Bringing what we love most to the mountain, and asking what it means to entrust it
Soul4you · Georgina Kovacs · The Birth of Choice, Part 2
In the previous reflection, Abraham set out. I followed that first yes to the Inner Voice through the inward reading of lech lecha: the movement towards oneself that can accompany an outward departure. The road was not yet visible, but a response had become possible.
Now the question becomes more difficult. What happens when trust touches what we hold most dear?
We arrive at the story known in Jewish tradition as the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Its language of a beloved son, an altar and a command interrupted at the last moment belongs to the account itself. (Genesis 22)
For someone who has lost a child, or whose experience has made religious demands frightening, this may be a painful passage to approach. No interpretation can require such a reader to find it comforting. It is all right to pause, or to leave this reflection for another time.
The inward reading I offer centres on one distinction: devotion need not mean destruction. I explore the movement from fearful possession towards trust, drawing on particular Jewish commentaries and bringing them into conversation with A Course in Miracles. These voices retain their differences; the connection between them is my own.
The scene on the mountain
Genesis introduces the episode as a test of Abraham. The command includes both the journey to Moriah and the words:
“There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1–2, NABRE)
The language of sacrifice is present. Reading inwardly does not require us to remove it.
Abraham prepares for the journey, and on the third day he sees the place in the distance. He leaves the servants behind with a sentence whose plural form is striking:
“We will worship and then come back to you.” (Genesis 22:3–5, NABRE)
On the way, Isaac asks where the animal for the offering is. Abraham answers that God will provide, and they continue together. (Genesis 22:7–8)
At the appointed place, Abraham builds the altar, binds Isaac and reaches for the knife. Then the angel calls to him:
“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the angel. “Do not do the least thing to him.” (Genesis 22:9–12, NABRE)
Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. He offers the ram in place of his son. (Genesis 22:13)
This is the point from which my reading begins. The movement towards Isaac’s death is stopped, and Abraham’s attention turns towards another possibility.
Rashi’s reading: bringing up and bringing down
The Hebrew verb in the command, commonly transliterated ha’alehu, carries the sense of bringing or offering him up. In the full sentence, however, it is joined to the expression for a burnt offering; isolating the verb cannot make that sacrificial context disappear. (Genesis 22:2 in Hebrew and English)
Rashi, drawing on Genesis Rabbah, attends to the difference between bringing Isaac up and slaughtering him. In his commentary, God’s intention is that Abraham bring Isaac to the mountain and prepare him as an offering, after which he is told to bring him down. (Rashi on Genesis 22:2)
This is an interpretive opening within the tradition, not the discovery that the entire story has simply been mistranslated. Rashi’s other comments still engage deeply with sacrifice, including the ram offered in Isaac’s place. (Rashi on Genesis 22:13)
What draws me to this reading is the distinction between the feared ending and the movement that is actually completed. The son is brought up, and the son is spared.
Within the inward map of this series, I ask whether we sometimes hear an invitation through an old assumption: if something matters deeply, then love will eventually demand its destruction. Perhaps the difficult work is to recognise that assumption before allowing it to govern our response.
The thought is not that Abraham merely made a linguistic mistake. It is that the encounter can become, in my reading, a turning point in how the mind understands devotion.
A difficult history, approached carefully
The wider biblical world includes texts about child sacrifice. Second Kings describes a Moabite king offering his firstborn; Jeremiah condemns the sacrifice of children; Micah raises the question of offering a firstborn before turning towards justice, goodness and walking humbly with God. (2 Kings 3:26–27; Jeremiah 32:35; Micah 6:6–8)
These passages help us recognise the gravity of the language. They do not establish exactly what the narrative’s Abraham thought, nor justify describing child sacrifice as normal for everyone in an undifferentiated ancient culture.
The historical question is substantial in its own right. Jon D. Levenson’s The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son examines the theme’s transformation within Judaism and Christianity, while Heath D. Dewrell’s Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel investigates the practice and its biblical treatment. (Yale University Press catalogue, Levenson; Dewrell, book record and publisher description)
My concern here is the inward question these difficult texts raise. I am not using ancient practice to excuse harm, and the story offers no permission to act on an inward impression that would endanger another person.
For whose sake is the test?
