At the end of time, say our sages, God will tell Abraham: Your children have sinned. And Abraham will reply: Let them die to sanctify Your name. Then God will turn to Jacob and say: Your children have sinned. And Jacob will reply: Let them die to sanctify Your name. Then God will speak to Isaac: Your children have sinned. And Isaac will answer: My children? Are they not also Yours? Yours as well?

It will be Isaac’s privilege to remain Israel’s Melitz-Yosher, the defender of his people, pleading its cause with great ability. He will be entitled to say anything he likes to God, ask anything of Him. Because he suffered? No. Suffering, in Jewish tradition, confers no privileges. It all depends on what one makes of that suffering. Isaac knew how to transform it into prayer and love rather than into rancor and malediction. This is what gives him rights and powers no other man possesses. His reward? The Temple was built on Moriah. Not on Sinai.

• • •

Let us return to the question we asked at the beginning: Why was the most tragic of our ancestors named Isaac, a name which evokes and signifies laughter? Here is why. As the first survivor, he had to teach us, the future survivors of Jewish history, that it is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.

Isaac, of course, never freed himself from the traumatizing scenes that violated his youth; the holocaust had marked him and continued to haunt him forever. Yet he remained capable of laughter. And in spite of everything, he did laugh.

PARABLES AND
SAYINGS III

And God said to Abraham: Have no fear, I shall protect you; great will be your reward.

This verse, coming as it does after the description of Abraham’s resounding victories over the kings of the region, puzzled our sages. Why did God have to reassure Abraham, who was reputed to be invincible?

Because Abraham feared the consequences of his victory, said Rabbi Levi. He was concerned lest the slain kings’ sons join forces to attack him. Hence God had to reassure him: Don’t be afraid, Abraham; even were all the kings in the world to unite against you, no harm would come to you, for I shall deal with them Myself.

Another explanation: Abraham was beset by doubts—how was he to know whether among the warriors he had slain, there had not been one just man who did not deserve such a death? Thus God had to dispel his fears: You have but pulled out the thorns from the king’s garden; great will be your reward.

Sodom: city of sin, exuding crime, spreading evil. Punished for its deeds, not against God but against mankind. Against the weak, the destitute, the homeless, the wretched.

Said Rabbi Yehuda: In Sodom there existed a law decreeing capital punishment for anyone offering bread to a stranger, a beggar, a pauper.