The Akedah and National Destiny
Haim Gouri’s "Inheritance"
By Joseph Lowin

The Akedah Narrative—one of the great Master Stories of the Jewish textual tradition— tells the story of the binding of Isaac on an altar by his father Abraham in response to a request from God. In the 19 verses it takes Genesis 22 to recount the story, we are given a fast-paced narrative of events: Abraham’s readiness to answer God’s call; the setting out for Mount Moriah; the child’s question, "Where is the ram for the burnt offering?"; the father’s answer that God will provide; the act of binding Isaac; the vision of the angel admonishing Abraham not to harm the boy; and the appearance in the brambles of a ram caught by the horns.

One response to this terrifying story is to make it a part of the liturgy. Likely because the ram’s horn is prominent in both the story of Isaac’s binding and in the blowing of the shofar ceremony on the Jewish New Year, the Akedah Narrative is recited in synagogue on the second day of Rosh Ha-Shanah.The story has generated dozens of other responses as well, from the Rabbis’ misdrashic interpretations (Abraham made parties without offering a sacrifice to God; the Devil induced God into giving Abraham a test of his faith, the Akedah took place on Rosh Hashana, etc.), to the metaphysical musings of Swedish philosopher S› ren Kierkegaard in his essay, "Fear and Trembling."

Artistic representation, by Rembrandt, for example, is also a commentary. And so is the poem by Haim Gouri, reproduced here. His poem transcends the individual. What is at issue here is nothing less than Gouri’s vision of national destiny. That is the message of the shockingly brutal last line of the poem, which places a knife in the heart of all Jewish children at their birth.

But first, the first stanza.

Gouri’s version begins near the end of the narrative. The word a  aron in the first verse replaces the ambiguous word a  ar of the biblical narrative, signaling other changes that Gouri will make in the story. In verse 2 Gouri enters into the mind of Abraham and tells us that at first Abraham did not understand that the ram had been sent by God as a non-verbal answer to Isaac’s question. Abraham is confused, mixed up, one of meanings of the word arav in verse 4. This word is also used to convey the idea that Abraham is in a weakened state, in his twilight years, soon to be replaced by his son, "his foremost strength," in a Freudian enactment of the Family Drama.

The second stanza mixes things up further, both poetically and psychologically. The poem mentions the ram first and then the angel, in contrast to the chronology of the biblical account.

The verb nasa in verse 5 is normally used to introduce a prophetic parable. Abraham is not in a dream; he is the subject of a prophecy. The word sav in the same verse, which signifies the greyish-whitish color of an old person’s hair, resonates with allusions to other biblical verses that pay tribute to senior citizens. The knife falling from Abraham’s hand conveys in the starkest way imaginable that there is to be a transfer of power from father to son.

The third stanza, composed of two short lines, is itself transitional, shifting the focus from Abraham’s mind to Isaac’s.

Why does the poet add this detail to the Akedah Narrative? Is this not an allusion by Gouri to Moses’s request in Exodus to see God’s glory and to God’s refusal? "You shall see My back; My face shall not be visible." The commentators there point out that the request stems from Moses’s desire to understand philosophically the principle on which God bases his dealings with human beings. God denies Moses’s request because He can be understood only in history, after the fact and after the act. In the poem by Gouri, Isaac does not yet understand that his father has had a vision and undergone an ordeal. Perhaps that is why in this stanza he is called a (yeled), "little boy."

In stanza 4, Gouri uses a mixture of matter-of-fact, everyday Hebrew and Biblical references.

The word kimsuppar in verse 11, "as it is told," places Gouri’s version--however modern--back into the narrative tradition. The words ra’ah ba-tov, figuratively, "to have pleasure," alludes to what is perhaps the greatest love story ever told, the story of the enounter "in the field," of Isaac and Rebecca. The last words of the stanza ad or einav keheh, refer to the scene in Genesis in which a blind, aged Isaac is trying to get a feel for the future, to figure out which son to bless. Will it be Esau or Jacob who will receive the yerushah, the inheritance, of the poem’s title?

The meaning of the last stanza, among the most brutally shocking in modern Hebrew poetry, becomes clearer at this point.

Isaac did not see what was being done to him. Isaac’s descendants are another story, however. They are able to see what happened (in hindsight, as it were). Their inheritance--and ours--is that they are born "with a knife in their hearts."

This is not to say that Abraham and Isaac’s descendants are merely victims. Rather, the meaning of these final verses derives from the flow of Gouri’s poetic narrative. It also comes from the etymology of the word ma’akhelet, knife, in verses 8 and 16. This word comes from the root alef-khaf-lamed, "to eat." How this root came to be at the source of a word for knife is the subject of many midrashic speculations. Gouri’s midrash is perhaps most apposite. Isaac’s descendants are born with the feeling that something is "eating at them." Through the "Master Story" of their ancestor, they have been through a disorienting collective experience.

The first descendant to receive this yerushah, "inheritance," was Jacob, Isaac’s son. He was able to exteriorize his struggle with such a heritage by wrestling with an angel and overcoming the adversary. The most recent of Isaac’s descendants to wrestle thus are Haim Gouri’s generation of Israelis, who fought in the Palmach to build a nation.

It is only after going through such an ordeal that we get to blow the ram’s horn of Rosh ha-Shanah. The ram’s horn comes last, not as a blast proclaiming triumph, but as an answer to the questions of the next generation: Jewish destiny, it says, is yours for the taking.