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Abraham Left the Servants With the Donkey

The midrash puts the servants with the animal because they could not see what Abraham saw. Isaac carried the wood up and asked where the lamb was.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. With the Donkey
  2. The Covenant Already Cut
  3. Dust That Stops a Curse
  4. What the Servants Never Saw

On the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from far off.

Abraham Left the Servants With the Donkey Click for full size

He turned to the young men who had walked with them from Beer-sheba and said, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder and we will worship and come back to you" (Genesis 22:5). The animal stamped. The servants waited with ropes and questions they did not speak. Father and son took the wood and the fire and the knife up the slope alone.

The midrash hears more than logistics in that sentence. It hears a sorting of the world.

With the Donkey

On the surface he leaves the servants with the beast. Beneath the surface the phrase "with the donkey" is heard as a sorting of souls. Those who stand outside the climb are set with the animal, people who do not yet share the seeing that Abraham and Isaac share. The mountain is not for every pair of eyes. Some stay below because the covenant at the top is still a private fire between father, son, and the Voice that asked for everything.

Isaac carries the wood like a man carrying his own pyre. He walks. He asks, after a silence that lasts too long, where the lamb is. Abraham answers that God will see to the lamb for the burnt offering. The servants hear none of that exchange. They hold a rope and watch two figures shrink into stone and sky until even the knife is only a glint and then nothing.

Stay here. The words are soft. The exclusion is absolute.

The Covenant Already Cut

Years earlier, when the covenant of circumcision was sealed, the household's foreskins had been left in a heap until they bred worms. The midrash does not flinch from the image. Their odor rose to heaven like incense and a whole burnt offering. God promised that when Abraham's descendants stumbled into sin, He would recall that fragrance and be moved to mercy. The wound of the covenant became a permanent plea on behalf of a people not yet born.

So the climb of Moriah does not start from zero. Isaac is the son of the promise fixed on a sanctified body, the boy of whom God said the covenant would run. The knife in Abraham's hand is not the first blade the house has known. It is the hardest. Angels wait while Abraham takes leave of the Presence with manners the sages later turn into law: ask permission before you part, even from the smaller person in the room.

The pile of foreskins still smells, in heaven's memory, like a sacrifice. The mountain asks for a living son. The two scents meet in the air above the servants who smell only donkey and dust.

Dust That Stops a Curse

From the dust under Abraham's feet when he walked the land in its length and breadth, the sages draw a later chain. "Arise, walk through the land" (Genesis 13:17) ties his soles to the soil of the promise. Generations later, Balaam looked out over the wilderness and saw it covered with the signs of Israel's circumcision mixed into the dust, and he despaired of cursing them. Who can stand against the merit of the blood of the covenant hidden in the dust of Jacob?

Because of such words, the foreskin and the blood of circumcision are covered with earth. Israel kept the covenant until a later kingdom split and Ephraim abandoned it. Elijah rose in zeal over the breach, as he had burned at Shittim, and heaven answered that no circumcision would ever be performed without him present to see it. A chair still waits for the angel of the covenant at every brit milah, empty to the eye, occupied to the tradition.

The servants at Moriah do not know that chair. They know a donkey and an order to wait.

What the Servants Never Saw

On the mountain the angel called, the ram tangled in the thicket, the knife stopped. Isaac's bonds loosened. Abraham's hands shook with a different fear than the one he had carried up. Below, the young men still stood with the donkey, outside the vision, outside the ram, outside the voice that said not to lay a hand on the lad.

Abraham came down with Isaac alive, and the household's future walked on two feet instead of rising as smoke. The servants saw two men return. They did not see the moment when heaven traded a ram for a son and taught the world that the pile of foreskins was not the last time blood and mercy would share a hill.

Stay with the donkey. The line sorts the world into those who climb into the terror of the promise and those who hold the rope. The dust of the covenant, the pile of foreskins, the chair of Elijah, all trail from that sorting like a long shadow of blood that mercy refuses to forget.

AbrahamIsaacBindingMoriahCircumcisionElijahCovenant
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 100:2Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

