4th Grade and the Akeda

Good afternoon 4th Grade families,

This week we learned the Akeda / the Binding of Isaac, in which Abraham nearly sacrifices his son!! The students loved the intensity and suspence of this dramatic story (though they generally felt sorry for the ram who got sacrificed instead).

Questions abound in this mysterious text. How did Isaac feel about his dad Abraham nearly sacrificing him — that’s not what dads are supposed to do! How about Sarah, did she know this was going on, what did she think/do about it? Why didn’t Abraham argue with God (in a previous story, Abraham argued with God to save his nephew, but he didn’t even argue about his beloved son)!  Did Abraham or Isaac suspect that an angel was coming to save the day, or was it a total surprise to both of them?

More questions for families: What would your child do if they had to sacrifice something they loved — would they do it, would they refuse, would they argue, or try to find another way?

What tests do we face — not as in the Pacer or other standardized tests, but as in, when is somebody trying to see how we behave?

For an artistic child (since I’d made original illustrations for our telling): what choices do they make when they’re illustrating? How would they like our Torah heroes to look? They could look like anyone, after all.

For an Israel-loving child, you can still visit the mountain in the land of Moriah where this Torah story takes place. What do you think it looks like there?  Can you find pictures together?

Anyway, it’s a very toothy story, and we had great fun exploring some of the moral dilemmas it presented.  Enjoy!