"Where" is the lamb for the ascent?

Longtime regular readers of my posts will know that I have been wrestling with the Akedah, the binding of Isaac (Bereshit/Genesis 22), for over three decades. One local rabbi gives me a trigger warning whenever it comes up in daf yomi or other contexts - and invited me to give a class on the various interpretations on the Shabbat when it was read as part of the Torah reading.

Tonight, I learned a new reading, in the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, in a wonderful three-part class taught by Rabbanit Goldie Guy which concluded tonight. Here is the teaching, from Likutey Moharan:

ליקוטי מוהר"ן, תנינא י״ב:א׳:ט״ז

וְזֶהוּ בְּחִינוֹת עוֹלָה, בְּחִינַת (בראשית כב): ו"אַיֵּה" הַשֶּׂה לְעוֹלָה. שֶׁבְּחִינַת "אַיֵּה" הִיא בְּחִינוֹת שֶׂה לְעוֹלָה, לְתַקֵּן וּלְכַפֵּר הִרְהוּר הַלֵּב, שֶׁבָּא מִמְּקוֹמוֹת הַמְטֻנָּפִים כַּנַּ"ל. כִּי עַל־יְדֵי בְּחִינוֹת "אַיֵּה" נִתְתַּקֵּן וְעוֹלֶה מִשָּׁם כַּנַּ"ל.

Likutei Moharan, Part II 12:1:16

This is also the concept of the olah (burnt-offering), as in “but ayeh (where) is the lamb for the olah?” (Genesis 22:7). [Asking] “Ayeh?” is itself the concept of the lamb for the olah to rectify and atone for those thoughts in the heart that stem from the “filthy places.” For it is through the concept of Ayeh that a person is rectified and oleh (ascends) from there, as mentioned above.

Essentially, this is part of a teaching about how the glory of G!d fills the earth - yet at the same time is absent or concealed some of the time (I'm oversimplifying here), but when we feel the absence and ask "Where is G!d's glory?" - that is when it begins to revealed and we begin to make teshuvah - to return to G!d and relationship with G!d.

So rather than being "Where is the lamb for the burnt-offering?" (the pshat, or literal meaning of the text)- it becomes "'WHERE' [the question] is the lamb for the ascent" (an allegorical reading)- olah, burnt-offering, is the word for ascent (perhaps the burnt-offering is called this because the smoke ascends to G!d). The very question - the very search and desire for G!d - is what allows and begins the ascent.

I have long read Isaac going away separately from his father Abraham at the end of the Akedah through a trauma lens, that he was so traumatized by nearly being murdered by his father that he had to separate from him. And I still believe that reading is valid. But this introduces the idea that in the experience, even in the midst of the trauma, Isaac has the desire to seek G!d and sets out, separate from his father, to find G!d. The midrash suggests he goes to learn in a yeshiva. And at the very least, this perhaps explains the relationship he develops with G!d such that the text later describes him going out into the field for meditation and praying for his wife to be able to have children.

This is a new concept that I look forward to thinking about for some time to come.