Now, just a very practical question, if you were carrying branches on your back, what would have to be done to the branches in order for you to be able to transport them on your back? You have to rope them all together. Look at the beginning of verse 6: 'Vayikach Avraham et-atzei ha-olah vayasem al-Yitzhak bno.' Avraham took the wood for the offering and put it on top of Yitzhak. Is there anything else about this story that has that sort of mirror-image quality? Let's look right before the first 'vayelchu shneihem yachdav' and see if we find anything there that mirrors something that comes right after the second 'vayelchu shneihem yachdav.' That's what you would look for in an Atbash pattern. It turns out that that phrase, 'vayelchu shneihem yachdav,' appears another time just a couple of verses later, in verse 8, 'vayelchu shneihem yachdav.' Avraham and Isaac walk together. 'Vayelchu shneihem yachdav,' Avraham and Yitzhak, walking together up to the mountain. The easiest way to see the pattern, begin to pick it up, is to look at the end of verse 6. Understanding the Binding of IsaacĬome with me to Bereishit chaf-bet, chapter 22. It's about something else too the Atbash pattern suggests exactly what that is.
It's not just the story of how faithful Avraham is to God. I want to argue that it's more than that.
When normally we think of the Binding of Isaac, we think of that as a kind of test of faith. Last week I introduced you to these Atbash patterns which I think are very fascinating and today I want to show you one of them in Parshat Vayeira that I think has very dramatic consequences - consequences for understanding a very, very difficult story: the story of the Binding of Isaac, the akeidah. Hi everybody, this is Rabbi David Fohrman and welcome to Parshat Vayeira.