There is one difficulty with this interpretation, namely that child sacrifice is consistently singled out in the Bible as the most heinous of all sins. According to the Bible itself, there is nothing noble, honourable or worthy of admiration about the willingness to sacrifice your child. That is what the pagans do. It is what the king of Moab did, and was rewarded by victory in war (2 Kings 3:27).

Abraham, whose original name Abram means ‘mighty father’, is chosen ‘so that he will teach his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just’ (Genesis 18:19). Abraham was chosen to become the role model of father-as-teacher. To portray him as a man willing to sacrifice his child is at odds with everything else we know about the Bible’s moral vision of parenthood and child sacrifice. So there must be another interpretation.

The answer is given by context. God consistently promises Abraham, Isaac and Jacob two things: children and a land. Seven times God promises the land to Abraham, once to Isaac, three times to Jacob. They are promised children: as many as the dust of the earth, the sand on the seashore, the stars of the sky.

Repeatedly, both promises are delayed and sidetracked. Abraham and Sarah have to wait until they are old before they have a single child. Sarah is infertile. So is Rebecca. So is Rachel. Repeatedly they are forced to leave the land, through famine or family conflict. The land does not become theirs or their children’s throughout the whole of the Mosaic books. Abraham has to haggle to buy a cave in which to bury Sarah. Isaac is challenged for using the wells his father dug. Jacob has to pay a hundred pieces of silver to buy the right to pitch his tent.

Something very strange is being intimated here. Children and a land are the most natural of all endowments. Almost everyone has them. What makes the patriarchs and matriarchs different? Only this: that what everyone else has naturally, they only have as the gift of God. Most couples have children. The matriarchs, except Leah, were all infertile. Their children were seen as the gift of God.

Likewise with the land. Most people have a land. What made Abraham different was that he was told at the beginning of his mission to ‘leave’ his land, his birthplace and his father’s house. The patriarchs were nomads, Hebrews, travellers, outsiders. Israel becomes the people who have a land only by the grace of God. From this fact, the Bible, draws a remarkably legal conclusion. ‘The land must not be sold permanently,’ says God, ‘because the land is mine and you are but strangers and sojourners with me’ (Leviticus 25:23).

The Israelites do not own the land. They merely inhabit it, and their right to do so is conditional on their recognition that it does not belong to them but to God. And what applies to the land applies to children likewise. Abraham, whose name means ‘mighty father’, is to live out an experience that will establish, once and for all time, that our children do not belong to us but to God. Isaac, the first child of the covenant, is the child who belongs to God. Only thus is parenthood to be conceived in the life of the covenant.

The trial of the binding of Isaac is ultimately about whether Abraham is willing to renounce ownership in his child by handing him back to God. That is what the angel means when he tells Abraham to stop, saying, ‘Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’

The story of the binding of Isaac is opaque to us because we take it for granted that children have their own legal identity and rights. But this is a very modern proposition indeed. Throughout the Victorian era, social activists had to work hard to mitigate the brutalities of child labour — children being sent down mines or working long hours in factories. In Roman law, the principle of patria potestas meant that children were the property of their fathers who had the legal right to do with them what they chose, including kill them.

Only when we take this background into account can we begin to understand that the binding of Isaac is God’s way of teaching Abraham that patria potestas has no place in Judaism. The Bible is saying to the people of the covenant: Just as you do not own your land, you do not own your children. Thus is born the biblical idea of parent-as-educator as opposed to parent-as-owner.

This is also what the Bible means when it speaks of God as a parent. God is a non-interventionist parent. During the early years of his people’s history he intervened to deliver from slavery, but increasingly as they matured he too moved from parent-as-owner to parent-as-educator. God does not do our work for us. He teaches us how to do it for him. For God himself abides by the laws he gives us.

On the second morning of Rosh Hashanah, we read from the Torah the story of the Akedah – the binding of Isaac. If you’re unfamiliar with this story, the short version is, G-d tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering, and Abraham almost does so, but at the last minute, an angel appears and tells Abraham to stop and that he has passed G-d’s test. The conventional wisdom is that Abraham proved his loyalty to G-d by being willing to do whatever G-d said.

