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Zev Garber
The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah
Enigmas
The ʿAḳedah (ʿAqedah; Heb., “binding” of Isaac) narrative in Gen 22:1– 19 is of
central importance in the life of the Patriarch Abraham and in the destiny of Is-
rael. It narrates the obedience of Abraham to ʿEloḳim/ G-d’s command to offer
his longed for and beloved son of old age, Isaac, as a ʿolah (“holocaust,”
burnt offering) on a mountain that G-d will show him in the land of Moriah
(Gen 22:2). At the sacrificial moment, however, a malakh HaShem (‘angel of
the Lord”) bids Abraham to forestay the filial offering and an ʿayil (“ram”) is of-
fered in place of Isaac. In Jewish history, liturgy, and theology ʿaḳēdat Yiṣḥaq
(“Binding of Isaac”) emerges as a supreme example of obedience to divine
will, and at the core of the most sacred of Jewish rituals, liturgy, and ethical doc-
trine. The ʿAḳedah is not as a leap of faith but as a demand of man’s uncondi-
tional surrender to G-d’s will and the act of doing G-d’s teachings and command-
ments. Lessons learned from the ʿAḳedah bind the test of Moriah and the
redemptive acts of doing Ṣědaqah, acts of justice, charity, and loving kindness.
The Rosh HaShanah reading of the “Binding of Isaac,” illustrated by the Abra-
hamic example, is to teach that the purpose of life is not to kill but to act justly.¹
Although the message of atonement through doing acts of justice and charity is
the message gleaned from the ʿAḳedah that rabbinic Judaism reinforced through
ritual, liturgy, and ethical doctrine, additional rabbinic writings about the
ʿAḳedah demonstrate uncanny analogies to contemporary understanding of
the Holocaust noting the silence both of Isaac and many Holocaust survivors,
Jewish chosenness that includes testing and victimization, and Jewish survival,
just as did Isaac and Holocaust survivors and witnesses, to tell the stories, pre-
serve the memories, and celebrate life. This essay examines both the traditional
reception of the ʿAḳedah in Jewish ritual and liturgy and the more recent embrac-
ing of the ʿAḳedah not to discover why good people suffer but the diversity of
ways that the memory of the Holocaust has come to be conceptualized by
both survivors and witnesses.

 See Deut 16:20, Micah 6:8, and other biblical references.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650617-018
316 Zev Garber

1 ʿAḳedah
1.1 ʿAḳedah, Prayer, and Ethical Behavior

The site itself of the ʿAḳedah has taken on profound traditional value. “And
Abraham named that site ʿAdonai-yireh, whence the present saying, ‘On the
mount of the Lord there is vision’” (Gen 22:14, NJPS). The name is precluded in
Abraham’s admonition to his son, Isaac, “that ʿEloḳim will provide Himself
(yirʾeh lô) the śeh (lamb, sheep) for the ‘olah /”holocaust“’ (Gen 22:8). Later bib-
lical tradition identifies the spot of the ʿAḳedah as the very spot of the Davidic-
Solomonic altar, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (2 Chr 3:1). A rabbinic tradition
associates the area of the Temple Mount as the place where Adam was created
and Cain and Abel brought their respected offerings (Gen 4:3 – 4) binding ab ini-
tio humanity and atonement (Pirqe R. El. 31, Gen. Rab. 34, and elsewhere). Rab-
binic tradition acknowledges Har Moriah as a name of the Temple Mount and
records differences in name application but not in spiritual intent and content.
“What is the meaning of the name Mount [Har] Moriah, the Temple Mount?
Rabbi Levi bar Ḥama and Rabbi Ḥanina disagree with regard to this matter.
One said that the name alludes to the Great Sanhedrin that convened there, as
it is the mountain from which instruction [horaʾa] went out to the Jewish people.
And one said that it is the mountain from which fear [mora] went out to the na-
tions of the world, as this place signifies God’s choice of the Jewish people” (b.
Taʿanit 16a).
In Jewish traditional prayer, the role of Isaac is central in Rosh HaShanah or
New Year synagogue service. Torah readings for the days of Rosh Hashanah
highlight the significance of Isaac. First day reading, Gen 21:1– 34, speaks of
Isaac’s birth believed to occur on this sacred day and the second day reading,
the Binding of Isaac, Gen 22: 1– 24 (b. Roš Haššanah 31a). Connection and mem-
ory of the ʿAḳedah is associated with the blowing of the Shofar (ram’s horn) per-
ceived as an urgent community call for the forgiveness of sins (b. Roš Haššanah
16a) and further clarified in the recitation of the Zikhranot (“Remembrance”) sec-
tion of the Musap (“Additional”) section of the ʿAmidah, a prayer central to tradi-
tional Jewish services.
Through the centuries, a central communal message to believers focuses on
divine atonement for having reframed from making Abraham pay the ultimate
price. Justice is served by divine generosity. The lesson from the ʿAḳedah is the
redemptive act of doing justice and acts of divine atonement. Ṣědaqah (from
the Hebrew root ṣdq meaning justice and encompassing righteousness and fair-
ness) refers to the responsibility to assist the poor, to sustain the needy, and to
 The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah Enigmas 317

