(3) So early next morning, Abraham saddled his ass and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him. (4) On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar. (5) Then Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.” (6) Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. He himself took the firestone and the knife; and the two walked off together. (7) Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” (8) And Abraham said, “It is God who will see to the sheep for this burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together. (9) They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. (10) And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. (11) Then a messenger of יהוה called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” (12) “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” (13) When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.
River So Wide, https://jwa.org/teach/girlsintrouble/sarahs-sacrifice
A song in Sarah’s voice, by Girls in Trouble/Alicia Jo Rabins
I went down to the river so wide
Satan was standing on the other side
He said to me, look and see
I saw you with our only child
With a knife in your hand and your eyes so wild
On the mountaintop, and then the vision stopped. Oh…
My love, my love, what have you done
And where have you taken my only son
Some terrible place where I can’t see his face
All these years I’ve been a faithful wife
And I gave you a child so late in my life
My time was done, when I bore you a son. Oh…
So take me home
And put me to bed
Cause the sun is in the sky
But it’s dark inside my head...
Bereishit Rabbah 65:10
“His eyes dimmed from seeing” – Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya said: From seeing evil– from seeing the evil of the wicked one. The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘Isaac will walk out to the marketplace and the people will say: This is the father of that wicked one. Instead, I will dim his eyes and he will remain inside his house.’
...when Abraham our patriarch bound his son atop the altar, the ministering angels wept.... Tears fell from their eyes into his eyes, and they had an effect inside his eyes. When he grew old, his eyes dimmed. That is what is written: “It was when Isaac was old…”
...when Abraham our patriarch bound his son atop the altar, he [Isaac] directed his eyes heavenward and looked at the Divine Presence. They say a parable, to what is the matter comparable? It is comparable to a king who was strolling at the entrance of his palace and glanced and saw his friend’s son peering at him through the window. He said: ‘If I kill him, I will now cause my friend to collapse. Instead, I will decree that his windows should be sealed.’ So, when Abraham our patriarch bound his son atop the altar, he directed his eyes and looked at the Divine Presence. The Holy One blessed be He said: ‘If I kill him, I will now cause Abraham my friend to collapse. Instead, I decree that his eyes will dim.’ When he grew old, his eyes dimmed – “it was when Isaac was old…”
Rabbi Marci Bellows, https://www.cbsrz.org/isaac-trauma-and-healing/
"If we resist reconnecting with ourselves, or if we refuse to heal, the hurt just grows or deepens. Perhaps Isaac, in our Torah text, goes blind because he never faces his trauma. His eyes become symbolic of the blindness he has taken towards his own suffering. In some way, he remained forever tied to that altar, just as some of us remain forever bound to our past injuries or experiences."
David Tilles imagined how this story would play out in modern times:
At the top of the mountain, Isaac still says nothing. He looks at his father, in reproach, in love, in anger at his father’s God, in desperation as he knows that now he, too, must live in this covenant and now it will be without his father’s guiding hand. Abraham says, “What else could I have done,” and starts to walk down the mountain. …Abraham stumbles back to the two servant lads without Isaac. The servants ask, “Where is Isaac?” Abraham mumbles an incomprehensible answer. They return to the home tents at Beersheba. Sarah sees Isaac’s donkey but not Isaac. She takes what she needs from her tent, and rides to Hebron on Isaac’s donkey, never to return. In Hebron, she is met with affection by her former neighbors, the Hittite women, and to them she releases her fury at her husband. The Hittite women speak of this to the Hittite princes, who send a fast runner to the abuse hotline. Abraham is arrested and social workers ascend the mountain and whisk Isaac away to a trauma counselor….
BT Berachot 26b
Isaac instituted the afternoon prayer, as it is stated: “And Isaac went out to converse [lasuaḥ] in the field toward evening” (Genesis 24:63), and conversation means nothing other than prayer, as it is stated: “A prayer of the afflicted when he is faint and pours out his complaint [siḥo] before the Lord” (Psalms 102:1). Obviously, Isaac was the first to pray as evening approached, at the time of the afternoon prayer.
(62) Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb. (63) And Isaac went out walking*walking Meaning of Heb. lasuaḥ uncertain; others “to meditate.” in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching.
Meanwhile...
Rabbi Yael Shy
Rebecca humbles herself before Isaac at the moment they first see each other in the fields (either "falling" or "descending from" from her camel, covering herself with her veil). Isaac brings Rebecca to his mother's tent - his place of deepest suffering and grief. The first explicit love story in the Torah reverberates with vulnerability from both of the protagonists, which perhaps is the most important requirement for love. Brene Brown says, "there can be no intimacy-emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, physical intimacy-without vulnerability... It's about being honest with how we feel, about our fears, about what we need, and, asking for what we need. Vulnerability is a glue that holds intimate relationships together." When Isaac and Rebecca fall in love, they meet each other fully as they are: raw, unfiltered, with a generous, open and vulnerable heart.
