Yitzchak/0

Yitzchak

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Religious Identity

Akeidat Yitzchak

What role did Yitzchak play during the Akeidah? Was he a willing participant or an unwilling victim?  Was the trial not just as much (if not more) of a test for him as it was for Avraham?  These questions are intricately related to another set of unknowns in the text.  How old was Yitzchak during the event? Was he aware of the plan all along, or only at the last minute?

• Unknowing, unwilling victim – Ibn Ezra presents Yitzchak as a youth, aged 13 or so during the episode,¹ and suggests that he was unaware of the plan,² and was forced against his will.³
• Ambivalent – Bereshit Rabbah 56:4 presents Yitzchak as having doubts,⁴ calling to his father in the hopes that he will have mercy. Nonetheless, he ultimately goes "together" with Avraham to be sacrificed.
• Aware and willing participant – Many sources suggest that Yitzchak was an adult,⁵ fully cognizant of what was going on, and a totally willing participant. [See, for example, TN 22:10, Josephus 1:13:232, Tanchuma vayera 23, Bereshit Rabbah 56:8, Radak].  R. Levi in Bavli Sanhedrin 89b goes further to suggest that the entire idea to be offered as a sacrifice stemmed from Yitzchak himself.⁶

Israel

Yitzchak is the only of the Avot who is both born into a monotheistic household and never forced to live with the idolatrous members of his extended family.

Avot and Mitzvot

Did Yitzchak keep all the mitzvot? The issue has been hotly debated for generations. On one hand, Yitzchak lived centuries before the Torah was given and many of its laws would be meaningless to him, suggesting that he did not keep them. On the other hand, it seems paradoxical to conceive of the founder of a religion not observing even its most basic commandments. This leads to a variety of approaches to the question. For a full discussion of the issue, see Avot and Mitzvot.

Unique Traits

• Businessman
• Agriculturist
• Holy

Family Life

Yitzchak and Yishmael

Yitzchak and Avraham

How, if at all, was Yitzchak's relationship with Avraham affected by the Akeidah?

Marriage

• Finding a Wife – Bereshit 24 expounds at length about the search for an appropriate wife for Yitzchak. Somewhat surprisingly, Yitzchak is absent from almost the entire episode. Avraham sends his servant, rather than Yitzchak himself, to find the appropriate woman from Aram Naharayim.  Why does not Yitzchak himself go?
• Norms of the time
• Not allowed to leave Israel
• Passive
• Desired traits – What were the main criteria when choosing Yitzchak's spouse? Was he looking for a woman who would share his belief system or someone who was of noble character?
• Communication gap?

Favoring Esav

Possible Flaws

Passivity?

Blessing Esav

¹ He also brings an opinion of those who claim that Yitzchak was but five.  If so, he would not be mature and knowledgeable enough to either fully protest or fully agree.

² Ibn Ezra points out that when Yitzchak questions what is to be brought as a sacrifice, Avraham hides the fact that Yitzchak is the intended offering, and deceives him by saying, "Hashem will show us the sheep".

³ The fact that he needed to be bound might support the possibility that he was stuggling.

⁴ The Midrash expresses some of these through the mouth of the Satan.

⁵ According to Seder Olam Rabbah Yitzchak was 37.  Josephus presents him as 25 and Jubilees as 23.

⁶ He presents Yishmael as gloating to Yitzchak of his superior righteousness, that he was circumcised as 13, when already capable of protesting, while Yitzchak was a mere baby. Yitzchak responds that if Hashem asked, he would give not just one organ but his entire life.