The Word that’s Irreplaceable

Abstract

In the cycle on Isaac the nature and power of the words come from the tension between Rebekah’s “subversive” plan and Isaac’s will. The alliance of JHWH and Abraham continues with the story of the twins who are presented to us as rivals and being in conflict ever since they left their mother’s womb. For understanding this complex episode we should suspend “ethical” judgement and resist political analysis as well as the psychological opining about Jacob and Rebekah’s behaviour – and concentrate on Isaac mainly, and the logic of the Alliance and of the word. Isaac is Abraham’s son who was given and then re-given. He is the one to continue the Alliance of his father and of Noah’s rainbow, the inheritor of the Pact with the Voice that had created the world by uttering it, pronouncing it. The same Word that had called Abraham, talked to him and later also to Isaac. They had entered into dialogue with the God of the Creating Voice and believed the power of those words. The words that made a promise were forceful, they were words uttered for eternity.

The security of faith is not accessible and cannot be made accessible to people today. If one takes it seriously he knows this, and should not at all be deceived. But the ability to open himself up to faith is not denied to him. He can accept it, embrace it with all his might and wait for what will happen to him, see if a new sincerity sprouts in him.

(Martin Buber, Hebrew Humanism)