Our challenge is to meet the world with the same.
(13) Here I stand by the spring as the daughters of the townspeople come out to draw water; (14) let the maiden to whom I say, ‘Please, lower your jar that I may drink,’ and who replies, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels’—let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant Isaac. Thereby shall I know that You have dealt graciously with my master.” (15) He had scarcely finished speaking, when Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. (16) The maiden was very beautiful—[and] a virgin, no man having known her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up. (17) The servant ran toward her and said, “Please, let me sip a little water from your jar.” (18) “Drink, my lord,” she said, and she quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and let him drink. (19) When she had let him drink his fill, she said, “I will also draw for your camels, until they finish drinking.” (20) Quickly emptying her jar into the trough, she ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels.
“O sister!
May you grow
Into thousands of myriads;
May your descendants seize
The gates of their foes.” (61) Then Rebekah and her maids arose, mounted the camels, and followed the man. So the servant took Rebekah and went his way. (62) Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb. (63) And Isaac went out walking*walking Meaning of Heb. lasuaḥ uncertain; others “to meditate.” in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching. (64) Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel (65) and said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?” And the servant said, “That is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. (66) The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
(ג) ... ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה שָׁמַ֓יִם
The world is built on loving kindness
Acts of kindness never die. They linger in the memory, giving life to other acts in return. - Jonathan Sacks, Optimism to Hope
Rabbi Shefa Gold (from Torah Journeys)
This portion tells us how to receive the blessing of comfort that will that will heal us. Isaac, Sarah's son, goes out from Be'er-lahai-roi, the place that is associated with Hagar, the stranger. Our grief makes us a stranger to life and we dwell in isolation and alienation until we are ready to love again.
This preparation for love is described in Isaac's meeting with Rebecca. As prelude to that meeting, Isaac goes out into the field to meditate. The word here for meditation is la-su'ach, which refers to the practice of "conversation" with God. The field, a place of spacious natural beauty, is the setting. Here we engage in holy conversation, pouring out our grief, anger and despair, listening deeply for God's voice. "Min hametzar karati Yah, anani vamerchavyah." (Psalm 118:5, From the narrow places I called out to God, who answers me with Divine expanded perspective, the expansiveness of the open field.) The spaciousness that Isaac achieves in meditation allows him to lift his eyes and behold beauty and the possibility of love. In loving again we are comforted.
There are many perils to the peace and integrity of the soul on the path of mourning. The bitterness, fear, and cynicism that sometimes accompany or follow experiences of tragedy and loss can become obstacles on the path of our soul's journey. When we react to the feelings of vulnerability that loss brings by building up defenses around the heart and fortifying the small self, then we lose access to our own essence.
If we follow Isaac's example we will seek the open field and develop a practice of meditation that will allow us to lift our eyes and open our hearts to love.
Danielle Dugas quoting Ephraim Rubinger; Sermon "Other or Brother"
As a future bride, Rebecca, is approaching her new home, Isaac goes out in the field to meditate. Nothing unusual about that. We would imagine Isaac to be a spiritually sensitive young man; one who would meditate on the eve of his marriage. However, the Torah makes it a point of telling us that Isaac had just come from a place called Beer-Lahai-Roi... Beer-Lahai-Roi is the place where Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac's half-brother, found themselves hungry and thirsty after being sent out by Sarah and Abraham... Now what do you suppose Isaac was doing at this place; specially just before his marriage?... All of this life, Isaac has been haunted by the absence of this half-brother. Why should a brother be expelled? "Maybe it was my fault "the young Isaac agonized, "how could my parents, the epitome of kindness and hospitality, put out a young boy and his mother into the desert?"... But now, with Sarah dead, Isaac could finally explore his brother's agony. And so he goes to the place where his brother suffered so; suffered from not only thirst and hunger, but from the terrible sense of rejection by his father...
Rashani, "Again and Again"
It is only by breaking open entirely,
By allowing our heart and whole being
To break open again and again
Wider than we ever thought possible,
That the unbreakable jewel is revealed
The belovedness of being itself,
The radiant diamond that we have always been.
By loving, truly loving every aspect
Of who we are,
An inexplicable laughter is born
From the deepest sorrow
An exquisite song emerges
From the most terrifying scream
The most tender child is awakened
Through the hateful murderer
Our purest holiness is revealed
By our willingness to embrace
The very thing that most frightens us
And we find unexpectedly the treasure
Where we least expect it to be
Often in the most disavowed part
Of who we are.