Talmud Class: Hagar and Sarah - What Does Our Pain Do to Us?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

We are plumb in the middle of two of the hardest stories in the Torah. Genesis 16:1-16 tells of Sarai’s continued inability to get pregnant, which leads her to assign her servant Hagar (literally the stranger) to Abram so that she might conceive a child with Abram who would somehow be reckoned as Sarai’s child.

When Abram and Hagar have relations, she gets pregnant right away. It does not go well. The two women hurt one another. “Abraham cohabited with Hagar and she conceived; and when she (Hagar) saw that she had conceived, her mistress (Sarai) was lowered in her (Hagar’s) esteem.” 16:4. Which led to: “Then Sarai treated her (Hagar) harshly, and she ran away from her.” 16:6. That was in last week’s reading.

This week tells the familiar story (the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah day 1) of the birth of Isaac, which leads Sarah to direct Abraham to expel Hagar and Ishmael from their home into the wilderness. 21: 9-21.

Not Sarah’s finest moment: “Cast out that slave woman and her son, for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” 21:10.

There are 70 faces of Torah (shivim panim l’Torah), and these stories have been grist for the mill for feminist critiques, class critiques, racial critiques. It is a story about the patriarchy. It is a story about rich and poor. It is a story about white and black. It is a story about power imbalance. All of which is also true.

And tomorrow we are going to focus on a human question that affects us all: what does pain do to us? These stories yield four characters, and four different responses.

Lashing Out in Our Pain Hagar and Sarah do that to each other.

Self-Pity Hagar and Sarah both do that as well.

Bystander Abraham

The One Who Sees Me The angel of God

There is no shortage of pain in the world. How can we avoid the first three moves and emulate instead the example of the angel of God who sees the person before them.