I created The Pshat Heard 'Round the World some eighteen years ago, and I posted weekly on the parashah for about two years. Other items were added here and there subsequently, but for a long time it's been inactive. IYH, I will be starting a new series of pieces on tefillah, with special attention to the first beracha of the Amidah. My claim and approach will be that the first beracha of the Amidah teaches us how to pray and how to pray it! We'll start with a few preparatory and introductory pieces before jumping in to the beracha itself, phrase by phrase. I am considering enabling comments and dealing with "hackish" comments as they inevitably come, so keep tuned.
The brief exchange between Avraham and Yitzchak on the way to the Akeidah , less than two verses long, and sandwiched between the two phrases “and the two of them walked together” , is the only conversation between this primal father-and-son pair recorded in the Torah. It is all the more powerful because of its brevity, because of its singleness, and because of what it doesn’t say explicitly, yet, by omission, makes overwhelmingly present. When they set off for Har HaMoriah , Avraham takes only what the moment requires – he leaves behind his servants, the donkey and, presumably, any of the provisions they brought on their three-day journey, he takes the wood for the offering (placing it upon Yitzchak), the fire and the knife. That’s all there is – two men, wood, fire and knife. Thus provisioned, they set off together. Here is the conversation. Yitzchak says to Avraham, his father, he says, “my father”, and Avraham says, “Here I am son”, and he (Yitzchak) says, “here ...