Avraham Failed the Akeidah
When asked recently for my hottest take about Judaism, “Avraham failed the Akeidah” is what came immediately to mind.
I will have to develop this more later, but it’s something I’ve felt for a long time, ever since I read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling in high school and found it fascinatingly but exactly wrong.
The Akeidah, for those encountering a language/culture barrier, is the binding and almost-sacrificing of Yitzchak (Isaac).
After making a pretty good go of it on the easier tests, Avraham finally snapped and became the forefather of violent religious fundamentalism and inflicting the trauma of it on your descendants.
The examples set before Avraham were deeply human. Chavah refused to be God’s pet and liberated us from absolute control. Noach couldn’t fathom God’s cruelty and drank himself to oblivion. Then comes Avraham. He resists God’s violence at first, but eventually he loses his mind.
God has to manually stop him from murdering his child, but the damage is done. Yitzchak spends the rest of his life avoiding Heaven and seeking comfort in the material. Rivkah and Yaakov have to deceive him in order to reanimate life in the world with the Divine Presence again.