There we learned: any woman over whom there is no betrothal binding upon him or upon others, her child is like her. And which is this? The child of a maidservant or of a non-Jewish woman. As for the maidservant, from where do we know it? Scripture says, "Stay here with the donkey" (Genesis 22:5) [literally, "with the donkey," read as] "with the people who are like a donkey." We have found that betrothal does not take hold with her; from where do we know that her child is like her? Scripture says, "The woman and her children shall belong to her master" (Exodus 21:4). As for the non-Jewish woman, it is written, "You shall not intermarry with them" (Deuteronomy 7:3). We have found that betrothal does not take hold with her; from where do we know that her child is like her? Scripture says, "For he will turn away your son" (Deuteronomy 7:4) and so forth: the son who comes from an Israelite woman is called your son, but the son who comes from a non-Jewish woman is not called your son but rather her son. But this is written about the seven nations? Scripture says "for he will turn away your son" to include all who turn one away. This works well for Rabbi Shimon, who expounds the reason of a verse; but according to the Rabbis, who do not expound it, what is the reason? Because Scripture says, "and afterward you may come to her and be her husband" (Deuteronomy 21:13), which implies that beforehand the betrothal status did not take hold with her. We have found that betrothal does not take hold with her; from where do we know that her child is like her? Because Scripture says, "when they belong to a man... and they bear him children" (Deuteronomy 21:15): wherever we can read "when they belong," we can read "and they bear him children"; wherever we cannot read "when they belong," we cannot read "and they bear him children." If so, the same should apply to the maidservant. Indeed it does. Then why do I need "the woman and her children"? It is needed for that which was taught: One who says to his maidservant, "You are a freewoman, but your child is a slave," the child is like her [the mother], because it is said, "the woman and her children" - the words of Rabbi Yose the Galilean. And the Sages say, his words stand.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 82:8Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"But My covenant I will establish with Isaac" (Genesis 17:21) - it is written elsewhere [at remez 45]. "But My covenant I will establish with Isaac" - that year was a leap year. "And He finished speaking with him" (Genesis 17:22). It was taught: one who takes leave of his fellow, whether greater or smaller, must take permission from him. From whom do you learn this? From Abraham. Once Abraham was speaking with the Holy One, blessed be He, when the ministering angels came to speak with him. He said to them, let me first take leave of the Divine Presence, who is greater than you, and afterward I will speak with you. When he had finished saying all he needed, he said before Him: Master of the universe, I must speak with the angels. He said to him, take your leave in peace. This is what is written, "And God went up from upon Abraham." Resh Lakish said, the patriarchs are themselves the chariot, as it is said, "And He went up from upon him." "And Abraham took Ishmael his son" (Genesis 17:23). When Abraham circumcised those born in his household, he set them up as a mound of foreskins, and the sun shone upon them and they bred worms, and their smell rose before the Holy One, blessed be He, like the incense of spices and like a burnt offering wholly consumed by the fire. The Holy One, blessed be He, said, when his children come to evil deeds, I will remember that fragrance and be filled with mercy toward them. "And Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised, and Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised" (Genesis 17:24-25). Here you say "the flesh of his foreskin" and there you say "the flesh of his foreskin" with an added word - rather, Abraham, since the flesh of his foreskin had been worn down through a woman, while Ishmael, who had not been worn down through a woman. "On that very day Abraham was circumcised" (Genesis 17:26). It is written, "Not from the beginning did I speak in secret" (Isaiah 48:16). The Holy One, blessed be He, said, had Abraham circumcised at night, now all his generation would say such and such: had we known, we would not have let him circumcise. Rather, "on that very day." "Abraham was circumcised" - he felt it and was pained, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, would double his reward. Rabbi Levi said, it does not say here "Abraham circumcised himself" but "Abraham was circumcised" - he examined himself and found himself already circumcised. At that Rav Berekhiah mocked Rabbi Levi, saying, you are a liar and a deceiver. Rather, he felt it and was pained, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, would double his reward. "And all the men of his house, born in the house, etc." It was taught: one may go to a gentile fair on the intermediate days of a festival and buy from them houses, fields, vineyards, slaves, and maidservants. Rav Ami in the name of Resh Lakish said, not only does he buy circumcised slaves, but even uncircumcised slaves, because he brings them under the wings of the Divine Presence.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 71:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

(Genesis 13:16-17) "Arise, walk through the land in its length and in its breadth." It was taught: If one walked through a field, whether in its length or in its breadth, he acquires up to the place he walked for Rabbi Eliezer used to say: walking acquires. But the Sages say: he does not acquire until he takes formal possession. What is the reason of Rabbi Eliezer? "Arise, walk through it." And the Rabbis say: it is because of God's love for Abraham that He said this to him, and so on. And when Balaam came and saw the wilderness full of the foreskins of Israel, he said: Who can stand against the merit of this blood of the covenant of circumcision, which is covered with dust? As it is said, "Who can count the dust of Jacob?" (Numbers 23:10). From here the Sages instituted that the foreskin and the blood should be covered with the dust of the earth, since they were likened to dust, as it is said, "and I will make your seed as the dust of the earth" (Genesis 13:16). And so Israel kept circumcising until they split into two kingdoms, and Ephraim withheld circumcision from themselves. Then Elijah, may he be remembered for good, arose and was filled with great zeal: "And he said, I have been very zealous" (1 Kings 19:10). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: You are forever zealous you were zealous at Shittim over forbidden relations, and you are zealous here. By your life, Israel shall not perform a circumcision until you behold it with your own eyes. From here the Sages instituted that a seat of honor be made for the angel of the covenant, who is called Elijah, of blessed memory, the angel of the covenant, as it is said, "and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire" (Malachi 3:1).

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