“From God’s perspective, the command to sacrifice Isaac was, as the Torah notes at the beginning of the chapter, a test. And what exactly was this test? As noted above, God was asking Abraham: “Will you, Abraham, be as obedient to me, the one God—the only God—of the world, as others are to their man-made local and multiple gods?”

“That is a question innumerable people have had to answer throughout history: Will the good be as committed to what is good and true as the bad are to what is bad and false? History reveals the answer often in the negative. All too frequently, the decent have not fought the indecent until it was almost too late—and sometimes it was too late. Most good people are not fighters.”

(Excerpt from The Rational Bible: Genesis, 265-266, by Dennis Prager)