Parshat Va'yera

2001

Politics is Personal

Genesis 16:1-7

And Sarai the wife of Avram gave him no progeny, but she had an Egyptian handmaiden whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Avram: Behold I am beyond years of child bearing. Come to my maidservant and maybe I will build [a family] from her. And Avram heeded the voice of Sarai. And Sarai the wife of Avram took Hagar the Egyptian maidservant at the end of ten years to dwell with Avram in the land of Canaan. And he gave her to Avram, her husband for a wife. And He came to Hagar and she conceived. Once she saw she was pregnant, her mistress became unimportant in her eyes. And Sarai said to Avram my anger is upon you. I gave you my maidservant in your lap, and she knows she is pregnant, and I have become insignificant in her eyes. Let God judge between me and you. And Avram said to Sarai: Here is your maidservant. Do what you like with her. AND SARAI AFFLICTED HER AND SHE [HAGAR] FLED FROM HER.

Nachmanides on verse in capital letters:

Our mother sinned by afflicting her and so did Avraham by allowing her to do so. And God heard Hagar's cries and gave her a son who would be "a wild ass of a man" (Genesis 16:12) who would afflict the seed of Avraham and Sarah with a multitude of misery.

Genesis 21:1-11

And the Lord visited Sarah as he said he would and the Lord did as He had spoken. And Sarah conceived and gave birth for Avraham a son in his old age at the time God had said to him. And God called his son that had been born to him by Sarah, Yitzchak... And the son grew and was weaned and Avraham had a feast to celebrate the day of Yitzchak's weaning. And Sarah saw that the son of Hagar the Egyptian that was sired by Avraham-playing frivolously. And she said to Avraham: Banish that maidservant and her son for the son of a maidservant will not inherit with my son-with Yitzchak. And this was evil in the eyes of Avraham on account of his son Yitzchak.

Your Torah Navigator

How are the two episodes with Hagar different?

Why, according to Nachmanides did Sarai sin when she
afflicted Hagar?

Why was banishing Hagar and disinheriting Ishmael not considered a sin? Weren't both acts similar in cruelty?

A Word

When Sarai afflicts Hagar the first time. It is her pride and hurt feelings that causes the reaction, but when she asks that Hagar be banished she is doing so in the interests of her son, but not only her son, but the Jewish future as well. There was only going to be one inheritor and who was it going to be? Sarah realized that the miracle of her giving birth was not a personal one. It was the fulfillment of God's promise to Avraham. It was her job to do what was necessary to ensure that the miracle would not be for naught.

God approves because God knows that Hagar has been promised a son with a future. Avraham is told this as well, but his future is with a nation apart from the Jewish people. The Ramban blames the enmity between these two nations on the harshness of Sarai and the callousness of Avraham. According to him, everything is personal -- even the political.

Prepared by Rabbi Avi Weinstein, Director, Hillel's Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning.