נסיון העקדה—עיון משווה בהגותם של קירקגור וליבוביץ

The prupose of this paper is to compare the interpretation of Kierkegaard to the Akeda with that of Leibowitz, and to explain the place of the Akeda within their conceptions of religion. Both the philosphers believe that religion means total obedience to God. In light of this basic premise, they both interpret the Akeda as a conflict between morality and religion, a conflict which is clearly won by the latter. Thus, according to both Kierkegaard and Leibowitz, the most important part of the Akeda is the command to sacrifice Isaac, and not the cancellation of this command by the angel. In spite of these analogies, there are important differences between Kierkegaard and Leibowitz. Firstly, according to Leibowitz, morality is rejected in the Akeda, while according to Kierkegaard it is only suspended. We show that this difference is due not only to different conceptions of religion, but also to different conceptions of morality. Secondly, according to Leibowitz, the religious duty is detached from concrete human needs, while according to Kierkegaard, religion expresses a relation between man, as a concrete personality, and God, and hence, religion is not detached from man,s concrete existence and needs. Thirdly, although both the philosophers agree that by its very nature religion involves a crisis, they disagree as to the meaning of this crisis. According to Leibowitz, the crisis itself has a religious meaning, and it is merely a result of the conflict between religion and the demands of human existence. In contrast, according to Kierkegaard, the above crisis is an integral part of religious life itself and constitutes part of the meaning of religion. We seek to show that the agreement between Kierkegaard and Leibowitz derives from their conception of religion as total, while the differences between them stem from different interpretations of this totality.