By: Rabbi Shay Tahan

The nisayon of Akedat Yitschak opens with Hashem’s plea: קח נא” “- please take.

Rashi explains that the Hashem was asking Avraham Avinu to please withstand this final nisayon. Why does Hashem speak to him in this manner? Rashi explains that it should not be said that the earlier nisyonot were of no significance.

At first, this is difficult to understand. Avraham Avinu had already faced nine nisyonot. Each one was real, each one was difficult, and each one he passed. How could anyone possibly look back at all of them and say that they amounted to nothing?

The answer is that the tenth nisayon was very different from everything that came before it.

Everything He Had

By this point in the parashah, Avraham Avinu had, by any ordinary measure, reached the height of success.

He had Sarah Imeinu, whom Chazal describe as one of the most beautiful women in the world, and who would become the mother of the Jewish nation. He had Yitzchak, the son he had waited for and prayed for his entire life. Yitzchak had grown up and followed the path on which Avraham had raised him.

Avraham had also built a great name for himself. People came from all over to hear his teachings. He had brought many people closer to belief in Hashem and had spent his entire life teaching the world that there is one Creator.

A tremendous kiddush Hashem had been built around his name.

And then came the command of the Akeidah.

The command seemed to undo everything.

Yitzchak was the only son through whom all of Hashem’s promises would be fulfilled. If Yitzchak were gone, what would happen to the future? What would happen to the nation that Hashem had promised Avraham?

And there was Sarah.

Avraham knew his wife and knew what such news would do to her, he knew that she couldn’t survive hearing that her son is gone. Rashi explains that he therefore told her only that he was taking Yitzchak to learn Torah. This is not a small detail. Avraham understood that the truth would be too painful for her to hear.

Indeed; the next parashah begins with Sarah’s death, and Rashi connects her death to what she was told about Yitzchak and the Akeidah.

And then there was Avraham’s entire life’s work.

Avraham had spent his life teaching the world that Hashem does not want human sacrifice. The nations around him practiced the opposite. Their distorted belief was that the greater the sacrifice, the greater the worship: if a child was the most precious thing a person had, then that was what should be offered to his god.

Avraham taught the world that this was false. Hashem wants children to be raised, not slaughtered.

And now Avraham was being commanded to do the very thing he had spent his life teaching the world was wrong.

Imagine Avraham coming down from that mountain after Yitzchak had been offered. What would people say?

The man who had spent his life teaching against human sacrifice had apparently done exactly that himself.

He would appear to be a hypocrite. His teachings would be called into question. The people he had brought close to Hashem could turn around and walk away.

The kiddush Hashem of an entire lifetime could have been turned into its opposite in a single afternoon.

What the Other Nine Had

And this is the answer to Rashi.

What was different about the earlier nisyonot?

Every one of them came with a promise.

When Hashem told Avraham to leave his land, He said:

“וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ.”

Hashem promised him three things.

“וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל” — I will make you into a great nation.

“וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ” — I will bless you.

“וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ” — I will make your name great.

Avraham was being asked to leave his homeland, but he knew that he was going toward something. He was leaving one place, but Hashem had promised him a nation, blessing and a great name.

The nisayon was difficult, but there was something waiting for him on the other side.

The Akeidah was completely different.

There was no promise attached to it.

Nothing was offered. Nothing was added. There was no guarantee that Avraham would come out of it with more than he had before.

Quite the opposite.

He was being asked to give up his son, the future of his family, the fulfillment of Hashem’s promises, his relationship with Sarah, his life’s teachings and even the kiddush Hashem that he had spent decades building.

And what would he receive in return?

Nothing.

All he had was the command itself.

And he rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went.

That is what made this nisayon different from all the others.

The earlier nisyonot were not easy. But in each of them, Avraham was sacrificing something in order to move toward something greater.

Here, he was asked to sacrifice everything without being told what would come afterward.

That is why Rashi was concerned that someone might say the earlier nisyonot were nothing.

The Akeidah was the first nisayon in which Avraham was asked to give everything without receiving anything in return.

Three Words That Make It Harder

There is another part of the command that makes the nisayon even more difficult.

Hashem says:

“קַח נָא אֶת בִּנְךָ אֶת יְחִידְךָ אֲשֶׁר אָהַבְתָּ.”

