D’var Torah: Parshat Vayera

Abraham’s greatness and the Akeidah

Parshat Vayera tells one of the best-known stories in the Torah, the story of Akeidat Yitzchak (the binding of Isaac). The parsha tells us that God was putting Abraham to the test – but what kind of test was this, exactly? Although we tend to think of the Akeidah as a kind of test of faith, I want to argue that it's more than that. It's not just the story of how faithful Abraham is to God. It's about something else too. 

Why do I say that? Well, when we want to understand a story like the Akeidah, we often turn to a Torah commentary written by someone like Rashi, the Ramban, or Sforno. But what if, sometimes, the Torah is its own commentary? What if the Torah uses particular tools to embed commentary within its text? And what if that commentary could lead us to the deeper meaning of the Akeidah?

Let me show you an example of what I mean. 

The Torah’s tools for commenting on itself

This example comes from the moment in the story when Abraham and Isaac are heading up the mountain together. They leave their servants behind with the donkey, they take their supplies for the sacrifice with them, and they begin to ascend to the place God designated. The Torah tells us in verse 6:

וַיֵּלְכוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם יַחְדָּו

And the two of them walked together (Genesis 22:6)

It turns out that that same phrase – וַיֵּלְכוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם יַחְדָּו – appears again just two verses later, in verse 8. That seems interesting, all right: We’ve got a pair of verses close together, with the same words mirrored in each. Don’t start thinking about what it could mean just yet, though, because there’s something else I’d like us to look at first. It’s another pair of verses that include a kind of “mirror” effect. But this mirror effect is a little bit different.

To see it, we need to return to verse 6. We were just looking at the end of that verse, where Abraham and Isaac were on their way up to Mount Moriah. Let’s go back now and read the beginning of that verse:

וַיִּקַּח אַבְרָהָם אֶת־עֲצֵי הָעֹלָה וַיָּשֶׂם עַל־יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ

Abraham took the wood for the offering and put it on top of his son Isaac (Genesis 22:6)

Here’s a very practical question: If you were transporting branches on your back, what would you need to do to the branches in order to carry them that way? You’d have to tie them all together. So that means Isaac is carrying roped-up wood on his back up the mountain. Picture it in your mind: Roped-up wood on top of Isaac.

Now let’s look down to verse 9 and read what happened after Abraham and Isaac reached the designated place on Mount Moriah.

 וַיִּבֶן שָׁם אַבְרָהָם אֶת־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וַיַּעֲרֹךְ אֶת־הָעֵצִים וַיַּעֲקֹד אֶת־יִצְחָק בְּנוֹ וַיָּשֶׂם אֹתוֹ עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ מִמַּעַל לָעֵצִים

Abraham built an altar, and he arranged the wood, and he tied Isaac up and put him on top of the wood. (Genesis 22:9)

Fascinating! We have tied-up Isaac on top of wood in verse 9, mirroring tied-up wood on top of Isaac in verse 6.

So let’s take stock for a minute. We have two sets of “mirrored” verses. To see the parallels better, we could arrange them like this:

Verse 6 (beginning): Roped-up wood on top of Isaac

Verse 6 (end): The two of them walked together

Verse 8: The two of them walked together

Verse 9: Roped-up Isaac on top of wood

Notice anything interesting here? We don’t just have two pairs of mirror-effect verses; we actually have a verbal pattern where the pairs are nested, one inside the other! Now, that’s all very intriguing, you may be thinking, but you promised to show me how the Torah is commenting on itself, showing us something about the meaning of the Akeidah. When do we get to that part?

How verbal patterns encode hidden meanings

This pattern we’ve just uncovered is one of those tools the Torah uses to comment on itself. It’s what’s known as an atbash pattern (also called a chiasm).  And this particular atbash pattern, I believe, will indeed lead us to the true meaning of Abraham’s test.

So far we’ve seen two pairs of verses, but once you stumble upon an atbash pattern, you may be able to find more and more of these nested pairs. And the fascinating thing about this kind of atbash pattern, or chiasm, is that it leads us towards a center. It’s as if the Torah is posting arrows pointing inward toward the central idea of a story, the part that everything revolves around. And that's one way in which this sort of chiastic structure can work as a kind of commentary within the text. It tells us where to focus our attention.

So, where are the Torah’s arrows pointing in this Parshat Vayera chiasm? If we keep going inward, what might we find in the center?

What we find at the center is a conversation – a conversation between Abraham and Isaac as they’re on their way up the mountain. Which is interesting, because if this conversation is the center of the chiasm, that implies that…the conceptual center of this story actually isn’t the moment when Abraham picks up the knife to slaughter Isaac. 

Sure, that part might feel like the climax, the most dramatic moment in the story. But the Torah’s chiasm isn’t pointing us there. Instead, it’s pointing us to this little conversation between father and son. Something is clearly happening here that’s central to the meaning of this entire story. 

The center of the pattern

A father-son conversation full of hidden meaning

As it happens, that father-son conversation at the center of the Akeidah chiasm contains its very own embedded chiasms. In this video, Rabbi David Fohrman points them out and identifies the exact word at the middle of the entire atbash. How does that central word reveal the significance of Abraham’s conversation with Isaac? And what does this tell us about the true meaning of the Akeidah? Follow the link below to see all these questions illustrated and explained in video – the atbash really pops out at you as you watch!  

Don’t miss the beautifully formatted, printable study guide for "Abraham's Struggle with Loyalty." Includes color coding to make the chiasms easy to see.