provide support for worthwhile causes. Believing in Ṣědaqah is doing Ṣědaqah

and conscientiously contributing to a moral society and worldview. The doctrine
of tiqqun ʿolam (“repairing the world”) is incumbent on Jew and gentile to restore
the earth and all therein to a fair and just share of the world’s resources. Glean-
ings reflect the role of Ṣědaqah in Jewish theological and ethical thought that in-
clude charitable giving and equitable. Yet, in addition to the hortatory clarity to
do justice and to act with compassion, the ʿAḳedah offers more existential reflec-
tions about the nature of culpability, responsibility, suffering, trauma, memory,
and survival.

1.2 ʿAḳedah, Talmudic and Midrashic Exegesis

While location of the ʿAḳedah is hallowed, and the homiletic message is clear,
additional rabbinic treatment of the ʿAḳedah shows no such clarity. In one exam-
ple of rabbinic exegesis, rabbinic exegesis focuses not on the threatened, puni-
tive and, subsequently, compassionate divine act but on the act of silent obedi-
ence to the divine command both by father and son. The doublet, “and they
(Abraham and Isaac) went both of them together” begins with innocence of fa-
ther and son bounded in journey (Gen 22:6) but ends with Isaac fully cognizant
and agreeable that he, not an animal, is to be the sacrificial offering (Gen 22:8).
Thrice wa-yyômer (spoke), Isaac questions his father regarding specifics of the
offering but silence follows the first wa-yyômer (Gen 22:7– 8). The biblical text of-
fers no words to report upon Abraham’s anguish, Isaac’s child-adult curiosity, or
an abusive heavenly demand before the anticipated paternal sacrifice of the
promised son and heir (Gen 17:7, 21:1– 2, 10 – 12). Textual dĕmāmā (silence) is
greeted by combining the first and second wa-yyômer. Hence, “And Isaac
spoke unto Abraham his father, and said” (JPS) and “Then Isaac said to his fa-
ther Abraham” (NJPS). In silence, the bond of father and son together in their
exceptional journey and ultimate sacrifice speak unflinching commitment and
duty to divine request. So, it is recorded, “the one to bind, and the other to be
bound; the one to sacrifice, and the other to be sacrificed” (Gen. Rab. 56.3).
Another judgment about ʿAḳedah emphasizes Abraham as the subject of di-
vine punishment and testing. The point begs the question, Why is Abraham sub-
ject of divine punishment? In the Targum, rabbinic work dating to late antiquity,
the Akedah is a punitive divine gesture meant to test Abraham with the threat of
punishment for his absence in honoring G-d. In a celebration of the weaning of
Isaac (Gen 21:8), Abraham neglected to provide a thanksgiving to G-d and thus
deserved to be punished for the absence of his show of faith. In b.Sanh. 89b,
Rabbi Yossi ben Zimra interprets ʿaḥar ha-děvarim as “after the words [of
318 Zev Garber

