ספר בראשית

Rabbi Yitzchok in Bereshit Rabbah 56,2 comments on ‎this as follows: “the only reason that Avraham was able to keep ‎his promise to the lads that he would return from Mount Moriah ‎‎(alive), is that he prostrated himself there before the Lord, ‎‎[something beyond what the Lord had asked of him when He ‎commanded him to offer his son Yitzchok as a burnt offering.” ‎Ed.] This is why hundreds of years later his descendants were ‎redeemed from Egypt, as G’d explained to Moses in Exodus 3,12 ‎and as the Israelites did in Exodus 4,31. This ‎השתחויה‎, ‎‎“prostration before the Lord,” symbolized that the person doing ‎so abandoned any claim that he might have had to the material ‎benefits that life on earth offers. This is also what enables G’d to ‎‎“sweeten” i.e. remove the sting, of any judgments man is ‎subjected to by the attribute of Justice. Avraham’s example of ‎reducing himself to ‎אין‎ or ‎אפס‎, “nothing,” paved the way for his ‎descendants to emulate him and to be redeemed from the yoke of ‎the Egyptians who had effectively reduced them to a similar state ‎of having to negate the attractions this world offered to others.‎The Torah itself was only given to the Jewish people because ‎they voluntarily repeated this ‎השתחויה‎, prostrating themselves ‎before the Lord, as we know from Exodus 24,1 where all the elite ‎of the Jewish people are reported as having prostrated themselves ‎some distance away from Mount Sinai. [That chapter, though ‎written after the revelation, describes events that occurred before ‎the revelation, Ed.] The elite negating their claims on the material ‎benefits this world has to offer, made it possible for coming so ‎close to G’d during the revelation that He addressed them as if He ‎were speaking to an equal. In psalms 99,9 when Moses (the ‎author of this psalm) says: ‎רוממו ה' אלוקינו והשתחוו להר קדשו‎, ‎‎“Exalt the Lord our G’d and prostrate yourselves at the Mountain ‎of His holiness;” similar verses are found in Isaiah 27,13, and ‎Samuel I 1,19 where the wording is almost identical. Rabbi ‎Yitzchok concludes by saying that the resurrection when it will ‎occur, does so only in recognition of these voluntary prostrations ‎of the Jewish people on various occasions when they ‎demonstrated their absolute submission to G’d and His will. If we ‎needed proof of this we find in in Isaiah 27,13 where we read ‎והיה ‏ביום ההוא יתקע בשופר גדול ובאו האובדים בארץ אשור והנדכים בארץ ‏מצרים והשתחוו לה' בהר הקודש בירושלים‎, “it will be on that Day, ‎when a great ram’s horn will be sounded, and the strayed who are ‎in the land of Assyria, and the expelled who are in the land of ‎Egypt, shall come and prostrate themselves on the holy Mountain ‎in Jerusalem.”