The Lord's Catch-22

According to a certain midrash reported by Thomas Mann in his book "Joseph and his Brothers," after a while that Abraham had arrived in Canaan, from his country and folks in Ur of the Chaldeans, he was deeply impressed about the deep love with which the Canaanites would love their gods as to offer their firstborn son in a burn sacrifice. Abraham would go frustrate to think that he could not express his love for Elohim in such a dramatic way.

As Abraham would try to chew that paradox in his mind, he fell asleep and had a dream. Elohim would identify Himself thus: I am Molech, bull-king of the baalites and command you to bring your firstborn son Isaac and offer him in a burn sacrifice to Me. As Abraham set about to do so, the Lord said, "How dare you! Am I Molech bull-king of the baalites? I expected you to know much better. What I have commanded, I did not command so that you would do it, but that you might learn that you should not do it; because it is nothing but an abomination in My sight, instead; and don't confuse the practices of the Gentiles with the People you will sire. Behold a ram; offer it instead.

Ignorance is an abomination in the Lord's sight. When Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge, it was the Lord's catch-22 to rather enhance man's appetite for the tree of knowledge. If the prohibition were to be observed, the fruit of that tree would not have been so enticing and the tree would not have been planted in the center of the garden to call the attention of all. And the Lord would not have employed the services of the serpent to explain that they had misunderstood the command which had been meant to be rather the opposite. As Adam and Eve realized what the Lord really meant, the abomination of ignorance had been neutralized.

Ben