Primary Documents: Midrash

The spark for the show came from the Midrash; here are some of the texts. To begin with, the thing I found most startling is this almost off-hand line from Leviticus Rabbah:

26:7 …What does it say of Abraham? And Abraham rose early in the morning… and took two of his young men with him (Gen. 22,3). Who were they? Ishmael and Eliezer.

The next quotes are all from Genesis Rabbah.

LV:4 Isaac and Ishmael were engaged in a controversy: the latter argued, ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at the age of thirteen’; while the other retorted, ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at eight days.’ Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved, because I could have protested, yet did not!’ At that moment Isaac exclaimed: ‘O that Gd would appear to me and bid me cut off one of my limbs! then I would not refuse.’ Said Gd: ’Even if I bid thee sacrifice thyself, thou will not refuse.’ (Another version: Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved than thou, because I was circumcised at the age of thirteen, but thou wast circumcised as a baby and couldst not refuse.’ Isaac retorted ‘All that thou didst lend to the Holy One, blessed be he, was three drops of blood. But lo, I am now thirty-seven years old, yet if Gd desired of me that I be slaughtered, I would not refuse.’ Said the Holy One blessed be He, ‘This is the moment!’ Straightway, Gd did prove Abraham.)

LVI:2 He then said to him [Isaac]: ‘Isaac, my son, seest thou what I see?’ ‘Yes,’ he relpied. Said he to his two servants: ‘See ye what I see?’ ‘No,’ they answered. ‘Since you do not see it, Abide ye here with the ass,’ he bade them, for ye are like the ass…

LVI 4 Samael went to the Patriarch Abraham and upbraided him saying: ‘What means this, old man! Hast thou lost thy wits? thou goest to slay a son granted to thee at the age of a hundred!’ ‘Even this I do,’ replied he. ‘And if He sets thee an even greater test, canst thou stand it?’ said he, as it is written, If a thing be put to thee as a trial, wilt thou be wearied (Job 4:2)? ‘Even more than this,’ he replied. ‘To-morrow He will say to thee, “Thou are a murderer, and art guilty”,;’ ‘Still am I content,’ he rejoined. Seeing that he could achieve nought with him, he approached Isaac and said: ‘Son of an unhappy mother! He goes to slay thee.’ ‘I accept my fate,’ he replied.

And one more, this one from Midrash Tanchuma

He came to the place to which God had told him to go, and he bound Isaac, his son: When Abraham came to slaughter Isaac, Isaac said to him: “Father, bind my hands and legs, for the soul is impudent and when I see the knife I may be frightened and the sacrifice will be no good because my trembling will cause you to make a blemish.”

All of these made their way either into the text of the play itself or into my thinking about the characters.

Thanks,
-Ed.