“Please take your son, your only son, whom you love.”

Why does Hashem need to describe Yitzchak in three different ways?

Rashi explains that each expression was intended to give Avraham reward for his obedience: בנך, יחידך, אשר אהבת — three descriptions and three expressions for which he would receive reward.

But perhaps there is another lesson here.

These three words make the command harder.

“Your son.” Hashem does not allow Avraham to think of Yitzchak simply as the one through whom a promise will be fulfilled. He is his son.

“Your only one.” He is reminded that there is no other Yitzchak and no other son through whom this future can continue.

“Whom you love.” Avraham is not being asked to put his love aside. He is being asked to take that love with him.

That is perhaps one of the greatest difficulties of the Akeidah.

A person who has to do something painful to someone he loves often tries to create distance. He tries not to think about the person, not to look at him, not to allow the emotions to become too strong.

The Torah itself gives us an example.

When Yishmael is dying of thirst, Hagar places him under one of the bushes and walks away, “כִּמְטַחֲוֵי קֶשֶׁת” — the distance of a bowshot. She cannot bear to watch her child die.

She is not cruel. She is doing what a person sometimes does when the pain becomes unbearable: she creates distance.

Avraham Avinu is not given that option.

He is told: your son.

Remember who he is.

Your only one.

Remember that there is no other.

Whom you love.

Remember how much you love him.

He is not permitted to shut off the emotions that make the command painful.

For three days he walks with Yitzchak, carrying the knowledge of what he has been commanded to do, while his love for his son remains completely alive.

That is the nisayon.

With a Whole Heart

And there is one more thing.

Avraham Avinu did not merely obey Hashem. He obeyed Him with a whole heart.

The Torah tells us that mitzvot should be performed בשמחה, with joy. Avraham therefore faced an almost impossible challenge: to feel the full love of a father for his son and, at the same time, to be completely prepared to fulfill the command of Hashem.

The piyut we say before the shofar on Rosh Hashanah describes Avraham going to the Akeidah with a weeping eye and a joyful heart.

Both existed at the same time.

He was a father who loved his son with every fiber of his being, and he was an eved Hashem who was completely prepared to fulfill the will of his Creator.

This is what made the Akeidah the greatest of all the nisyonot.

Avraham Avinu was not required to stop loving Yitzchak in order to serve Hashem. He had to serve Hashem while continuing to love Yitzchak completely.

And that is why the Akeidah has remained the great zechut of Am Yisrael throughout the generations.

Every Rosh Hashanah, when we stand before Hashem in judgment, we remind Him of what our father Avraham was willing to do.

We remind Hashem that Avraham was prepared to give up everything — his son, his future, his life’s work and his entire legacy — simply because Hashem commanded him.

And when we remember the Akeidah, we ask Hashem to remember not only what Avraham was willing to sacrifice, but the complete emunah with which he did it.

That is the meaning of “קַח נָא.”

Please, Avraham, withstand this one.

And Avraham did.

With his son beside him, with his love intact, with his future seemingly disappearing before his eyes — he continued forward with a whole heart.

That is the nisayon that Am Yisrael has carried with us throughout the generations. Again and again, Jews have been asked to give up everything for Hashem: their security when they were targeted simply for keeping His laws, their homes when they were expelled from the lands in which they had lived for generations, and their families and lives when they were persecuted for remaining loyal to their faith.

There were times when even living openly as a Jew came at a terrible price. During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were tortured and killed for refusing to abandon their faith. Others were forced to leave their homes, give up everything they had built, or live their Judaism in secret.

Yet generation after generation, Am Yisrael continued to hold on.

The Akeidah therefore became more than the story of one father and one son. It became a model for the Jewish people: there are times when serving Hashem demands a person give up his comfort, his possessions, his home, his security, and even his life. The nisayon is to remain faithful when there is no obvious reward and when the price seems to be everything.

That is the legacy Avraham Avinu left us.

And perhaps this is why, every Rosh Hashanah, we return to the Akeidah. We ask Hashem to remember that first great nisayon and the generations that followed it — generations of Jews who, like Avraham Avinu, were willing to say: whatever the price, we remain faithful to Hashem.

אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם שֶׁכָּכָה לּוֹ, אַשְׁרֵי הָעָם שֶׁה’ אֱלֹקָיו.