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PARTISAN REVIEW
But, the story of the Binding of Isaac indicates another, perhaps even
deeper abyss-the impulse of sacrifice. The self-sacrifice of Abraham is
supposed to be realized in the sacrifice of Isaac. The test of faith
demanded of Abraham gains its realization by means of harming
another. The Binding of Isaac exposes the hidden perversion of the sacri–
fice as self-sacrifice. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 89b), Abraham's attempt
is described as an act of Satan. He pushes Abraham to kill for his faith
and demands that Isaac be willing to deliver his soul, in a "competition
for sacrifice" (even then!) with the torments of circumcision that Ishmael
has undergone. By stopping the knife, the story rejects the impulse of
both "the binder" and "the bound," and the idea of faith and holiness
through killing, whether by the hand of a human being or by the hand
of God. At the same time, the term
martyr
(defined by the dictionary as
"death or torments for a purpose") exposes the core of exactly what is
being sanctified . Here, too (as opposed to the sweeping sanctification of
torments in Christianity), the Talmud (Brachot Sb, echoing the Book of
Job, formulates the struggle between indulging in torments or suffering
and rejecting them. Rabbi Yohanan rejects the definition of "afflictions
of love" as "an altar of atonement" and declares that these afflictions are
not dear to him, "neither they nor their reward!" But, also, without
denying the force of their attraction and aware of the difficulty of escap–
ing from them, he states: "A captive cannot release himself from prison."
The revolution in the impulse of sacrifice did not produce the desired
revolution in the human soul. The sanctification of the slain and the tor–
mented in religious context, and in national or ideological contexts,
even now produces a blood-soaked history.
IN
ZIONISM, WHOSE PRINCIPLES
are in accordance with European
nationalist doctrine, the national sacrifice, on the altar of redemption of
the nation and the Land, appeared at the start-from the "Memorial"
books (which already evoked concern in the young Gershom Scholem) to
the status of the fallen soldiers of Israel's Defense Forces. A few stories of
Sanctification of the Name (the story of Hannah and her seven sons or
the story of Masada) were moved from the periphery to the center,
repressing the traditional dissension surrounding them. They now served
as a base for writing the renewed myth. Appropriation of the victim for
ideological needs resounds (based on the double meaning in modern
Hebrew between victim and sacrifice) even in the wretched term "victims
of peace," given by the Left amid the euphoria of the Oslo Agreements
to those murdered in terrorist activities in the 1990S. At the same time,
rightist groups also attempt to turn those who were killed by terrorism