Satan].” The Adversary reminds the Kadosh Brukh Huʾ (“Holy One Blessed Be
He”) that the grateful aged couple drew a banquet in honor of their new-born
but no thanksgiving offering to the Almighty. ʿEloḳim is challenged by Satan
and assuredly respond that he will test Abraham who will unhesitatingly offer
on demand his new-born son.² “Am I not now thirty-seven years old? If the
Holy One, blessed be He, demanded all my members I would not hesitate.”³
Hence Abraham is instructed to test Isaac’s unflinching commitment to divine
submission. His response, hinnēnī/ “Here I am” (Gen 22:1) speaks fidelity now
and always (Tg. Ps.-J on Gen 22:1). Suggestive of the testing endured by Job, Abra-
ham suffers from divine willingness to allow Satan to test an essentially good
man.
Other writings reflect a rabbinic tradition that views the ʿAḳedah as the tenth
and last trial of the Patriarch Abraham that ultimately proves his worth and en-
ables the survival of the generations. Accordingly, its message of trial, tribula-
tion, obedience, and survival is central in the litany of public fast days, “May
He that answered Abraham our father on Mount Moriah listen to our supplica-
tion” (m.Taʿanit 2:4). In the public square, placing ashes on the Ark containing
the scroll of the Torah and on the heads of the nasi (“president”) and the ʿav beit
din (“chief justice”) is mentioned in m. Taʿan. 2:1 and in a later tradition served
as a reminder of the “ashes of Isaac” (b. Taʿan.16a). This ashes of Isaac sacrifice
is meant, by the rabbis, to mouth the obedient Isaac instructing his father not to
tremble nor fear and to bind him tightly on the altar, slaughter him, and burn
him into fine ashes (Gen. Rab. 56.4). Ashes were to be retrieved, returned to
Mother Sarah, placed in a casket in her chamber, enabling her to remember
and grieve.
In addition to the ʿAḳedah teaching us about the silence of father and son
and the testing of the patriarch, the ʿAḳedah is a story of survival. It is a story
of the survival and even resurrection of Isaac. Rabbinic eisegesis offers a convic-
tion that Isaac died at Har Moriah and instantly came to life again by the merci-
ful intervention of HaShem ʿElokim. This parallels a major theme of the yamim
ha-noraim (“Days of Awe”), aseret yemei-teshuva (“Ten Days of Repentance”)

 Satan is identified as one of the běney ʿElokim (“sons of G-d”) [Job 1:6]. His role is “to go to
and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it” and report back to the Lord (Job 1:7).
As a celestial investigator, he challenges the seemingly obedience and righteousness of Job.
Challenge accepted; and God permits Satan to test Job, but he is prohibited from to touching
his person.
 Isaac’s age is determined by Mother Sarah’s age of ninety years old when she bore him (Gen
17:17) and her death at a hundred and twenty seven years coinciding with the return of Isaac
from the divinely intercepted sacrificial experience (Gen 23:1).
 The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah Enigmas 319

commencing with Rosh HaShanah and concluding with Yom Kippur, that is,
meditation on human destiny and responsibility and judgment by the Heavenly
Court. “They that are born are destined to die; and the dead to be brought to life
again” to fully appreciate ʿElokim is the maker, creator, discerner, judge, witness,
prosecutor, and ultimate decider (Pirkei ʿAvot 4:29). Abraham returned without
Isaac to his servants conjecturing the paternal ritual killing (Gen 22: 19).
Pivotal is the angel of HaShem twice calling the name of Abraham and in-
structing him not to slay the lad for he has shown impeccable commitment to
divine instruction in not withholding his son for sacrifice (Gen 22: 11– 12). How-
ever, the textual pause between the two calls of “Abraham” conjectures that at
the first call is when Abraham took the knife and slayed his son. The angels cried
for divine intervention citing the merits of hospitality, good deeds, divine assur-
ance that the covenantal promise will continue through the life of Isaac and his
seed. The firm conviction of Abraham’s willingness to obey ʿElokim’s command
wetted in tears of HaShem’s angelic servicers join the divine attributes of Justice
and Mercy and enable he who once existed, live again. The second call of Abra-
ham witnessed the resurrected Isaac.
Death and Resurrection of Isaac was not atypical in medieval midrashic lit-
erature. Here are two examples from midrashic literature, one from Pirque R. El
and one that appears both in Gen. Rabbah, and Mek. de-Rabba Ismael, all writ-
ten in late antiquity:

When the sword touched his neck the soul of Isaac took flight and departed but when he
heard the voice from between the two cherubim saying, … ‘do not lay a hand’ his soul re-
turned to his body and [Abraham] set him free, and he stood on his feet. And Isaac knew
the resurrection of the dead as taught by the Torah, that all the dead in the future would be
revived. At that moment he opened [his mouth] and said, ‘Blessed are You, O Lord, who
revives the dead” (Pirqe R. El. Chapter 32).

