I read it every morning.
Have for years.
It took on new meaning when my first son was born.
But, as they say, take the Torah and turn it and turn it and you always will find something "new."
"It" is the akedah, the "binding of Isaac."
It's near the front of every sidur I have ever seen, in the תפילות השחר (Morning Prayers) section. Or go the source, the Torah (Gen. 22 V1; Vayyera).
My Hertz humash's English translation is pretty good, but the English misses "the word."
In Hebrew, G-d get's Abraham's attention and tells him
And He said "PLEASE (נא) take your son..."
Now HaShem may have said "please" to Moses, but I can't off hand think of any occasions.
So why "please" to Abraham and not to others?
Abraham was worthy to be the progenitor of a "goy gadol" but apparently he wasn't good enough - he lacked something - to receive the Torah (although midrashim claim he knew the Torah and that Isaac studied the Torah at a yeshiva, but again this is midrash, not Torah).
Did HaShem have a special relation with Abraham that he had with no one else?
And if he did, why?
I raised the question with The Spouse when I got back from the morning minyan.
"Maybe," she opined, "Abraham had a simple, complete faith in HaShem; he accepted HaShem without conditions."
Both he and Moses witnessed "unnatural events" - for Abraham Sara's becoming a m other in her old age.
Both he and Moses challenged G-d - Abraham trying to save Sodom. Neither one won his challenge.
Having written that Abraham had a simple and complete faith in HaShem, I find that faith may have dwindled somewhere along the way.
I'm thinking of Abraham's run in with Abemalik where he told his half-sister wife to say she was his sister rather than his wife - a "half lie?" for fear that Abemalik would kill him to claim Sara. Still, at the time of the akedah, the trust was there.
I wonder that Rashi has to say about נא.
