The title of this piece points to the central event under discussion: Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah. But, given our discussion of last week and the week before, it might also ...

This piece was originally delivered as a sermon titled “The Cries of Isaac and Ishmael” at Central Synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in 2025. I have been a rabbi for 25 years, 20 of them at ...

We may flinch at seeing the revered patriarch nearly end his own son’s life. But what do we miss when viewing this story through contemporary eyes? One of the most dramatic moments of the entire Bible ...

The story of the Akedah — the binding of Isaac — seems out of touch with the times. As racism and nativism have shockingly returned to the halls of power, in the United States and abroad, we need to ...

Few figures in the Bible, and indeed the history of Western thought, loom as large as Sarah and Abraham from the Book of Genesis. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice their son Isaac has inspired the ...

Tucked behind the University Chapel, George Segal’s perennially misunderstood “Abraham and Isaac” depicts a bearded man brandishing a knife, preparing to slay a college-aged youth bound and on his ...

In this powerful and lyrical picture book inspired by Jewish legends called Midrashim, Gerstein (The Man Who Walked Between the Towers) imagines the viewpoint of the white ram that plays a key role in ...