The Essence

The Ram and the Binding of Isaac

From the works of Rabbi Moshe Alshich

"He looked and there was a ram, etc." (Gen 22:13)

The sages must have wondered why Abraham would sacrifice a one or two year old ram which had not cost him a penny instead of his son Isaac. At the very least he should have selected an animal from his own flock! We are therefore told that this animal was something exceptional. The sacrifice of Isaac was meant to redeem mankind for the 20 generations of corruption and depravity. Seeing that the sacrifice had not actually been carried out, a substitute had become necessary. This substitute's being killed did not wipe out all the accumulated sins of mankind, though it did remind G-d on critical occasions of the binding of Isaac and helped ward off threatened retribution against the Jewish people.

Prior to the first Shabbat the world was comparable to a body without a soul, the Shabbat providing the soul. Had the Shabbat not followed immediately after Adam had committed the sin, he would have died on the same day. The sanctity of the Shabbat infused him and saved him. All the ten items mentioned in the Mishnah we quoted were created after sunset on the sixth day; they were already of a different character from all other phenomena created earlier due to the proximity of the Shabbat and its sanctity.

It is not surprising therefore that the ashes of the ram which Abraham sacrificed should be viewed as if they had been the ashes of Isaac, seeing the ram had also been infused with a spiritual capacity.

No wonder that it had lived to the age of 2100 years before Abraham found it. It had remained in the Garden of Eden during all of this time, close to the tree of life, a place reserved for the souls of the righteous.

When man sinned in the Garden of Eden, G-d created the mechanics for man to eventually regain his original stature, a stature he had lost as a result of Adam's sin. The sanctity of the Shabbat was created as the key to human salvation and rehabilitation. The parts of the body which are not usually burned when an offering is burned on the altar are used to help in the rehabilitation of man in another matter. This is the meaning of ascribing certain uses to the horns, the sinews, the skins, etc., mentioned earlier.

The Zohar explains that the reason David is described in our sources as "alive and well," is because he spent his night wakeful, composing hymns and playing them to G-d. David helps to compensate for the death which Adam had brought into the world. What enables David to accomplish this was the fact that the strings of his harp had originated in the Garden of Eden, the place where Adam had sinned. Once this ram had been used to substitute for the sacrifice of Isaac, its gut had been sublimated, so to speak. (More about all this in the Zohar in the original.)

(Adapted from Torat Moshe - the 16th commentary of Rabbi Moshe Alshech of Zefat on the Torah, as translated and condensed in the English version of Eliyahu Munk.)