Q: Can you explain the Akaida Yitzchok to me? I heard he did die but didn’t go to shamayim and came back to avraham years later.

A: In Vaikrah 26-42 the verse says: ”Then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham I will remember”. A Midrash and Siphra quoted in Rashi explain: “Why was there not stated “remembering” in reference to Isaac? However the ashes of Isaac appear before Me, heaped up and lying on the altar”.

There is another version to the Siphra which includes the word “Keilu”, “as if” it were heaped, but not in reality, as Isaac survived the ordeal (see: Beur Stumoth Rashi p.219).  Another more common interpretation is that it refers to the ashes of the ram, who took Isaac’s place as an offering on that altar. Some add that: “Shelucho shel odom kemoto”, “An agent acting on ones behalf, is like oneself” (ibid.) so the ram was seen as Isaac himself, though it would be questionable to apply that principle to animals.

Another Halachick principle quoted is “Kol Haomed Lisrof Kesaruf Domi”, “Anything that stands to be consumed by fire is like it has been consumed already” (Ikahen Peer, Vayerah). A term used thorough the Talmud, so halachakly, Isaac was seen as already consumed by the fire.

A more spiritual interpretation is given in the Zohar: “When Isaac was offered on the altar his Neshamah (soul) of this world departed. But as Abraham recited the Bracha of “Mechaiei Hametim”, a new Neshamah of the World to Come was given to him”. So in that sense, Isaac did depart partially from this world. (Bosee Learmonee p. 100)

On that line, Maharam M’pano (Chikur Hadin 2-8) adds: that from the departing soul of Isaac the ram acquired a physical entity.  As this ram was formed at the very end of the days of creation (see Pirkei Avoth ch. 5), it originally had only a potential existence, it materialized during the Akeidah in conjunction with the departing Neshamah of Isaac, so the ashes were in that sense actually Isaacs. This gives special meaning to the Midrash quoted by Rashi (Bereshit 22-13) that: “On every service (on the ram done by Abraham), he would pray and say: let it be Your will, that this (service) should be considered, as if it was performed on my son”

Rabbi Boruch M. Ezrahi (Birchas Mordechai – Bechukotay) construes the following elucidation: “This (the ashes of Isaac that appear before Hashem) teaches us that sacrifice creates its own reality.  Isaac’s selflessness, abnegation, and will to sacrifice, even if it did not materialize, generated a new certainty by itself.  It is that spiritual reality  what appeared before Hashem.