Parashat Toldot and the Akeidah: Finding faith amid suffering - opinion

I am still thinking of the Akeidah, and the scent of the burnt offering lingers. Echoes of that story resonate in this Torah portion as Isaac, Rebecca, Esau, and Jacob engage in a painful choreography that ends in tragedy. 

There are two sons and, at least in the beginning, it seems as if Isaac has only one blessing to give. One child will be chosen; the other will be rejected. Just like Abraham, both sons are, in a sense, sacrificed. The family is changed forever.

There are other notable linguistic cues. Rabbi Avital Hochstein notes that the language of the “Akeidah” is present in the dialogue between Isaac and Esau, echoing the brief conversation Isaac has with Abraham as they walk toward Mount Moriah. 

The phrases “my father,” “my son,” and “hineni” (“I am here”) – which highlight the father-son bond – appear in “Toldot” five times – more frequently than anywhere else in Bereishit. 

Esau cries out “My father!” four times, ending with the anguished plea, “Bless me too, my father,” when he discovers his brother’s deception.

“In the end,” writes Hochstein, “he realizes, just as his father did, that there is no answer beyond silence. The order that Esau is crying out for is one in which fathers don’t eliminate or sacrifice their children. He wants a world in which a father blesses his children – all of his children.”

Modern echoes of the Akeidah

Last week in Makor Rishon, I read an interview with Ilan Dickstein, whose son, Ivri, was killed two weeks ago while fighting in Lebanon. 

Ivri, who had five sisters and a young wife, was an only son. Ilan recounted how, on the Wednesday before he got the news, he had opened his Chumash to study the weekly Torah portion, which included the Akeidah. 

With his son at war, he instinctively told himself to “turn the page.” The next day, the bitter news arrived. 

That Shabbat, when he heard the Torah portion read in shul, his own son had already been sacrificed. Ivri had a habit of signing his letters to his father as “Your only son” and to his mother as “Your only son, who loves you,” hauntingly echoing God’s command to Abraham to take “your son, your only son, whom you love.”

In response to Ivri’s story, I could not help but think of some of the classic midrashim that link the Akeidah with Sarah’s death. The narrative rockets us from the seemingly happy ending as Isaac is spared and Abraham passes God’s test to the unexpected tragic death Sarah. 

In one midrashic version, Satan delivers the news that Isaac was nearly sacrificed, and Sarah dies from shock. In another, it is Isaac himself who tells his mother how his father raised the knife to him. 

She emits terrible cries – akin to the blasts of the shofar – and dies.

In the medieval Sefer Hayashar, the story takes a different turn. Sensing that something is wrong, Sarah spends the night with her son, embracing him and saying, “How can my soul separate from you?” 

She dresses him in clothes like the high priest’s before sending him off, actively participating in the covenantal drama. This contrasts with the traditional image of her as a passive recipient of tragic news.

A mother’s cry for protection

In the 18th-century tehine by Sarah Bas Tovim (tehinot were prayers that were primarily developed by Jewish women, for Jewish women), Sarah is invoked to protect children. She beseeches God: “We should not, chas ve’sholem [God forbid], be left widows this year, and our children should not, chas ve’sholem, be taken away from this world in our lifetime.” Instead of using the Akeidah as a symbol of sacrifice, she calls on Sarah to plead with God that we not be required to make such sacrifices.

One of the most powerful interpretations of Sarah’s death comes from Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapiro, written in the Warsaw Ghetto:

“That is why Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher], the trusted shepherd, placed the death of Sarah next to Akeidat [the binding of] Isaac – to speak good on our behalf and to show that suffering too great to bear is beyond human capacity... If even our mother Sarah couldn’t withstand such suffering, how much less can we?” he wrote. 

“And even those who survive excessive suffering have lost parts of their spirit. What difference is there between losing part of a person or all of them?” (Esh Kodesh, “Hayei Sarah”).

In other words, don’t test us too much, God, for we may not emerge stronger. Too much suffering may not refine us. The Akeidah might prove unwavering faith, but it also may result in utter collapse. We may come out broken – or not come out at all.

Conclusion

The theme of the “Akeidah” – sacrifice, father-son relationships, and irrevocable change – echo through the family dynamics of “Toldot” (generations, descendants), the Torah portion that immediately follows. The sense of loss and unfulfilled blessings present in the Isaac-Esau story mirror the incompleteness felt after the Akeidah. 

The narrative is about what is sacrificed in the pursuit of God’s blessing and in the aftermath, those moments that cannot be undone and lead to a complex and conflict-driven future. 

In many of our stories – both ancient and contemporary – the cycles of sacrifice are undeniable, yet they are not the end of the story. 

The Jewish people have always found ways to transform grief into strength, to continue alongside the suffering, to incorporate both Abraham’s belief and Sarah’s sense of loss.

To end with a passage by Rabbi Abraham Kook that I quote often since that black day in October – especially at this time, when the days are short, the nights are long, and the future is unknowable (Arpilei Tohar, p. 27):

The pure righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; They do not complain of evil, but increase justice; They do not complain of ignorance, but increase wisdom.

They do not complain of heresy, but increase faith.

As we enter Kislev, a month that ends with lighting the hanukkiah, may it be a month of increasing light and diminishing darkness. ■