Many students of the Chumash have wondered what it was that Avraham Avinu was thinking on his three-day journey to Moriah with the presumed sacrifice, his son Yitzchak, his other son, Yishmael, and his servant, Eliezer.

Let us deal with a vital, but peripheral matter; that is, peripheral to the question mentioned above, first. At a late point in the journey, already within sight of Moriah, Yitzchak asks his father, "Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the sacrifice?" (Bereshit 22:7) To which Avraham responds, "The L-rd will provide Himself with a sheep for the sacrifice-my-son." (ibid. 8) This enigmatic statement was sufficient to communicate to Yitzchak that he was a prime candidate to be the sacrifice.

And his response is non-verbal, but conclusive, "And the two of them went on together." (ibid. 8) Yitzchak had determined to be "moser nefesh," literally to commit himself to self-sacrifice to Hashem, and to trust his life to his father, whom he loved and who he knew loved him more than life. Without Yitzchak’s acquiescence, Avraham could not have made his final approach to the Akeidah.

But back to Avraham. At first glance, there are two separate and distinct, violently contradictory, possibilities:

If he was confident that Hashem would call off the sacrifice in the end, as indeed He did, the whole exercise was nothing more than a game of charades. The knife meant nothing, the wood and the fire meant nothing, and the presence of Yitzchak ultimately meant nothing. This is impossible!

On the other hand, if Avraham thought that Hashem really wanted him to go through with the sacrifice of Yitzchak, why didn’t he question G-d at all concerning the contradiction that this command represented to all that had been promised to him? In particular, the statement "for through Yitzchak will your seed be called" was now exposed as a falsehood, G-d Forbid, or worse, as a horrible Divine joke upon Avraham. Even more impossible!

The founders of Quantum Mechanics early in the Twentieth Century demonstrated that at elementary levels there are neither waves nor particles, but only wave-particles. The Uncertainty Principle showed that the position and momentum of an elementary particle could not both be known precisely, and therefore, in a sense, that at the most basic level of the physical world, it was indeed possible for something to be "in two places at the same time."

Perhaps a similar phenomenon exists in the spiritual world. And we may be forced to say that Avraham approached the Akeidah wearing two masks simultaneously: one, the sad, crying face of Greek tragedy and certainty of doom; the other, the happy, smiling face of Greek comedy, and certainty of salvation. Ai, we ask, with our Talmudic thumbs in the air, but the masks contradict each other! "So what?" Avraham would respond; "if Almighty G-d confronts me with an impossible contradiction, I am free to respond in a similar manner."

Hashem here also took a great risk, "What if Avraham refuses to take this test? What if he says, ‘Until now I thought You were the G-d of Mercy and Justice; now I see that You are neither of these! And I hereby resign as Your representative.' " What would He do without Avraham? Who would spread the idea of "Just One G-d" in the world?

But Hashem had confidence in Avraham, and His confidence was borne out. Avraham would hope for mercy, even though there was no logical basis for it. He would teach the lesson that "Ahavah Mekalkelet et HaShurah," "Love is greater than logic." But he could not give up the logic, or he would be only a madman.

David HaMelech says in Tehilim (23:4), "Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…" Even though he is caught in the Jaws of death, he doesn't give up hope. David was not afraid to wear the Masks of Avraham. And he also donned the Mask of the Madman, "Of David, when he feigned madness before Avimelech…" (Tehilim 34:1)

But again, back to Avraham, who is not called "the strong one" for nothing. For his miraculous self-contradictory love and faith, Avraham was raised to infinite heights by the Master of the Universe, to become a source of merit for his descendants for all time.

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

Rabbi Frankel is an Educational Coordinator at the OU