Sacrifice in Balance: The Akedah – an Eschatological Perspective

The biblical narrative of the Binding of Isaac or the Akedah, as it is known in Jewish tradition, is a central theme in Judaism that was and is the subject of diverse interpretations. Visual representations of the scene not only reflect this diversity, but by functioning as visual commentaries they also modulate, enrich, and deepen our interpretation of the Akedah.¹

The theme of the Binding of Isaac has had a lengthy presence in Jewish art. It appears on the walls of the third-century synagogue in Dura-Europos, on the mosaic floor of the fifth-century synagogue in Sepphoris, and on the floor of the sixth-century synagogue in Bet Alfa.² The motif also frequently appears in medieval Jewish illuminated manuscripts and is depicted in liturgical, exegetical, and legal works alike.³ In Bibles, the Akedah illustrates Genesis 22 or the beginning of Leviticus. In early Palestinian tradition the story was connected to Passover, the festival commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and as such it gained a salvific significance.⁴ Hence, although the event is not mentioned in the text of the Haggadah, the Binding of Isaac was included in the illustrative programs of several haggadot.⁵

By the medieval period, the biblical scene was linked in a more palpable way to Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year).⁶ According to one of the rabbinical views, the Akedah took place on Rosh Hashanah,⁷ and the shofar, which is blown on that day, symbolizes the horn of the ram that was offered up as a substitute for Isaac.⁸ Since Rosh Hashanah is considered a day of judgment, when God weighs the deeds of men, the sound of the shofar is intended to remind God of the great sacrifice that Abraham was prepared to make and to persuade Him, in light of the patriarch’s obedience, to forgive his descendants.⁹ This connection is reflected in the relevant liturgical texts: the biblical reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah is the Binding of Isaac and the prayers and liturgical poems mention the Akedah several times. The zikhronot (lit. remembrances) of the Musaf prayer for Rosh Hashanah, for instance, reads: “Our God and God of our fathers, let us be remembered by Thee for good: grant us a visitation of salvation and mercy from Thy heavens, the heavens of old; and remember unto us, O Lord our God, the covenant and the lovingkindness and the oath which thou swarest unto Abraham our father on Mount Moriah: and may the binding with which Abraham our father bound his son Isaac on the altar appear before thee.”¹⁰ It is no surprise, then, that in medieval illuminated festival prayer books (maḥzorim) the representation of the Binding of Isaac usually adorns liturgical texts for Rosh Hashanah.¹¹

One of the most fascinating medieval depictions of the Akedah can be found in a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi manuscript known as the Hamburg Miscellany (Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, cod. hebr. 37).¹² This codex consists of several sections: a prayer book (fols. 1r–120v), a calendar (fols. 121r–132v), lamentations and biblical readings for the fast day of the Ninth of Av (fols. 133r–190v), and a book of customs composed by a thirteenth-century rabbi, Abraham Hildik, and completed with the notes of the Maharil,¹³ a famous fifteenth-century Ashkenazi halakhic authority (fols. 191r–205r). The illuminations are concentrated in three sections: the Haggadah (fols. 22v–40v), a liturgical poem for Hanukkah (Davidson 1651 א), and the lamentations.

Unlike in the case of most illuminated Hebrew manuscripts, the scribe and original owner of the Miscellany – who were one and the same – has been identified. As the codex itself reveals, it was written by Isaac bar Simḥah Gansman for himself and/or for his family in the environs of Mainz in several different phases in the 1420s–1430s. Isaac bar Simḥah is named as the ḥatan torah (the person who reads the last Torah portion on Simḥat Torah) in a liturgical poem for that festival (fols. 69r–v, Davidson...