In the Gen. Rabbah and Mek. de-Rabba Ismael versions, Abraham offers up two
sacrifices. He begins with the sacrifice of his son and ends with the sacrifice of
the ram—and within this tradition, Isaac is explicitly said to be the lamb of burnt
offering: attah haśeh lěʿōlâ běnī /“You are the lamb, my son.” The extracted les-
son: “the ashes of Isaac” and “the blood of Isaac’s ʿAḳedah” are to serve forever
as atonement and advocate of Israel in every generation. For example, G-d re-
pented/relented of his evil decision to “send an angel to destroy Jerusalem” (1
Chr 21:15) because “He beheld the blood of Isaac’s ʿAḳedah” and his compassion
conquered his anger and he redeemed and delivered (Mek., de-Rabba Ismael,
90 – 95). A similar thought is expressed in Abraham’s prayer for divine interven-
tion. “Even so it may be Thy will, O Lord our G-d, that when Isaac’s children are
in trouble, Thou wilt remember that binding in their favor and be filled with com-
320 Zev Garber

passion with them!” (Gen. Rab. 56, 10). Thus, the message is one of a compas-
sionate divinity who desires the children of Isaac to live and who thus spares
Isaac and all future generations from the threat of not only child sacrifice but
the privileging of death and suffering as ways of worship instead of the valued
life and celebration.
Consistent with the trope of the survival, here applied both to Isaac and the
Jewish people, the credo of Israelite religion is to live not die by Torah. The pur-
port of the ʿAḳedah is to sanctify life, make life better for others, and to preserve
life where possible. The Jewish ethical message differs from that of Soren Kierke-
gaard who famously accepted Abraham’s willingness to kill his son as the ulti-
mate test of faith in G-d.⁴ In contrast, the classical Jewish position views the
ʿAḳedah not as a leap of faith but as a demand of man’s unconditional surrender
to G-d’s will and the act of doing G-d’s teachings and commandments. The Rosh
HaShanah reading of the “Binding of Isaac” illustrated by the Abrahamic exam-
ple is to teach that the purpose of life is not to kill but to act justly.⁵

1.3 ʿAḳedah Dilemma: Preserving Life and Kiddush HaShem ⁶

Preserving life is a central message of the ʿAḳedah and a core teaching of Rab-
binic Judaism. While Scripture contains no specific injunction against suicide,
based on Gen 9:5 (“For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning” NJPS),
many sages taught that suicide is wrong and punishable by divine decree. In
the community, that judgment meant burial outside the sacred precincts of the
cemetery and suspension of mourning laws and customs.
This strong edict intended to discourage Jews who contemplated suicide, but
caused great grief and embarrassment for the family of those who anyway com-
mitted suicide. To mitigate this problem, the sages ruled that, to be treated as
suicide under the law, a death must be both voluntary and premeditated. The
rabbinical presumption was that people who kill themselves do so without the
premeditation—clearly, axiomatic, for example, in cases of child suicide. So
their death is not considered a suicide at all. This idea is founded on the suicide

 S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, Introduction. Kierkegaard’s personal view of religion is

influenced by his discussion of Abraham’s non-rational but not anti-rational commitment to sac-
rifice his son at G-d’s command. “He who loved himself became great in himself, and he who
loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved G-d became greater than all.”
 See Deut 16:20, Micah 6:8, and other biblical references. Cited above, footnote 1.
 Remarks reflected in my review of Moshe Halberthal, On Sacrifice (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2012), 134– 135.
 The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah Enigmas 321

