In that box with Shrödinger’s Cat where anything is possible
How quantum physics can help us understand what happened and what did not on Mount Moriah
I’m going to get to the bit about what a cat has to do with Sarah and Abraham’s story in a minute. But first there’s this:
My computer is in the shop, so I am composing this week’s installment of “The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined” on my iPhone with a portable (meaning doll-sized) wireless keyboard on which my fingers are constantly bumping up against each other.
So please, forgive the minimal formatting, as well as any typos — of which I anticipate there will be more than usual.
And now … about that cat.
What Shrödinger’s Cat Can Teach Us About Isaac and Soul Loss
Shrödinger’s Cat is a hypothetical feline that is confined inside a box alongside poison, with the obvious danger of killing the poor creature.
This harsh thought experiment is meant to illustrate the concept from quantum physics that all possibilities co-exist simultaneously until one reality coalesces.
So the cat is both alive and dead, until the moment when the box is opened and either one or the other outcome becomes inevitable: Either the grim fact of its death, or the joyful relief of its survival.
Enter the (even more disturbing) story of the Akedah, in which Abraham brings his son Isaac to a mountaintop to sacrifice him in an apparent test of his obedience to God.
In the traditional reading of this story, an angelic messenger of God stays Abraham’s hand at the last moment and the boy is saved.
But some rabbis, scholars and readers aren’t convinced.
They posit that the ending in which Isaac lives is just a later addition, slipped in by an author who thought the original ending didn’t convey the right message about Abraham’s faith. The reasons why should be obvious.
The evidence for this is compelling: Throughout the story, up until the final moment when the angel intervenes, God is referred to by the name Elohim. Only in that final passage of Isaac’s redemption is God referred to as YHVH.
So did Isaac live or die on Mount Moriah?
Even without the theory of the revised ending, I would say that the answer is: both.
After a trauma like the one Isaac was subjected to, just as with any experience of unbearable cruelty, harm, or loss, we might walk away with our heart still beating — and yet something is irrevocably changed.
At best we emerge stunned, scorched, wounded and dazed.
Call it soul loss or call it PTSD. Either way, even if Isaac survived physically, some essential part of him would have turned to ash on that day.
Today’s poem: ‘Redemption Sonnet’
Today’s poem, “Redemption Sonnet” lurches between the possible outcomes of Isaac’s story (and thus our own).
Inspired by the experimental sonnets of Terrance Hayes, I simultaneously adhere to and break the form. Which is appropriate, because in this poem, as with Shrödinger’s cat, Isaac both does, and does not die.
Tap the blue arrow to hear the poem:
”Redemption Sonnet” ©️ Copyright Tzivia Gover, Third House Moon, LLC, all rights reserved.
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