Unbinding Isaac takes readers on a trek of discovery for our times into the binding of Isaac story. Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard viewed the story as teaching suspension of ethics for the sake of faith, and subsequent Jewish thinkers developed this idea as a cornerstone of their religious worldview. Aaron Koller examines and critiques Kierkegaard's perspective--and later incarnations of it--on textual, religious, and ethical grounds. He also explores the current of criticism of Abraham in Jewish thought, from ancient poems and midrashim to contemporary Israel narratives, as well as Jewish responses to the Akedah over the generations. Finally, bringing together these multiple strands of thought--along with modern knowledge of human sacrifice in the Phoenician world--Koller offers an original reading of the Akedah. The biblical God would like to want child sacrifice--because it is in fact a remarkable display of devotion--but more than that, he does not want child sacrifice because it would violate the child's autonomy. Thus, the high point in the drama is not the binding of Isaac but the moment when Abraham is told to release him. The Torah does not allow child sacrifice, though by contrast, some of Israel's neighbors viewed it as a religiously inspiring act. The binding of Isaac teaches us that an authentically religious act cannot be done through the harm of another human being.

Unbinding the Binding of Isaac is an anthology of three faiths' interpretations of the Genesis 22:1-19 story. The various exegeses of this story have been mined by the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths for a protracted period of time. The "Aqedah," as the binding story is known universally, stimulates the interests and imaginations of theologians, linguists, poets, historians, and artists of various skills and stripes. The Aqedah continues to stimulate inquiry and application to modern situations. Unbinding the Binding of Isaac is at once ancient and modern in its scope, purpose, and relevance to scholarly inquiry regarding this ongoing debate.

This book situates the book of Esther in the intellectual history of Ancient Judaism and provides a new understanding of its purpose.

It is traditional to think we should praise Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son as proof of his love for God. But have we misread the point of the story? Is it possible that a careful reading of Genesis 22 could reveal that God was not pleased with Abraham's silent obedience? Widely respected biblical theologian, creative thinker, and public speaker J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and shows that God desires something other than silent obedience in difficult times. Middleton focuses on the ethical and theological problem of Abraham's silence and explores the rich biblical tradition of vigorous prayer, including the lament psalms, as a resource for faith. Middleton also examines the book of Job in terms of God validating Job's lament as "right speech," showing how the vocal Job provides an alternative to the silent Abraham. This book provides a fresh interpretation of Genesis 22 and reinforces the church's resurgent interest in lament as an appropriate response to God.

This study explores the vestiges of primitive sacrificial rituals that emerge in a group of canonical modernist novels, including The Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Good Soldier, The Great Gatsby, and To the Lighthouse. It argues that these novels reenact a process that achieved its seminal expression in the Genesis story of The Binding of Isaac, in which Abraham, having been prevented from sacrificing Isaac, offers up a ram in his place. Modernist reenactments of this pattern present narrators who, although vigorously protesting the victimization of certain characters, unfailingly seize upon others as their surrogates. Each novel is designed in such a way, however, as to resist the reconstruction of a sacrificial ritual to which its narrator is prone. The resulting tension between the binding and unbinding of ritual persecution dramatizes the paradox that we can neither believe convincingly in the guilt of our scapegoats nor imagine a society that has dispensed with them entirely. Thomas Cousineau is Professor of English at Washington College in Maryland.

DIV The life and thought of a forceful figure in Israel’s religious and political life /div

Traditional interpretations in both Judaism and Christianity argue that the Akedah presents not only an ethical question but also an ethical reply. But for the intervention of the angel, Abraham would have killed his son. Obedience to God take precedence over morality as humanly conceived. Yet, the angel of YHWH that appears to Abraham is a later addition to the text; thus, in the original narrative Abraham actually disobeys the divine command to slay his son, and sacrifices a ram instead. The first part of the book shows how the "original" version of the narrative did not contain the angelic figure. The second part of the book re-examines various religious interpretations of the text to show that exegetes such as Maimonides and his followers did point out Abraham's disobedience. According to these writers the esoteric layer of the story in fact declares that disobedience to God's command was Abraham's true affirmation of faith. In the third part of the book, Boehm re-opens the philosophical debate between Kant and Kierkegaard. Boehm concludes the book by contending that the monotheistic model of faith presented by Abraham was actually a model of disobedience.

By foregrounding bodily pleasure in the experience of time and its representation in queer literature, film, video, and art, Elizabeth Freeman challenges queer theorys recent emphasis on loss and trauma.

In This Hour offers the first English translations of selected German writings by Abraham Joshua Heschel from his tumultuous years in Nazi-ruled Germany and months in London exile, before he found refuge in the United States. Moreover, several of the works have never been published in any language. Composed during a time of intense crisis for European Jewry, these writings both argue for and exemplify a powerful vision of spiritually rich Jewish learning and its redemptive role in the past and the future of the Jewish people. The collection opens with the text of a speech in which Heschel laid out with passion his vision for Jewish education. Then it goes on to present his teachings: a set of essays about the rabbis of the Mishnaic period, whose struggles paralleled those of his own time; the biography of the medieval Jewish scholar and leader Don Yitzhak Abravanel; reflections on the power and meaning of repentance, written for the High Holidays in 1936; and a short story on Jewish exile, written for Hanukkah 1937. The collection closes with a set of four recently discovered meditations—on suffering, prayer, spirituality, and God—in which Heschel grapples with the horrors unfolding around him. Taken together, these essays and story fill a significant void in Heschel’s bibliography: his Nazi Germany and London exile years. These translations convey the spare elegance of Heschel’s prose, and the introduction and detailed notes make the volume accessible to readers of all knowledge levels. As Heschel teaches history, his voice is more than that of a historian: the old becomes new, and the struggles of one era shed light on another. Even as Heschel quotes ancient sources, his words address the issues of his own time and speak urgently to ours.

A sophisticated but accessible fusion of theory and critical popular culture of Leonard Cohen's mystical songbook in relation to post-secular thinking and Kabbalah, Hasidism and Rinzai Buddhism. This volume presents a unique inter-disciplinary approach to Jewish philosophy and literary studies that will touch diverse audiences and readership.