Yitzchak Reborn from Avraham at the Akeidah

1“These are the generations of Yitzchak the son of Avraham: Avraham begot Yitzchak” [Bereishis 25:19]. The difficulty of the doubled wording is well known: once the verse has said “Yitzchak the son of Avraham,” why add “Avraham begot Yitzchak”? We can explain it through what the sefer Yismach Moshe writes on the Midrash (Midrash Tehillim 29). The verse says, “Render to Hashem, sons of the mighty (b'nei eilim)” [Tehillim 29:1], and the Midrash reads eilim as “rams”: the children of the forefathers who were slaughtered like rams. Avraham said, “I am the slaughterer,” and Yitzchak said, “I am the one slaughtered.” The Yismach Moshe explains, as the holy books teach, that when an offering is slaughtered, the soul of the one who brings it enters the offering. It is as though the offerer himself were slaughtered, and afterward he becomes a new creation. At the Akeidah the souls of both of them were in the ram. Yitzchak's soul was in it because he was the one being slaughtered, and Avraham's soul was in it because he was the slaughterer. That is why both of them became new creations. So far his words.

2This is the meaning of our verse. “These are the generations of Yitzchak the son of Avraham”: Yitzchak was the son of Avraham Avinu. But the Torah wanted to trace his lineage to the holy stock of the Avos, so it said it twice. It tells us that there was a second birth at the Akeidah. After the great yichud, the bond with Hashem, that the two of them made there, Yitzchak was born anew from Avraham Avinu, clean and cleansed of every trace of blemish.

3The Midrash in Parshas Chayei Sarah explains [cf. Bereishis Rabbah 58:5; Rashi on Bereishis 23:2] that as soon as Sarah heard that Yitzchak had very nearly been slaughtered, her soul left her. Here, at least, we could still explain it simply, as death from shock. But the Midrash in Parshas Acharei (Vayikra Rabbah 20:2) relates that Yitzchak came back from the Akeidah and told her the whole story. She cried out six cries and died before she could finish. This is astonishing. Did Sarah Imeinu's soul leave her because she heard that her son had been willing to be slaughtered to sanctify Hashem's Name? Heaven forbid that we say such a thing about Sarah Imeinu.

4The true explanation is this. Yitzchak came and told her everything: the great yichud they had made, and how he had truly stretched out his neck to be slaughtered to sanctify Hashem's Name. Sarah, in her great holiness, longed with all her soul to merit that same yichud. Now, “the Holy One, blessed be He, cherishes the hours of the tzaddikim, in this world and in the World to Come.”¹ This means that when the years of their life in this world are complete, Hashem brings about the circumstances by which they come, at their appointed time, to such a great yichud, and leave this world in the unity of His Name. In truth, Sarah's years had also come to their end. So Sarah Imeinu too made this very yichud. She truly gave her soul over to Hashem, and her soul left her. This is what the Avodas Yisrael explains on the verse “Sarah died in Kiryas Arba” [Bereishis 23:2]: “Kiryas Arba,” the city of four, means that she died within the four letters of Hashem's Name. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)

5Through all these yichudim of Avraham, Yitzchak and Sarah, Yitzchak was sanctified with an added holiness and came out free of every trace of defect. This was so that he would be sanctified with the holiness of the Avos, and would beget Yaakov Avinu, the choicest of the Avos, in holiness and purity.