AU Hillel Beit Midrash

(1) Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.” (2) And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” (3) So early next morning, Abraham saddled his ass and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him. (4) On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar. (5) Then Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.” (6) Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. He himself took the firestone and the knife; and the two walked off together. (7) Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” (8) And Abraham said, “God will see to the sheep for His burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together. (9) They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. (10) And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. (11) Then an angel of the LORD called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” (12) And he said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” (13) When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.

And they went both of them together — Abraham who was aware that he was going to slay his son walked along with the same willingness and joy as Isaac who had no idea of the matter.

"He said: ‘here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt-offering?’” Avraham answered him that “G’d will select the lamb for the offering,--my son.” From the way Avraham placed the colon in this verse, Yitzchak understood that he had been chosen to be the “lamb.” In spite of this realisation, the Torah continues: “they continued to walk together”, i.e. they were of one mind. In order to make this point clear, the Torah had to repeat the sentence: “they walked together.” The release of the information that Yitzchak was going to be the victim did not drive a wedge between his relations with his father. At the time the Torah wrote these words for the first time, Yitzchak did not yet know that he was going to be the sacrifice.

(3) Why is "Noah Noah" (Gen. 6:9) written twice? Each and every righteous person in the world has two spirits. One stays in this world, while the other is in the World to Come. And so we find that the Holy One, blessed be He, named all the righteous twice: "Moses, Moses" (Ex. 3:4), "Jacob, Jacob" (Gen. 46:2), "Abraham, Abraham" (Gen. 22:11), "Samuel, Samuel" (I Shmuel 3:10) with the exception of Isaac. He is not named twice because when he approached the altar to be sacrificed, the soul that was within him in this world left him. And because it is said of Abraham, "blessed are You who resurrect the dead", so only the soul of the World to Come was returned to him. And that is why you shall find that the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, was not unified (on any righteous person in his lifetime). It was unified only on Isaac, because he was already considered as dead. He was like those who pass away from this world. The verse therefore states: "Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones" (Iyov 15:15) because He does not unify His name on the righteous during their lifetimes.