of King Saul, who is described as having been in great mental distress “lest these
uncircumcised (Philistines) come and thrust me through, and make a mock of
me” (1 Sam 3:14). His death by his own sword is used by many rabbis as a prece-
dent for not stigmatizing a person who, in a situation of anguish, stress, and de-
spair, takes his or her own life.
Thus, while in normal times acts of suicide may be blameworthy, in stressful
times—Masada, the Bar Kokhba rebellion, the crusades, Inquisition, pogroms—
letting oneself be killed or even killing oneself for “the sanctification of G-d’s
name” is deemed by many to be praiseworthy. But even under these circumstan-
ces, sages struggled with the appropriateness of martyrdom. When both individ-
uals and communities face religious persecution, martyrdom must be a consid-
eration. Persecution and destruction of Jews and Jewish communities over the
centuries has contributed to the importance in the Jewish tradition of the con-
cept of Kiddush ha-Shem, sanctification of G-d’s name through martyrdom. The
talmudic dictum “be killed and do not transgress” has been the spine of a mar-
tyred Jewish people whose limbs were torn in nearly every time and place.
In the medieval period, the Sephardim, Jews living in Spain and Portugal
from the later centuries of the Roman Empire, responded to acts of isolation, vil-
ification, and expulsion by a policy of outward adaptation to the host culture
and belief, coupled with an inward turning to a messianic Jewish ideology.
While the Sephardic Moses Maimonides, who codified Jewish attitudes toward
martyrdom, taught that a Jew made to transgress the commandments in public
or in a time of great religious persecution is expected to suffer death instead
(Mishneh Torah, Yesode ha-Torah V.3), he made clear that a person who causes
his/her own death in what Maimonides deemed as unnecessary—e. g., in circum-
stances under which Jewish law should be set aside in the interest of saving a life
—should be considered an ordinary suicide deprived of the honor of martyrdom.
His point was to avoid suicide where possible and still honor the divine name if
to a lesser degree.
But medieval French and German commentators opposed this decision. They
held a more demanding level for Jewish identity and felt that all people who sac-
rificed themselves to sanctify G-d—even when not strictly required to do so—are
worthy of admiration and respect. To combat relentless terror and forced aposta-
sy, Ashkenazim demonstrated a very strong belief in resurrection of the dead.
Whole communities of Ashkenazim thus embraced martyrdom, and accounts
of righteous martyrs of the past became part of the everyday teaching and ven-
eration of Central and Eastern European Jews. Indeed, a central focus on the
commandment of martyrdom—to be preceded by its own benediction: “Blessed
are you, Lord our G-d, King of the universe, who has commanded us to sanctify
His name publicly”—is found in the famous work Shenei lukot ha-berit, known
322 Zev Garber

by the acronym, “Shelah,” written by the Prague-born and Polish educated legal
decisor and mystic Isaiah ben Abraham ha-Levi Horowitz (1565?–1630), pub-
lished in Amsterdam in 1649.
Expressive textual examples reflective of the spirit that calls for martyrdom
are testimony to historical reality. The ʿAḳedah plays a significant liturgical and
religious role informing and wrestling with the powers of hatred, expulsion, and
extermination that Jews have faced. The story in 2 Maccabees 7 speaks of the
scalping, dismemberment, and roasting of seven brothers who resolutely reject
the abandonment of their faith-people; that is to say, they defiantly refuse to
obey Antiochus IV Epiphanes command to eat of the swine’s flesh and in the
case of the seventh child to bow and retrieve the emperor’s signet ring. They will-
fully accept their mother’s admonition that heaven, earth, and human race are
creatio ex nihilo and so they do not fear the butcher’s inflected death and accept
wholeheartedly the innovative Maccabean period teaching of the resurrection of
the just and the annihilation of the wicked. Talmudic tradition names the name-
less mother of 2 Maccabees 7 as “Ḥannah” who speaks to her last martyred child
as if speaking to all seven children, “My children, tell your ancestor Abraham,
‘You bound only one son upon an altar, but I bound seven.’” Then Antiochus
ordered that the child be tortured even more than his brothers.⁷
In Second Temple Judaism, dying in the name of Kiddush ha-Shem is liturgi-
cal in the Ten Martyrs (ʾĒleh ʾEzkěrâ [“These I well remember”]) and related to
ʿAḳedah thematic matter of trial, execution, promise, and resurrection/survival.
The Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur Nětaneh Toqep (Who Shall Live and Who
Shall Die?) tropes affected Ashkenazi Jewry particularly in the period of the Bu-
bonic Plague and the Crusades. In the year 1096, thousands of crusaders
marched through the Rhineland on their way to liberate the Holy Land from
the Muslim presence. On their way, they met and slaughtered countless Jewish
men and women, Yeshivah students and infants, justified as these are descend-
ants of Christ killers. In the collective memory of the martyred Jews of Mainz,
Worms, and Speyer, the test of the ʿAḳedah was enacted; that is to say, willfully
choosing Kiddush ha-Shem to sanctify the sanctity of life, divine and mortal.
From the anonymous Hebrew narrative, Solomon bar Simshon Chronicle (dated
mid-12th century), we read of the Jews of Mainz who do not question the ways
of the Kadosh Barukh Huʾ:

