“Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and placed it upon Isaac his son; he took in his hand the fire and the knife, and the two of them went together” (Genesis 22:6). “Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering” – like someone bearing his own gibbet on his shoulder.12Like a condemned man who is forced to carry the gibbet on which he is to be hanged. “He took in his hand the fire and the knife [maakhelet]” – Rabbi Ḥanina said: Why is a knife called maakhelet?
It is because it renders food [okhalin] fit to be eaten.13Meat cannot be eaten unless the animal is first slaughtered with a knife. The Rabbis say: All the eating that the people of Israel eat [okhelim] in this world,14That is, all the benefit they receive. they eat due only to the merit of that knife [of Abraham’s]. “The two of them went together” – this one to bind and the other one to be bound; this one to slaughter and that one to be slaughtered.