God tests Abraham with the most extreme command in the Bible: take your son, your only son, the one you love — Isaac — and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of Moriah. Three days of walking. Wood on Isaac's back. A knife. An altar. And then, at the last moment, an angel's voice, and a ram caught in the thicket. The Akedah is the climax of Abraham's story, the pivot of Genesis, and the most theologically discussed episode in the entire patriarchal narrative.