Eid al-Adha - عيد الأضحى
"Fear and Trembling" is a meditation on Genesis 22 - the Binding of Issac. "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." An old man hears God telling him he wants him to sacrifice his only son simply because God wants it. I found the story creepy then and no less creepy today. But today I understand how profoundly this story plays out today.
Isaac was not Abraham's only son. Abraham had sex with his wife Sarah's mistress Hagar and she gave birth to Ishmael (Genesis 16). Sarah tolerated the relationship until she gave birth to Isaac at which point "all Hell broke loose" and Abraham decided to get rid of his problem (on the advice of God) and took Hagar and Ishmael into the Arabian desert with a few days food, built a small shack and left them to fend for themselves. Legend has it that Hagar ran back and forth in despair. Ishmael stomped his foot upon the ground and water gushed forth. That spring was to be named the Zamzam well. The site of Issac's aborted sacrifice is the Temple Mount. The site of Hagar's exile became Mecca. The Shack became the Kaaba - the site of the Hajj.
16 years ago this day by the Islamic calendar, I was in Dhaka. I was trying to persist in spite of a nasty intestinal infection. My colleague and I gathered a small fund to help the staff at our guest house return home for the celebration. Tens of thousands of live animals had been driven into the city. My closest Bangladeshi friend had just returned from the Hajj and looked at me with a glare that shouted "Infidel!" At the appointed time, every one of the animals was slaughtered. Time to go home.
Religion is at its worst when it divides us. I say to my Muslim friends - Eid Mubarak - عيد مبارك
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Fear and Trembling
Jim, it was about 44 years ago that I wrestled with that book. I cannot say that I got much out of it at the time, but the book intrigued me, nevertheless. Over the next four decades I would encounter things which would cause me to go back to that book, while my interest in it would lead me to other works by the same author. I have never had the philosophical grasp to comprehend any of the works as a whole, but I would encounter thoughts and passages from several of them that had a great impact on my life.
Kierkegaard had a signifiicant impact on a later Danish writer, Karen Blixen, who wrote under the pseudonym, Isak Dinesen. I think a lot of people have been intrigued by her story, "Babette's Feast," both in its written form and in the movie of the same name. There is a commentary on the story and its connection to Kierkegaard in an essay which can be found on the Internet:, "Kierkegaard at Babette's Feast: The Return to the Finite."
Also on the Internet is one of the finest overviews I have found, for laymen like myself, on the subject of Kierkegaard and his thought. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy devotes one whole article titled, simply, "Soren Kierkegaard."
The name Kierkegaard, alone, is sufficient to scare many people, as is his reputation as the originator of existentialism. I found him most approachable, however, in the book he authored, Training in Christianity. After a long discussion on his subject, he asks, "And what does all this mean?" His summary is that what is required of us to be Christians, in light of the ideality of Christianity, is to be candid before God about how things stand between us and Him. Total candor is required. And then, nothing else. Go your way. Be happy in your family. Live your life. And if anything further is required of you, then surely He will let you know. For truly, Kierkegaard says, under the terrible language of the law, it is as if it were left for us to cling to Christ with our own strength. But under the language of love, it is Christ who clings to us.
I have found that to be a very radical idea.
Law - Love
I believe you are right. And if we are sufficiently quiet, we can hear Christ ourselves.