Vayerá 5777 - English

By Rabbi Guido Cohen

Asociación Israelita Montefiore Bogotá, Colombia

Parashat Vayeira contains, among other tales, the story of the expulsion of Hagar and her son Ishmael at the request of Sara that they must leave forever the home of Abraham.  A powerful and moving tale like few others, the text shows Abraham blindly obeying his wife and God to ‘sacrifice’ his eldest son.

Only a few lines later, Abraham again obeys without question the mandate that imposes on him the sacrifice of his bond with his son and almost the very existence of young Isaac. 

It is interesting that Sara, who some chapters ago had seen in Hagar the possibility of ‘building herself up’ and being a mother, now sees ‘that servant’ or ‘the Egyptian Hagar’ in the same person.  When Sara needed Hagar, she was the one who could bring her closer to the dream of motherhood, a loyal and generous ally.  But when she had her own biological son, then Hagar became a character that had to be marginalized. And with Hagar, little Ishmael, who had to leave Abraham’s camp forever to settle in the Arabic peninsula. 

If we imagine the biblical tale as a movie, the choices the director makes could be interesting. We could imagine that once Hagar and Ishmael are marginalized, the director could continue the story by narrating what happens after in Abraham’s house. However, the camera stays on Ishmael and Hagar and follows them into the desert to see what happens to them. That which neither Abraham nor Sara choose to do, the editor of the text does for us. God, the director of the plot in the biblical drama, chooses not to stay with Abraham and see what happens there after Ishmael is expelled, but instead goes with Ishmael.  While Abraham wakes up early to show them the way out, God travels with them through the desert.  

From a critical perspective, God’s going with Ishmael to the desert is typical of the omnipresent God of Israel. Very often we understand biblical monotheism as a mathematical question (we do not have many, only one), but we lose sight of how the omnipresence is perhaps more revolutionary than the oneness of God.  In those days, gods did not have ‘roaming’.  When you left the coverage zone, you were free of the god that ruled in those borders. While you were inside, that god would protect you. If you left, you had to find a new god to help you. And if you had to wander through the desert, well good luck finding how to survive.  The God of Abraham has already shone He can act in Haran as well as in Egypt.  He is not a God that is limited by geography or circumstances. He is a God with ‘global coverage’.  And that is definitely revolutionary for the time. 

Going back to our ‘movie’ then, God goes into the desert with Hagar and Ishmael.  He not only accompanies them, but he consoles and gives them water when they are about to die of thirst.  We have here another great innovation of Jewish theology.  This God is not the God of pharaohs or kings.

He is not the God of the powerful, but of the marginalized.  This does not imply that He is not also the God of kings and great heroes. But if a child is dying of thirst, this God has no doubts as to where his attention should lie.  Abraham and Sara may have turned their back on Ishmael and Hagar, but God is with them ‘ba asher hu sham’, wherever they go. 

The ability to be there for people in need is not just a divine virtue, it is also a quality that human being can imitate.  God’s choice of staying with the weak, the marginalized, is not just a celestial attribute, but it transforms according to the prophetic message into a human obligation.  To be human is in a way to try to be a little bit more than human, to aspire to more elevated virtues.  God’s decision of following Ishmael and Hagar after their expulsion teaches us on what we must focus, where the lens of our camera should point at. 

Let the reading of Vayeira inspire us to be more attentive to the Ishmael and Hagar that may be around us, that we may not see them go, but instead we may offer our arm in support as the tool God has these days of becoming visible to them. 

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Guido Cohen