Ramban approaches the test through the relationship between possibility and action. His commentary explains that the command brings a person’s capacity into actuality, so that there is a deed rather than good intention alone; in his account, the trial serves the one being tested. (Ramban on Genesis 22:1, reproduced with the Hebrew text)
His emphasis is not simply that Abraham acquires new information about himself. It is that a capacity becomes an act. (Ramban on Genesis 22:1)
I bring that distinction into my own reading. There can be a distance between saying that I trust and discovering how I respond when something precious is involved.
Perhaps I am generous until I cannot control the outcome. Perhaps I speak of freedom while quietly arranging another person’s life around my fear. An experience may reveal the difference between the value I name and the way I live it.
That does not make every hardship a divine test. It does not mean that a person’s suffering measures their faith. The question I am asking concerns what becomes visible in our own response, not why someone has been hurt.
In this sense, I read the test as a mirror. It can reveal the grip of fear alongside the possibility of trust.
What does Isaac represent in this inward reading?
Isaac is inseparable from the promise and Abraham’s love. The account itself draws attention to him as the son Abraham loves. (Genesis 22:2)
Within the symbolic reading of this series, Isaac also becomes an image of what we hold most dear. It may be a relationship, a vocation, a hoped-for future or a picture of who we believe we must become.
This is not a way of turning an actual child into an object. It is a question about the expectations we place around what we love.
There may be love, and alongside it a demand: this person must remain as I imagine them; this plan must succeed; this future must unfold in the way that makes my life feel secure.
The invitation I hear is not to stop loving. It is to notice where love has become entangled with possession.
Can I care fully without claiming ownership of another person’s life? Can I remain committed to my work without making its outcome the whole measure of my worth?
Entrusting does not remove responsibility. It changes the way I hold it.
Offering and drawing near
Another Hebrew word helps me explore this distinction: qorban, an offering or sacrificial gift, related to the verb qarab, to approach or bring near. Its association with nearness is meaningful, but it remains a word for an offering; it is not the opposite of sacrifice. (Brown–Driver–Briggs and Strong’s H7133)
The word used for the burnt offering in Genesis 22 is olah, not qorban. Olah is associated with going up and, in this context, denotes a burnt offering. (Genesis 22:2, Hebrew text; Brown–Driver–Briggs and Strong’s H5930)
I bring qorban into the reflection as a related image of approach, not as a correction to a word that the passage uses. The inward question is what becomes possible when giving is understood through relationship rather than solely through loss.
Imagine someone who has tended a garden alone for years. Every decision is theirs, every mistake theirs to repair. When a friend offers to help, the first response is to refuse.
The fear may appear to concern the plants. Beneath it may lie another fear: if I loosen my hold, will what I love still be safe?
Eventually, the person lets the friend work beside them. The garden has not become less loved. Care is still required, but it no longer has to be carried in isolation.
This is the movement I am interested in. Not giving away what matters because someone demands it, but allowing care to become less constricted by control.
The garden is a modest image, not an equivalent of the Akedah. It helps bring the question into a scale of life where we can examine it without asking ourselves to reenact the narrative.
“We will come back”
Abraham’s words to the servants include both himself and Isaac in the return. Rashi reads the plural as a prophetic statement that both would come back. (Genesis 22:5; Rashi on Genesis 22:5)
I hear trust in that reading, but I do not turn it into a promise that faith prevents bereavement or keeps every relationship intact. Such a promise would place a terrible burden on someone whose beloved person has died.
What can be entrusted is our way of holding what we love. We can loosen the demand to control without withdrawing affection, commitment or practical care.
The distinction is between possession and stewardship. Something may be deeply part of my life without being mine to determine in every respect.
In my reading, the mountain brings that distinction into view. To love is not to secure an outcome at any cost; it is to meet what is precious with an open hand.
A Course in Miracles: love without a price
Lesson 343 of A Course in Miracles presents the mercy and peace of God as freely given, not something purchased through sacrifice. The lesson speaks from the Course’s metaphysical understanding of God as giving rather than taking away. This is a summary of its teaching. (A Course in Miracles, Workbook Lesson 343)
I read the Akedah in conversation with that teaching. The connection is mine; I am not claiming that the Course provides a direct commentary on Genesis 22.
