Abraham's sacrifice - Thought Leader

And thus it began …

God commanded Abraham, “Take your son, your favoured one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2). Abraham obeyed. He packed wood for the offering and a firestone and headed off with Isaac to the appointed place. He prepared the altar and bound Isaac to it. Then Abraham stretched forth his hand and grasped the slaughtering knife to slay his son and fulfil the commandment — a requirement that was customary among the other faiths and religions of his time. Was Abraham’s God similar to the other deities in demanding human sacrifice? Did Abraham have any way out?

Then abruptly, clearly, God’s voice was heard, and the retraction of the order to kill was uttered, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favoured one, from Me” (Genesis 22:12).

Source: www.templeisraelh.org.za

We have seen many accounts of this test of faith that in essence, God tested his devotee, in this case Abraham, to prove that he loved God most, and that he loved God more than he loved his own son. And because Abraham proved that he did, by being prepared to offer his son as a blood sacrifice, God gave Abraham an A+, on the test, and took the blood of a ram (a male sheep) instead.

Now before the New Testament folks start gnashing their teeth with my old-worldism, before my Muslim voters start calling me a Jew-lover for quoting from the sermon of a rabbi, and before the Hindus start calling me a murderer of innocent animals by endorsement of animal sacrifice, let me say this — this blog is not about God, religion, faith, scripture or anything pious in any respect.

Indeed this blog is about the choices we make as individuals and whether we choose to love God or our fellow human beings more. In South Africa, a senior member of the judiciary has, over the last few years, had to fight for his place on the bench amid claims that he improperly tried to influence another juror to go easy on a senior politician and that his political credentials were being used to try to secure a seat for him on the Constitutional Court bench.

Now far be it for me to question the need of all and sundry to remove the obstacles from anyone’s path to the presidency, and far be it for me to question the need for Constitutional Court justices to have political credentials but what I will question is the need for us to have a duplicitous standard which says that those who are connected have one law while those who are not connected have another law.

In South Africa we fought such double standards for more than 400 years and by achieving democracy in 1994 we demanded that the rule of law become the modus vivendi of the nation at large. Indeed while our cities have thrived, our villages have starved and while those with capital, of any sort, have survived, those without capital have struggled to be able to eat. This socio-economic disparity cannot be overcome through redistribution and it cannot be overcome through unsupported opportunity but what will overcome this disparity is a determination to maintain the rule of law.

The consistency, impartiality and even-handedness of an independent judiciary which operates on the basis of the rule of law, is what we seek. That the weak will not be denied their right to justice, and that the powerful will not be able to manipulate the judicial process for their own gain.

I have over the last 2 years observed first hand that the rule of law can be destroyed by criminals through dishonesty, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit and while I have sought to ensure that every person who was misled by the accused criminals in question, did in fact have access to the truth, the reality is that most people can be conned if they are systematically misled.

So by making an appeal to authority, by fudging facts and by misrepresenting the whole of the truth, criminals can con innocent people and though it is sad that people would even stoop to such disgraceful behaviour, the fact is that it happens. Denial is usually where it starts and it’s followed by excuses and then of course the counter accusations.

But what is most appalling is that when we are confronted with wrongdoing and confronted with the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, the guilty parties simply do not admit and seek forgiveness. After all we are not a vicious people and we are quite into the whole reconciliation thing.

Obviously we don’t forgive rapists, murderers and child abusers and we generally don’t forgive people who prey on the weak and the elderly. But in the instance of theft and other commercial crimes, it is best simply to restore the property or the money to its rightful owner, to apologise for the wrongdoing and to seek rehabilitation for criminal behaviour.

But in respect of the financial crimes committed by persons holding fiduciary responsibilities, these people cannot continue to hold the fiduciary responsibilities which they violated in the first place. So company directors who are guilty of insider trading cannot be directors, even of other companies. And MPs who are convicted of anything, with or without a fine or a suspended sentence, cannot continue to be MPs.

It speaks to an issue of integrity and honour, more than anything else. Such that the public will have less reason to trust a political party whose MPs are criminals and the public will have less reason to trust a company whose directors are criminals. And it speaks to the actuality of providing public service, that public servants serve at the pleasure of the people, and that should they violate that trust, they should have the decency to step down and allow the people to elect another leader.

Two present cases in South Africa attest to this quandary, the first dealing with the Travelgate scandal and the second with the son of a judge. In the first case, it is a matter of honour and integrity whether the MPs concerned will have the good grace to resign and in the second whether the judge concerned will have the good sense not to interfere in the state’s prosecution of his son.

Finally in respect of the matter of Abraham’s sacrifice, one wonders whether this will be a similar test for Judge Hlophe and whether he will like Abraham, trust in God, or whether he will take matters into his own hands. My bet is that Judge Hlophe, like Abraham, will trust in God.