By Rabbi David Cohen
Rashi explains that Yitzchak Avinu’s premature vision loss was due to the smoke that Eisav’s wives raised when they burned incense for their idols. Alternatively, when he was bound upon the Altar of the Akeidah, as Avraham Avinu was about to slaughter him, the Heavens opened up and the Ministering Angels saw what was happening to him. They began to cry, their tears descending and falling on Yitzchak’s eyes, causing them to dim later in life. In his hesped, eulogy, for his son, who had died an untimely death, Horav Shmuel Birnbaum, zl, asked why was it necessary for the Heavens to open in order for the Angels to see Yitzchak. The Heavenly Angels’ perception is quite acute, allowing them to see what transpires on our world without the ‘aid’ of the Heavens opening.
The Rosh Yeshivah explained that the Heavens required opening in order for the Angels to weep. Otherwise, they could not sense the compelling emotions that emerged as a result of the Akeidah. The question that arose was: how a father who had been childless for most of his life could be asked to sacrifice his only son – his future legacy. So much pain, so much tragedy. In Heaven, however, the orientation is different. There are no questions. There, the Akeidah is viewed from an entirely different perspective. Unless the Heavens were opened, so that the Angels could view the Akeidah from an earthly perspective, they could not weep, because they had no reason to express emotion. When they saw the Akeidah through the human lens, they saw questions, they saw pain; they wept.