The sefer Emunat Itecha explains that the greatness of Avraham Avinu doing Akedat Yitzchak did not lie in the fact that he was willing to sacrifice his son for Hashem. He had already proved that he would even give up his own life for Hashem when he was thrown into the fires of Ur Kasdim. There, he wasn’t even commanded to do it and that was at a time before he ever communicated with Hashem. The greatness in Akedat Yitzchak was like the Zohar says, that Hashem seemed so distant from Avraham at that time when he made the request. It didn’t make any sense that Hashem would tell him to kill the child that He already told him would be his legacy in starting the Jewish Nation. Avraham’s ability to put the question aside and follow Hashem with pure emunah is where his greatness lied. Our Rabbis have taught us that in the days before Mashiach , many people will have similar types of nisayonot . They have learned how merciful and loving Hashem is and how much He appreciates all their efforts in serving Him. Yet, they go through the most difficult hardships and it doesn’t seem to make sense that this would happen to them after they have learned about how merciful Hashem is. They are doing their utmost to follow Torah and mitzvot, yet their difficulties in parnasa , or finding a shidduch , or being in good health, continue to persist. This, while people who are not observant seem to have everything going smoothly for them. It is such a contradiction in their minds. If these people will continue following Hashem wholeheartedly, with pure emunah, their rewards will be unimaginable. It was said in the name of the Arizal that the neshamot that will live in the generation before Mashiach will be from the same caliber as the neshamot of the Tana’im , like Rabbi Akiva, because only souls as elevated as those will be able to withstand the tests given at that time. A few months ago, our hearts were broken for the Paley family who lost two children, ages 5 and 7, in a terrorist attack in Yerushalayim . Two sweet, pure brothers who never tasted the taste of sin in their lives. It didn’t make sense to anyone. But their mother heroically spoke with such emunah, telling everyone about the two gems that Hashem had given her to do a very specific job. And now, they went back to Him. Her words were reminiscent of the great Bruria, wife of Rabbi Meir, who experienced a similar tragedy, losing two sons suddenly at the same time. While Rabbi Meir was crying, Bruria reminded him that their children were not theirs, they were merely entrusted to them temporarily to help them fulfill the job that Hashem needed them to fulfill here. The Zohar HaKadosh writes, when the time comes for a neshama to descend into this world, Hashem calls for it and explains to it what its mission is. The Nishmat Chaim writes, the neshama is an ethereal form that is called a tzelem . It looks exactly like the person is going to look in his physical body in this world. The neshamot belong to Hashem and He sends each one of them to the parents that He knows are most suited to do the job that needs to be done with each specific neshama . Because raising children is such a difficult task, something that requires the parents’ full attention day and night, Hashem gives each parent a natural, overwhelming love towards their children, which is what gives the parent the strength to do their jobs happily. If parents did not have this love, they would become disgusted with their lives, having to tend to their children’s every single need all day and all night. Bruria understood all of this. She knew the children were not hers. She was just Hashem’s messenger in raising them. She also knew that when her job was done with these neshamot , they would be able to go back to the real place of enjoyment, the place they naturally want to be in, near Hashem. And today, in the generation before Mashiach, we have people with the same lofty neshamot that are able to have such emunah and make a kiddush Hash