In a letter to Robert Klopstock, Kafka proposes two versions of the story of Abraham: “I can imagine another Abraham, who surely would never manage to become a patriarch, or even a ragman: this Abraham would be as prompt as a waiter to comply with the request for the sacrifice, but he would still never manage to perform the sacrifice because he can’t get away from home, he is indispensable; he is needed to run the house, there’s always something to be looked after, the house is not in order, but if the house is not in order he cannot leave until it’s sorted out, the Bible itself confirms it, for it says: ‘He set his house in order’ and Abraham already had an abundance of everything; if he hadn’t had a house, where would he have brought up his son, and on what beam would he have placed the knife?

… … …

“And then another Abraham. One who really wants to carry out the sacrifice in the right way and has rightly understood the meaning of it all, but cannot believe it’s really up to him, this repulsive old man and his son, that dirty youth. He has no lack of true faith, such faith he has, he would sacrifice in the right state of mind, if only he could believe it was really up to him. He’s worried about setting off by horse as Abraham with his son, but being transformed along the way into Don Quixote. The world would then be horrified if it had seen Abraham, yet this Abraham fears the world would die of laughter at seeing him. But it is not the ridiculous in itself that he fears—or rather, he fears that as well, especially of everyone laughing together—but above all he fears that such ridicule will make him even older and more repulsive, and his son dirtier, even more unworthy to be called. An Abraham who comes without being called! It’s rather as though the best student had to solemnly receive a prize at the end of the school year and in the midst of the silence of anxious expectation the worst student came forward from his dirty back bench, because he’d misheard his name, and then the whole class bursts out laughing. And perhaps he hadn’t even heard wrongly, perhaps his name had actually been called out and it’s the teacher who wants the award for the best also to be a punishment for the worst.

“Terrible things … That’s enough.”⁴³⁹

In a letter to Gershom Scholem, a few months before his death, Walter Benjamin referred to his final discovery on Kafka: “… I think that the key to Kafka would fall into the hands of the one who is able to extract from Jewish theology its comic aspects.⁴⁴⁰ Has there ever been such a man? or perhaps you could be him?”