Awkward Silence

Ever since Abraham killed his son Isaac, things have not been the same between them. They talk less, for one. There used to be more free-flowing, spontaneous discussion about any number of trivial things. A comment about sheep husbandry would elicit a joke, which would prompt a reminiscence, which would slow and then interrupt completely whatever task was in progress, and soon the two men would be sitting face to face, cross-legged on the ground or perched on a large rock, chattering until sundown.

Now they avoid talking about sheep.

They used to walk hand in hand as they surveyed the land Jehovah had bequeathed them for their multiplying flocks and herds. Now Abraham flinches whenever their hands accidentally touch, because Isaac's hands used to be, well, warm. Now they're not.

"It was because I had to obey, do you understand?" Abraham says on the walk back from Mount Moriah. "It's not because I love Him more than I love you, but He's God, yes?" Isaac gives a nod and a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "And what happens if I say 'no' to God? He's the reason we have everything we have! He's the reason I have you in the first place!" Isaac rides the donkey while Abraham plods next to him. He rubs his wrists where his hands were tightly bound and sighs.

When God commanded Abraham to kill and sacrifice Isaac on an altar, God had not promised to raise Isaac from the dead. Nevertheless, Abraham convinces himself that this will be the case, though it is difficult to hold a coherent thought. A whirlwind whips about his mind the entire journey to Moriah, and Abraham can never seem to inhale a full breath. Jehovah seemed so intent on proving Himself to be different from the other gods who demanded child sacrifice. Jehovah had promised Abraham that his descendants would outnumber the stars. Surely there had to be an out, a loophole. Jehovah was sly, a trickster sometimes, but He would keep His promises, no? Abraham is so consumed by this agonizing inner debate that when the angel of the Lord calls for him to stay his hand and spare the boy, Abraham doesn’t hear.

How could he have heard? The past three nights he has not slept. The world is muted, drowned out by the blood pounding in his ears. He can’t keep food down, a void sits in his gut, denser and heavier than any stone on the altar he has constructed. Isaac waits patiently with hands and feet bound. Abraham dry heaves four times before being able to hold the knife. The world is still and silent except for the roaring in his temples. The angel could have punctuated his command with an earthquake, and it would not have penetrated Abraham's attention.

Besides that, it is the same as slaughtering any other animal. The same wetness, the same sticky warmth. Abraham is vaguely aware that there had been an angel watching the two of them, and a ram caught in a thicket nearby bleating in distress, but both are gone now.

After a few minutes of stillness in which the stones of the altar and Isaac's empty sandals seem as far away as heaven itself, Isaac quietly stands up and takes the knife from Abraham's trembling hand. He clumsily scrapes and tears away the cords that bind his own hands and feet, slips on his sandals, and begins to walk down the mountain. Once Abraham finishes weeping and can breathe again, he stands up and follows his son.

Ever since Abraham killed his son Isaac, things have not been the same between them. At first, Abraham thinks Isaac is just a grief-induced hallucination, or a spirit sent to punish him on the long walk back from Moriah to the Promised Land. But when they arrive back at their encampment of goatskin tents, Isaac embraces his bewildered mother and then walks off to check on the shepherds. He is perhaps a ghost, or a corpse, or a Golem, something animated by the word of Jehovah but without the breath of life.

Life continues as normal, and Abraham's flocks multiply, as do the silences between him and his son. Whenever Abraham offers a lamb as a thank-offering to Jehovah, Isaac finds an excuse to skip the ceremony. Abraham finds a wife for Isaac, a nice, submissive girl named Rebekah who will serve him well. Her husband's heart does not beat, his eyes have no glossy wetness, and after they have lain together she does not feel his chest rise and fall, but soon she finds herself with child.

The morning that she gives birth to twins, Abraham finds Isaac and says, "Jehovah is fulfilling his promise to make my descendants as numerous as the stars. Do you forgive me now for what I did to you?"

Isaac smiles, and again it does not reach his eyes. "I have long since forgiven you, father. You did what was right in your eyes and Jehovah's. But there is a difference between calling you 'father' and calling you 'friend.' I do not believe you would have slit the throat of a friend as you do a helpless lamb."

"You let me bind your hands and feet. You let me lay you on the altar." Abraham's voice grows defensive.

"I was mistaken. I did not know what it would be like, to lie there on jagged stones with my life pouring from my throat. I have forgiven myself, too."

"Jehovah gave you to us as a miracle of our old age. I did not know what would happen or what it would be like, but I believed that He would keep his promise. I believed and I obeyed." Abraham's voice is angry and pleading. "I obeyed when it meant cutting the life from my own son. I believed and I obeyed." Abraham's voice begins to waver, to stutter and whimper. "Do you know how hard it was to set my mind to destroying you? Do you know what it was like for me to silence my love for you? I believed, but still my heart screamed and stopped beating." Abraham's voice is wet and salty and hoarse. "I believed and obeyed, and in the eyes of my God I am a righteous man."

"Then perhaps you should have chosen a different god."

Seasons pass, and Abraham's flock multiplies.

When Jehovah comes to Isaac to test him, he is ready. Unlike Abraham, he has had time to steel his mind and heart. "Go to the mountain in Moriah and offer your sons, Jacob and Esau, as burnt offerings to me." And so the next morning, Isaac slips on his sandals and packs his belongings and goatskin tent. Together with his sons and his wife, he walks away from the Promised Land.