Torah portion that we read this week includes the story of the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. Hardly any stories in the Torah create such a feeling of discomfort. How could any father under any circumstance decide to sacrifice his son for any reason? How could Abraham believe that the God that he worshipped could demand such an action? How could Abraham bring himself to slay his son. How could he search for the proper place on which to build an altar with the help of his son in order to slay him?
If any of us were asked to do the same deed, I imagine that we would reply with a resounding no. If any of us were commanded by anyone, even God, to kill another in a premeditated and focused deed, I would hope that we would always refuse. Yet the story of Abraham is one of complete acceptance to the word of God. He feels such truth in the divine call that acts, even unethical and evil, are answered with a constant yea.
At the end of the story God Himself demands that Abraham stop and allow his son to live. Abraham does stop, but never asks God why he was tested or why he could not complete the test.
There is something wrong with any faith that is beyond question. There is something wrong with any man or woman who accepts dogma on faith without question. There is something wrong with one's vision of a God Who can work beyond the ethical and moral norm.
The story of Abraham and Isaac should never have occurred. It is in every aspect too wicked and too unfeeling. It allows, under holy guise, to see the depravity of man. It paints a picture of a God Who makes light of moral behavior. Certainly the God Who protects the disenfranchised through the rest of the Bible cannot be the same God that we meet here.
Sadly, for some God continues to demand the blood of children and others. Suicide bombers are beholden to the words of such a God. And men who fight and kill in any armed forces just because they are ordered to fight and kill are beholden to the same idea that authority must never be questioned. Every day our papers are filled with stories of people who kill and are killed because someone somewhere refuses to question authority.
Our Judaism, a Judaism that developed far beyond the ethics that Abraham the first Jew presented to us teaches that faith must never be accepted with a closed mind. A Jew is a thinking person and comes from the scions of those who have constantly questioned authority. Perhaps for that reason so many in the world hate us. Perhaps for that reason we can assert our full belief in a God Who is the power that makes for salvation.