 “Ḥannah and her Seven Sons,” are venerated in Jewish and Catholic traditions of holy martyr-
dom. Name of mother and number of children are influenced by state and plight of Ḥannah,
mother of the prophet Samuel (see I Sam 2:5).
 The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah Enigmas 323

[B]lessed be His name who has given us His Torah and has allowed us to be killed and slain
to witness to the oneness of His name and the truth of His Torah. To act like and sit in the
presence of Rabbi Akiba and his companions (“Ten Martyrs”). We willfully sacrifice our-
selves before G-d. ⁸

Similarly, in Eliezer bar Nathan Chronicle, we read that the earth trembled and
the angels of peace cried bitterly on the day that Isaac was bounded on Mt. Mor-
iah but the Heaven did not weep nor the sky darken when “one thousand ʿAḳe-
dot, one thousand bindings of Isaac, on a single day” took place in the Rhine-
land.⁹ Anecdotal accounts to commemorate the historicity of the martyrs, no
doubt. But tales of historiosophy are rooted in factuality and affect actuality.
In recent Yom Kippur liturgy, the association of the ʿAḳedah with Jewish mar-
tyrdom is illustrated by the insertion of a poem by Lithuanian-born Hille Bavli
(1892– 1961), the Ninety-Three Beit Yaʾakov Maidens. This tale of martyrdom re-
counts the reported tale of young women who voluntarily took poison and ac-
cepted death than to be shamed, compromised, and raped in a Nazi brothel:¹⁰

The Letter of the Ninety-Three Maidens¹¹

We have cleansed our bodies and purified our souls and now we are at peace. Death holds
no terror; we are going to meet it; We have served our G-d while alive; We know how to hol-
low Him in death. A deep covenant binds all ninety-three of us; Together we studied G-d’s
Torah; together we shall die. We have chanted Psalms, and we are comforted. We have con-
fessed our sins, and we are strengthened. We are now prepared to take our leave. Let the
unclean come to afflict us; we fear not. We shall drink the poison, and the, innocent and
pure, as befits the daughters of Jacob. To our mother Sarah we pray: “Here we are! We have
met the test of Isaac’s Binding, pray with us for the people Israel.” Compassionate Father!
Have mercy for your people, who love you, for there is no mercy in man. Reveal your loving-
kindness. Save your afflicted people. Cleanse and preserve your world. The hour of Něʿilâ
approaches, quiet grows our hearts. One request we make of our brethren, wherever they
may be, say Kaddish for us, for all ninety-three, say Kaddish.

 See “Solomon bar Samson: The Crusaders in Mainz, May 27, 1096,” Medieval Sourcebook
(Fordham University, 2020).
 See “The Chronicles of Rabbi Eliezer Bar Nathan,” in The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew
Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades, trans. and ed., Shlomo Eidelberg (1977; repr., KTAV,
1996), 73 – 94.
 See “The 93 Beit Yaakov Martyrs Towards the Making of a Historiosophy,” in Zev Garber,
Shoah, The Paradigmatic Genocide (University Press of America, 1994), 97– 104.
 Maḥzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, edited by Rabbi Jules Harlow (New York: The
Rabbinical Assembly, 1972), 561. “The Letter of Ninety-Three Maidens,” by Hillel Bavli appeared
in the American-Hebrew bi-weekly, Hadoar, vol. 23, no.12, and an English translation by Bertha-
Badt Strauss appeared in the Reconstructionist, ix.2, March 5, 1943, 23.
324 Zev Garber

Reading the Ninety-Three Maidens as paradigmatic and pragmatic, a tri-fold bib-

lical-rabbinic-mystical lesson is learned. “Mother Sarah” twins Mama Sarah
(Schneirer), mother of the Beit Yaakov movement, and Mother Sarah, mother
of the biblical Isaac, remind us of choices real people must decide in the face
of persecution; the poem about sacrifice of Ninety Three mirrors the ʿAḳedah;
and the implied vidui on approaching death and the Něʿilâ service. The vidui
šěkib mēraʿ (“Confession on a Death Bed/at Death”) and the conclusion of
Něʿilâ end with identical refrains:

The Lord is King; the Lord was King; the Lord shall be King forever and ever; Blessed be His
Name, whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever; The Lord He is G-d; Hear O’ Israel, the
Lord is our G-d, the Lord is one.

