testing man but of man testing God. When God tests us, it is to teach us a lesson about ourselves, but when we test Him we must be careful to do so leshem shamayim, for the right reasons. Here it is not God testing Avraham but Avraham who is testing God: if He is really the Judge of all the Earth, will He not do justice? God who is on trial, is being tested by the one mortal who has recognised Him in all His glory. God passes the test.