22 Years Later
Qiryat Arba’, aka Hebron, Land of Canaan, 399 AF (After Flood)
Dear diary, here I am again. You wouldn’t recognize me. Even my name has changed. I am Sarah now, the princess, not Sarai, my princess. But I’m rushing ahead. First things first.
Don’t blame me for 22 years of silence. So many things happened since Hagar disappeared into the night. She came back shortly afterwards, with a big smile on her face and stories about angels and divine promises. She gave birth to a boy. Avraham’s son. Not my son. Mind you, because we have annulled the contract. I had to watch her and Avraham attending to that kid day after day. I felt empty for fifteen long years, and I guess you could say that I was mourning. Couple that with my envy, jealousy, and anger, and you’d figure out why I didn’t feel like writing.
Then, one day, three weird visitors came to my tent to tell me that I am going to be a mother. I was of course incredulous, I thought they came to mock me, but it did happen. I finally had my own child! My baby! At 90! Who would have believed that? Even Avraham didn’t believe when God first told him that I will bear him a son. How could I have written then? I was consumed with caring for my little Yitzhak. My laughter, my jewel, joy of my life! And I also had to keep an eye on the maidservant’s son. I cannot even bring myself to say his name. I told Avraham to get rid of him, but he still thought of him as his son and wouldn’t let go, until God intervened and told him to listen to me.
Back then I thought God was on my side. I was so happy to have Avraham all to myself and to see that he finally he realized that he only has one son.
But all that is gone. I don’t think I will ever be happy again. I wake up screaming from my nightmares just to live through another day of eyes-wide-open anxiety. I check on Yitzhak constantly. I want to make sure that he is safe and that he is not taken from me suddenly, while my thoughts keep going back to that horrible day, exactly one year ago. I stay up, afraid of falling asleep again, that’s why I dug you out and sat down to write again…
It all started on that dreadful night, when Avraham told me casually, over dinner, that he might take Yitzhak with him for some kind of a field trip the following day. I reminded him that in the six years which have passed since the world first saw the shining smile of my baby, there was never a moment when we were apart. He said that he knows that and that I should take a break and that I shouldn’t worry too much and that the kid is safe with him and that he needs to start learning some practical skills from his father. He said that there is this new theory that fathers and sons should spend some quality time alone for bonding. Bonding, hah, had I only known.
We left the matter at that, without me voicing a consent for the trip, and when I woke up the next morning, shortly after sunrise, Avraham was gone. With him, my treasure. I ran outside to ask the servants if they have seen my son. They said that they have not seen him and that two servants are also missing, as well as Avraham’s donkey and several tools, including a slaughtering knife. At that moment, I didn’t realize what was the purpose of the “field trip”. No! I don’t think that I would have ever imagined that this thing, which I can’t even write, is possible. I thought that he was taking him on a hunting and camping excursion, and I was fuming. He is only six years old, for crying out loud, we don’t need another maidservant’s son, shooting and hunting. That is what I thought as I set out to look for them. Had I known that when he said bonding he meant binding and that the knife was meant for my own son, I would have caught up with them earlier, but as alarmed as I was, I didn’t think that the danger looming over my dear baby’s head comes from his father and not from wild animals.
Three days! Three days I was wandering, looking for them, asking travelers for information. They probably laughed at me, thought I was out of my mind. A 96-year-old woman, hysterical, alone on the dangerous roads, claiming to search for her lost toddler and his father. When I finally got to the land of Moriah I saw my two missing servants dallying in the sun at the foot of a mountain. They were chewing some leaves and chatting, carefree and relaxed as if the world was not about to come to an end. I shook them up. Screamed at them. “Why did you go without telling me? I am the Lady of our household. You don’t do things behind my back.” They were try muttering some silly excuses, but I was already in the next phase. “Where is my child? Where is my precious treasure? Where did he go with his father?”
They seemed surprised that I was so upset, and said that they have been traveling for three days with Avraham, searching for the perfect place to worship God. When they arrived at this place, which they thought was identical to a hundred others they saw along the way, Avraham got extremely excited. They said that he looked the way he used to when God spoke to him. He asked them to wait for him there and he started scaling the mountain with Yitzhak, apparently with the aim of building an altar. “An altar?”, I asked, “are you sure about that?” They replied positively and added that Avraham tied the woodfire bundle to Yitzhak’s back, and with the knife and torch in his hand, went up the mountain. For a moment, I was dumbfounded. “But the animal!”, I exclaimed, “what about the animal? Did you catch a mountain goat? Did you bring a lamb?” “No, Mistress Sarah,” they answered, “there was no animal.”
I think that was the moment when the enormity of the situation dawned at me. For three days, running or dragging my feet in that never-ending journey, I probably knew deep inside what was happening, but I refused to believe it. I should have known the moment he was gone, because otherwise, why would he disappear like that, so early in the morning, without even saying goodbye? My knees buckled, my heart sank, and for what seemed like eternity I just stood there frozen, shaken, and unable to move, drained of energy, drained of life.
I finally came to myself and started running up the mountain. I don’t know how I found the strength. I guess it is mother’s love. Climbing the mountain, sobbing and crying out my beloved child’s name, I made it to the top, only to see my husband raising his knife-holding hand over the helpless tiny figure of my son, bound like an animal and lying on a layer of firewood. Yes, you read correctly! My husband, the father of my child, Avraham the Prophet, defender of truth and educator par-excellence, was about to use his knife to take the life of another human being, who was none other than my precious Yitzhak. I screamed his name one last time and blacked-out.
I woke up with the sweet worried voice of Yitzhak. “Mommy, mommy, wake up, don’t sleep so much…” Was I dreaming, or did I live through a nightmare? I cautiously opened my eyes, just a slit, to see Yitzhak’s beautiful little face. His eyes lit up when he saw me, and a wide smile spread over his face. His laughter, ringing like heavenly bells, clearly showed how relieved he was. I opened my eyes a little more and there was Avraham, wiping the blood off the slaughtering knife. It was then that the smell hit me, as if my senses were waking up one by one, the pungent smell of burnt animal flesh.
“What is going on?” I demanded, “I need to know!”. Avraham then sat with me to tell me the whole story. How God told him to sacrifice Yitzhak and how he couldn’t bring himself to break the news to me. How he took our son, MY son, and walked with him for three days, unable to utter one word. How they got to the mountain and built the altar. How he bound Yitzhak and was about to slaughter him, and how at the last moment he heard my frantic screams and froze for a second. He told me that an angel told him that the goal was achieved, and that he has proven himself to be a faithful servant of God, and I couldn’t decide if I detected in his voice pride or bitterness. He told me that instead of Yitzhak, he offered God a wandering ram caught in the thicket, hence the blood-stained knife and the smell.
I asked him again and again, right there on Mount Moriah and maybe a thousand times after that, why didn’t he stand up to God and say that he will not do it. I told him he should have offered his own life, that he should have argued just as he did for Sodom that Yitzhak does not deserve to die and that human sacrifices go against the very core of God’s message to him. Again and again he would mumble his answer, “what could I do? God asked me to show my loyalty by sacrificing my son to him!”
I disagree. I told him that God wanted to test him. He wanted him to say no. But since Avraham went along with it, God stopped it only at the last minute, teaching us and our future generations that God does not want human sacrifices, and probably not even animal sacrifices. I also think that God taught us that if someone loves you dearly, you should not ask for a costly sacrifice because he will not be able to say no, so he will swallow his pain and do as you wish.
I got to go now and take care of the new place. I forgot to tell you that I just moved to Qiryat Arba’ and I don’t know if I could ever go back to Be’er Sheva’ and to Avraham…