EE & R, 3_21: Between the Torah and the Prophets: Yitzchak Does Not Know
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3. Between the Torah & the Prophets – Can Man Truly Know Hashem?
We have seen how both Avraham and Yaakov struggled in their encounter with the knowledge of Hashem. Each heard the divine declaration – “I am Hashem” (Genesis 15:7; 28:13) – and each responded with uncertainty: Avraham asked, “How can I know?” (ibid, 15:8) and Yaakov said, “I did not know” (ibid, 28:16).
We now turn to Yitzchak, the enigmatic figure in this sacred chain. No analogous conversation appears in the narratives of the middle patriarch, to whom Hashem never introduced Himself by Name.1 Yet Yitzchak is explicitly included in Hashem’s statement to Moshe recalling the Unknowledge shared by all three Patriarchs who founded what would become Judaism:
I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov as El Shaddai, but by my Name, Hashem, I was not known to them… (Exodus 6:3)
Where, then, is Yitzchak’s encounter with the limits of Knowledge?
For both Avraham and Yaakov, divine Knowledge was a source of struggle. Avraham wrestled with the possibility of certainty; Yaakov awoke to a revelation he had passed through unknowingly and regretted that he had been asleep when he should have been awake, knowing. But Yitzchak never entered this drama, this tension between knowing and not knowing. The patriarch who submitted wordlessly on the altar was never offered knowledge and, as we shall see, embraced Unknowledge without protest.
In a verse that addresses the most profound unknown of human existence – death, Yitzchak uttered the words of Unknowledge foundational to the Torah of Moshe:
Behold now, I am old; I do not know the day of my death (Genesis 27:2)
The man whose life was nearly cut off in service of God expressed humanity’s relationship to knowledge most plainly, without qualification. He is not seeking, not regretting, not lamenting lost awareness. He simply admits: Man does not know. Yitzchak was a sacrifice – the symbol of the negation of all values, life being the most fundamental – and a sacrifice knows nothing.
Notably, Yitzchak’s sense that his death was near proved unfounded. At that moment, he was one hundred twenty-three years old,2 with another fifty-seven years still ahead – indicating that the uncertainty he expressed was not practical but philosophical, existential. Yitzchak’s Unknowledge was not a misjudgment but a way of being: a posture before reality shaped by surrender.
Avraham asked “How can I know?” – a question of faith seeking clarity. Yaakov said “I did not know” – a realization of missed awareness. But Yitzchak neither questions nor regrets. He simply says, “I do not know.” The man who once yielded completely lives as one who accepts that nothing – especially not the moment of his own death – is his to claim.
Even more than Avraham and Yaakov, Yitzchak embodies the great truth revealed to Moshe: “For no man shall see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Yitzchak served Hashem by offering up his life – and although he lived on, he lived as one already given over. He could not see, and he could not know. His blindness and Unknowledge flowed from his offering,3 for in surrendering himself, he unmade the self that seeks to know. And in that absence, the Unknowable drew near, for the purest vision can be received only by eyes that do not demand to see.
Conclusion of Section Three
With this examination of Yitzchak, we conclude our exploration of the tension between the Torah’s message of sacrifice and the prophetic aspiration toward knowledge of Hashem. The Torah’s path reaches its pinnacle in Yitzchak’s silent surrender: a theology of submission and boundary. The prophetic path, by contrast, seeks intimacy with Hashem, a knowing of His ways that breaks through silence and dares to speak on His behalf.
This tension between Knowledge and Unknowledge sets the stage for the next phase of our inquiry: the historic confrontation between King Manasseh and the Prophet Isaiah regarding the authenticity of prophecy and the legitimacy of idolatry4 – a clash that centers on the unknowability of Hashem and humanity’s response to that unknowability.
Through their conflict, we will pursue the mystery of prophecy’s end, the dimming of divine knowledge, and the concealed logic of history – tracing the arc of Providence from Exodus to Exile, always bending toward Redemption.