The legacy of Kiddush ha-Shem (self or other inflicted) is inscribed in the Torah
designation of the Day of Atonement, in the plural Yom Kippurim (Lev 23:27),
suggesting that-one-moment of spiritual reconciliation between victim and
Maker. Death because of the absolute commitment, love, and obedience of Ha-
Shem and Torah and the dawning of G-d’s grace calming the victim within the
assurance of pardon and forgiveness.
In the twentieth century, the pietistic, quietistic, and pacifistic way to heaven
represented by the traditional approach to martyrdom was challenged by indi-
vidual religious Zionist rabbis and Hasidic rebbes alike, who responded to the
unparalleled horrors of the Shoah by advocating spontaneous, as well as plan-
ned, acts of sanctifying life (kiddush ha-ḥayyim) even to death. In this tradition,
staying alive was of primary importance allowing for fewer ritual demands on
Jews in order to survive. Spiritual resistance was offered as an alternative to mar-
tyrdom. The pattern of spiritual resistance falls into three categories, each re-
sponding to a different stimulus but united by the intention to combat the ene-
my’s determined goal of total annihilation of the Jewish people: (1) the Jew’s
obligation to fight and resist in order to preserve life (Rabbis Isaac Nissenbaum
and Menahem Zemba, Warsaw Ghetto); (2) observe Jewish belief, faith, rites of
passage, and the sacred calendar, however minimally and symbolically, for
they contribute to reconstruction (tiqqun) in the midst of Shoah (Rabbi Kaloni
Kalmush Shapiro, Piaseczno); and (3) return to Zion and by rebuilding the
Land of Promise, the souls in burnt bodies can be restored to life by a people
reborn (Rabbi Issachar Schlomo Teechthal, from Piestany, in present-day Slova-
kia, murdered after the war in 1945 by Ukrainians).
In the next section, we turn from the experience of the immediacy of trauma
to the meta-discourse expressive of those tasked with preserving the memory of
trauma and answering the question that serves to unify this commentary, How
 The ʿAḳedah, Binding of Isaac, and Shoah Enigmas 325

does the biblical ʿAḳedah inform our collective memory and understanding of
the attempted genocide of the Jews?

2 ʿAḳedah and Holocaust or ʿAḳedah and Shoah:

Modern Day Applications
And He (ʿElokim/ G-d) said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac whom you love, and
offer him as an ʿolah/holocaust/burnt offering (Gen 22:2 JPS, NJPS)

Not surprisingly, contemporary thought related to the Holocaust demonstrates

an analogous struggle as did the rabbis struggle about the meaning of the
ʿAḳedah. Contemporary discourse constructs three trajectories analogous to rab-
binic engagement with the ʿAḳedah: silence of the victims, suffering resulting
from the state of chosenness, and individual and collective documentation of
memory as well as the real lives of survivors and their generations. In the con-
cluding section, we explore the struggle that many face to find meaning related
to the Holocaust.

2.1 The Holocaust Word

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) attests that the word “holocaust” comes via
the Latin holocaustum from the Greek word holocaustos (ὁλόκαυστος) or its more
common variant holocautos (ὁλόκαυτος). This, in turn, is a compound composed
of holos (ὅλος), an adjective (or adjectival substantive) meaning “whole, entire,
complete in all its parts,” and kaustos (καυστός), another adjectival form mean-
ing “burnt, red-hot.” Also, a derivative of the verb καίω (kai-ō) meaning “burn.”
The root appears in the English word “caustic,” which is used to describe burn-
ing acid or, derivatively, burning (sarcastic) wit. Thus, the basic etymological
meaning of holokaustos is “something wholly burnt up.” However, in today’s un-
derstanding, “something” is understood as “someone,” an animate existence not
an inanimate thing.
The Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Bible, employs the term
holokautōma (ὁλοκαύτωμα) or its variant holocautōsis (ὁλοκαύτωσις) well over
200 times, and without exception the term is used to designate a sacrifice, spe-
cifically, the ʿolah, the offering that was to be wholly consumed by fire (e. g., Lev
1:3, 6:9; 1 Sam 7:9, etc.). The Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, uses hol-
ocaustum, the Latinized version of this Greek term, for ʿolah as well. From here,
the term appeared in the Catholic translation of the Bible into English, the