Understanding Abraham

The story about Abraham is remarkable in that it is always glorious no matter how poorly it is understood, but here again it is a matter of whether or not we are willing to work and be burdened.

But we are unwilling to work, and yet we want to understand the story.

We glorify Abraham, but how? We recite the whole story in cliches: "The great thing was that he loved God in such a way that he was willing to offer him the best." This is very true, but "the best" is a vague term.

Mentally and orally we homologize Isaac and the best, and the contemplator can very well smoke his pipe while cogitating, and the listener may very well stretch out his legs comfortably.

If that rich young man whom Jesus met along the way had sold all his possessions and given the money to the poor, we would praise him as we praise every great deed, even if we could not understand him without working, but he still would not become an Abraham, even though he sacrificed the best.

What is omitted from Abraham's story is the anxiety, because to money I have no ethical obligation, but to the son the father has the highest and holiest.

We forget it and yet want to talk about Abraham.

So we talk and in the process of talking interchange the two terms, Isaac and the best, and everything goes fine.

But just suppose that someone listening is a man who suffers from sleeplessness- then the most terrifying, the most profound, tragic, and comic misunderstanding is very close at hand.

He goes home, he wants to do just as Abraham did, for the son, after all, is the best. If the preacher found out about it, he perhaps would go to the man, he would muster all his ecclesiastical dignity and shout, "You despicable man, you scum of society, what devil has so possessed you that you want to murder your son."

And the pastor, who had not noticed any heat or perspiration when preaching about Abraham, would be surprised at himself, at the wrathful earnestness with which he thunders at the poor man. He would be pleased with himself, for he had never spoken with such emphasis and emotion.

He would say to himself and his wife, "I am an orator-what was lacking was the occasion. When I spoke about Abraham on Sunday, I did not feel gripped at all."

If the same speaker had a little superfluity of understanding to spare, I am sure he would have lost it if the sinner had calmly and with dignity answered: "But, after all, that was what you yourself preached about on Sunday."

How could the preacher ever get such a thing in his head, and yet it was so, and his only mistake was that he did not know what he was saying.

And to think that there is no poet who could bring himself to prefer situations such as this to the nonsense and trumpery with which comedies and novels are stuffed!

Fear and Trembling, p. 28