This year, our rabbi led us in a kind of thought experiment. She asked us, what if Abraham actually failed the test? What if G-d didn’t want Abraham to obey? What if the real test was to see if Abraham would argue with G-d and stick to his morals?

Our rabbi quoted Rashi – a famous medieval rabbi, one of the most influential commentators in the Talmud. In his commentary on the Akedah, Rashi pointed out that G-d does not literally say “slay Isaac.” G-d said, bring him up to prepare him as a burnt offering. So, according to Rashi, G-d never actually told Abraham to kill his son, and so Abraham failed the test.

So… Did G-d want Abraham to obey, or not? Did G-d mean to tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, or not?

It’s a fun thought experiment. However, I don’t think that this is the most interesting point here. We can never really know what G-d wanted or what G-d meant. Assuming that I know what G-d thinks is way too much hubris for me.

I think it’s much more interesting to think about how we use this story – how we tell it, how we interpret it, and what that says about us. This is a story about a man who almost kills his son because G-d told him to. That’s the text. It’s one of our central texts; we read it on one of the holiest days of the year. And this text bothers us to the point of reinterpretation.

We want to believe that child murder has always been a bad thing. We want to believe that G-d would never tell someone to kill their kid. Evidently, we have wanted to believe this at least since the time of Rashi, so for at least the last thousand years, we’ve been looking at our sacred texts and saying, “That can’t be right.” Truthfully, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that we’d been doing so for the last five thousand years, or more.

There are also subtler aspects to the lessons of the Akedah. There are limits to what may be done in the name of love or awe of G-d. Maimonides cautions that false prophets may arise preaching messages that are inconsistent with this principle and he urges don’t believe them. This message is particularly poignant in our times. G-d does not desire the faithful to drive a truck into innocent pedestrians in order to kill or maim them, in his name or otherwise. Proclaiming Allahu Akbar, while doing so, doesn’t change this basic truth. Anyone who says otherwise is not speaking in G-d’s name; don’t be misled.

Rav Yosef Ibn Caspi[xlv], further develops the theme of the Akedah expressed by Maimonides. He too explains that it was not a test to prove Abraham’s mettle. Rather, it was a means of publicizing the principle that G-d did not want human sacrifices. The Akedah was designed to inform the world of this fundamental principle of faith. In modern parlance, it was a teachable moment. It was designed to uproot, undermine and weaken the established, albeit mistaken, belief, embedded in the hearts of the people, that it was noble to sacrifice children to their deities.

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Brienne attempting to use Jaime's lie about the Sapphire Isle to save Pod's life:

Jaime is her hero. More than that, he is her internal compass when faced with vows that become poison. Any iteration of Brienne would sacrifice herself for a child. Only a post-Jaime Brienne would know to lie.

And for her faith in her liege, Brienne is rewarded with a choice of ethical impossibility.

Amidst fear and trembling, Brienne trades one rope for another. We don't know yet if she will raise the blade to Jaime's neck. A ride akin to Abraham and Isaac's ride to Mt. Moriah seems likely.

I remember the day Isaac came into my classroom,

out of breath with excitement.

'I can't do tomorrow's homework —

I'm going to Mount Moriah!'

He flashed his father's illegible note.

There were many things that made him a special kid

His neck was shaped like a pill.

His head looked like an amulet.

His skin was translucent.

II.

'If the story of Isaac teaches us anything

it's that every knife is a compliment

and the greatest sacrifice of all is to throw it away.'

My analyst reads from his new book, Isaac

at the release party.

'To disregard evidence of our worth

in favor of a faith that it does not depend on being chosen —

for death as for recognition —

is to become more and less than a hero —

is to become free.'

I wonder how being named Isaac led him

to become a self-described healer

and whether the positive coverage will help or hurt him.

III.

I once read a Midrash

that Abraham offered Isaac the knife

and started to bind himself on the altar.

But the thought of killing his father was too much.

So Isaac removed the binding and placed himself in his stead.

This explains why there was no resistance. Why,

when Isaac got up, there were no bruises.

And why the ram seemed to die, of its own will

before the knife could fall.