Within the single-dream framework of this series, the mind can imagine that love requires payment. To be accepted, I must lose something. To be worthy, I must prove how much I can endure.
The turning point I explore is the release of that bargain. Love does not become more real because I make myself or another person suffer.
In the story, the command not to harm Isaac interrupts the movement towards his death. That interruption becomes, in my reading, an image of the mind learning to distinguish devotion from destruction. (Genesis 22:12)
Lesson 132 offers a related perspective on mind and world, teaching that what we perceive is bound up with what we wish to see. It challenges the idea of a world wholly separate from mind. (A Course in Miracles, Workbook Lesson 132)
I do not reduce this to a promise that changing an attitude will rearrange every circumstance. In practical life, the question is whether I can become willing to see beyond the fearful interpretation I have treated as the only one.
Here, the inward image of Isaac becomes the cherished picture of the future that I keep trying to protect through control. Releasing that grip is not indifference. It is making room for love to be something other than vigilance.
For me, forgiveness includes the willingness to let a fixed picture soften. I may remain responsible for what I do, while no longer insisting that reality conform to the bargain I have made with fear.
Looking up: the ram in the thicket
The narrative turns on a movement of attention:
“Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the thicket.” (Genesis 22:13, NABRE)
The verse tells us what Abraham sees at this moment. It does not tell us how long the ram has been there, so the thought that it had been present all along belongs to an imaginative reading, not an established detail of the account.
For my reflection, the important movement is the lifting of the eyes. Attention is no longer fixed on the feared action; another possibility enters the field of view.
The place-name in verse 14 also holds together seeing and providing. The NABRE notes explain the Hebrew expression through that wordplay, rather than requiring us to choose one meaning and declare the other a mistake. (Genesis 22:14 and its note)
This gives me an image for ordinary life. When fear narrows my attention, I may overlook a conversation, an offer of help or a practical alternative.
Looking up does not guarantee that a solution is waiting nearby. It does make room to investigate what I have not yet considered.
Perhaps the first movement of trust is not to know the answer. It is to stop treating the most frightening answer as the only one.
Three practices of entrusting
These exercises concern everyday attachments and choices. They are not invitations to test your faith through danger, give up essential care or surrender your boundaries.
- Name what you are holding tightly. Choose a manageable concern, such as a plan, an expectation or a role. Write down what matters to you about it, then separate the care you can offer from the outcome you cannot fully control. You do not have to condemn yourself for feeling afraid.
- Ask what drawing near would mean. In a voluntary act of giving, ask whether it brings you closer to a value you genuinely hold. Is there consent, room for a boundary and a realistic understanding of the cost? Renaming pressure as devotion does not make it loving.
- Lift your eyes. In a difficult situation, write down three things you have not yet explored: a source of support, a practical question or another way to respond. They do not have to solve everything. The exercise is to widen attention enough to take the next responsible step.
The journey towards Jacob
Abraham’s departure opened the question of responding to a call. Here, I have explored what happens when that response reaches what we most want to protect.
The movement is from a clenched hand towards an open one. The love remains; the claim to control everything begins to loosen.
But what happens when trust is followed not by peace, but by struggle? In the next reflection, Jacob reaches the Jabbok crossing and wrestles through the night, bringing us to another form of encounter within the awakening mind. (Genesis 32:23–32)
Your own mountain
Is there something you love that you have begun to hold so tightly that care has become difficult to distinguish from fear? What part of the burden is yours to carry, and what part have you been trying to control?
What would one small movement of trust look like without neglecting your responsibilities? It might be asking for help, listening without directing, or allowing a plan to change.
This is the devotion I am exploring: bringing what matters into a more truthful relationship, rather than proving love through loss. The open hand does not cease to care; it learns another way to hold.
Texts and reading notes
Biblical quotations follow the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE). The Hebrew terms, Rashi’s comments and Ramban’s account of testing are linked where they are discussed, and are distinguished from my inward applications.
The references to A Course in Miracles are content summaries, not quotations translated back from Hungarian. The historical works identify a field of scholarship; they are not presented as proof of Abraham’s motives or of the metaphysical interpretation offered here.
The earth beneath my feet, the sky above my head, my heart in its rightful place.
With love,
Georgina
Soul4you