“Sincerely [meisharim] do they love you.” How upright [yashiryan] are the ones You love.185The patriarchs. How powerful are the ones You love. Rabbi Aivu said: Our patriarchs did everything that they did before You with great uprightness.
Rabbi Ḥanin said: “That because you have done this thing” (Genesis 22:16); it was the tenth ordeal and you call it a “thing”?186As this was the last of Abraham’s ten ordeals, the verse should have used a plural term to refer to all of them rather than a singular term. Had he not accepted this matter upon himself, he would have ruined and nullified all the previous ones; that is, “sincerely do they love you.”187The ordeal of the binding of Isaac was so great that it outweighed all of Abraham’s other ordeals put together. By passing that ordeal, he demonstrated his great love and loyalty for God.