The Sentinel, v.085 no. 01, 1931

              THE SENTINEL January 1, 1932
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The Trial of Abraham
By BEN ARONIN
No incident of the Bible has been
so woefully misinterpreted and mis-translated
as
the story of
the binding of
Isaac for a
sacrifice. The
usual version
is contrary
not only to
logic, but to
the Jewis
concept of
Deity. T h e
idea that an
Eternal God
should su g-gest
to Abra-ham
the sac-rifice
of his
beloved son,
and then, in a
most dramatic
manner, sud-denly
repent,
and forbid the sacrifice, would indi-cate
a very primitive concept of
Deity-a concrete God with personal
whims and idiosyncrasies, and human
frailties.
Nor must the episode be regarded
as merely myth or fable, for it is
actually the story of the conflict in
Abraham's mind between two con-cepts-
that of the "Elohim" or "Tri-bal
God," and the "Jehovah" or
"Eternal" concept. We recall that it
was the voice of truth, of reason, that
caused Abraham to break with idolatry
and go into the wilderness in quest
of the meaning and purpose of life;
but we must remember also that while
Abraham was far ahead of his time
intellectually, nevertheless he could
not entirely shake off the effect of
his upbringing and environment, and
his mental processes must have sub-consciously
been colored by the cus-toms,
traditions and folklore of the
age in which he lived.
We know that each of the tribes
in ancient times believed in a "Tribal
God," ,whose physical likeness they
worshipped and who, they believed,
battled for them against the Gods of
the other tribes. Abraham's military
victories and rise to power and riches
had inspired the neighboring tribes
with great respect and fear for his
"Elohim," which, as we have seen in
the case of Abimelech, they visual-ized
as a huge War God with out-stretched
sword, protecting and aiding
Abraham in his battles. It is easy to
understand that though Abraham was
honestly trying to cast aside this prim-itive
concept in his search for some
higher, finer, greater Ideal, he found
it difficult, at this particular stage of
his mental and spiritual development
to completely deny the existence of
such an "Elohim," and when his sleep
was troubled by his doubts and per-plexities,
this "Tribal God" appeared
to him in his dreams.
"And it was after these things that
the Elohim tempted Abraham and said
to him, 'Abraham,' and he said, 'Here
am I,' and he said, 'Take, I pray you,
your son, your only one, the one that
you have loved, Isaac, and go you
to the land of Moriah and offer him
up there as a burnt offering upon one
of the mountains which I will tell to
you.' "
It is not surprising that Abraham
should have had such a dream. The
people of the time still practiced hu-man
sacrifice-and willingly and glad-ly
offered up not only one but, in
many cases, several of their children
when they desired to appease their
gods or show their gratitude for fer-tile
fields or military victories-and
Abraham could hardly help but feel
guilty at the thought that he alone
received bounty and assistance from
some higher power, yet offered noth-ing
in return. It was natural, too,
once he felt constrained to offer sac-rifice,
that he should consider it ob-ligatory
to deliver up as proof of his
gratitude his most precious treasure,
the object he valued above all other
things, his dearest possession, the
long-hoped-for, long-awaited son of
his old age, Isaac, upon whom all his
hopes and dreams were centered.
While other people went into the
valleys and caves to perform their
sacrifices, such as the valley of Hin-nom
(also known as Gehenna) where
human sacrifices were offered and
which name has come to be a synonym
for "Hell" and its tortures, Abraham
was impelled to seek the mountain top.
For two days, with his son and two
servants, he trudged on towards the
distant height, and on the third day
"Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw
the place from afar." Wishing to
be alone at this trying time, he asked
his servants to remain behind, saying,
"Sit here with the donkey and I and
the boy will go yonder and we will
worship and we will return to you."
Apparently Abraham even then felt
sure that a merciful Deity would not
insist upon such a sacrifice, as is in-dicated
by his saying ". . . and we
will return .... To continue with
the story: "And Abraham took the
wood of the burnt offering and laid
it upon Isaac and he toolk in his hand
the fire and the knife and they went
both of them together and Isaac said
to Abraham, his father, 'My father,'
and he said, 'Here I am, my son,' and
he said, 'Behold the fire and the wood,
and where is the lamb for the burnt
offering?' And Abraham said, "Elo-him
will point out for himself the
lamb for the burnt offering, my son,'
and they both went on together. And
they came to the place which the Elo-him
had said to him and Abraham
built there the altar and laid the wood
in order, and he bound Isaac, his son,
and he put him on the altar upon
the wood, and Abraham stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to
slaughter his son."
To what a climax did Abraham's
mental and emotional struggle bring
him! Stifling his compassion, con-scious
only of a duty to a higher
power, beneath the crystal skies of
the desert and with the vast wilder-ness
stretching around him on every
side, with his anguished face directed
to the clear heavens, with the knife
in his hand ready to be plunged into
the breast of what was to him the
dearest thing on earth---standing thus,
suddenly the "Elohim" was blotted
out of his heart and mind, and in its
place came the great realization that
in the Eternal Symphony of Crea-tion,
murder and bloodshed, human
sacrifice, should have no part; that the
eternal voice of mercy, sympathy and
truth forever cries, from the dawn of
creation through all eternity, as Abra-ham
seemed to hear it there on the
mountain top, "Do not stretch forth
your hand against the lad, and do
not do him anything."
It is noteworthy that in the Bible
it is here written, "And the messen-ger
of Jehovah called to him from
the heavens," that he desist from hu-man
sacrifice, whereas previously he
had acted under the instructions of
the "Elohim." Abraham realized that
his intellectual and spiritual victory
was the greater in that, although he
had actually feared the "Tribal God"
up to that time, he had had the cour-age
to cast out that primitive fear, and
could now offer his son as a dedica-tion
to a great ideal-an original con-cept
of a Jehovah, an Eternal, Uni-versal,
All-Pervading, Infinite One-ness,
with no definite phyrsical char-acteristics
or form, which he now
crystallized and gave to a world
steeped in the tradition of a multi-plicity
of personal, definite, concrete,
petty gods.
Yet, even in this mombnt of real-ization,
the habit of the custom of
sacrifice was so deeply ingrained in
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