It is one thing to believe in God; it is quite another to believe God.

Abraham is trying to obey God, but not to kill. I feel that moment is one of the defining moments of Jewish faith.

The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history.

The point of the Abraham-and-Isaac story isn't that you should sacrifice your kid but that you can leave behind any notion of a god who demands that you sacrifice your kid.

Strange, how the writer doesn't explain why Abraham leaves other than saying he hears a divine voice. Something intimate and infinite is calling to him, and he listens.

The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said Talk, child. Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before! Well, now that we have seen each other, said the Unicorn, If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?

Now the story of Abraham has the remarkable property that it is always glorious, however poorly one may understand it; yet here again the proverb applies, that all depends upon whether one is willing to labor and be heavy laden. But they will not labor, and yet they would understand the story.

How then did Abraham exist? He believed. This is the paradox which keeps him upon the sheer edge and which he cannot make clear to any other person, for the paradox is that he as the individual puts himself in an absolute relation to the Absolute.

To go beyond Hegel is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest thing of all. I for my part have devoted a good deal of time to the understanding of the Hegelian philosophy, I believe also that I understand it tolerably well, but when in spite of the trouble I have taken there are certain passages I cannot understand, I am foolhardy enough to think that he himself has not been quite clear. All

Why then did Abraham do it ? For God's sake, and (in complete identity with this) for his own sake. He did it for God's sake because God required this proof of his faith ; for his own sake he did it in order that he might furnish the proof.

For when faith is eliminated by becoming null or nothing, then there only remains the crude fact that Abraham wanted to murder Isaac — which is easy enough for anyone to imitate who has not faith, the faith, that is to say, which makes it hard for him. 1

Abraham believed. He did not believe that some day he would be blessed in the beyond, but that he would be happy here in the world.