DID SARA OVERREACT?
Abraham and Sara had no children. HaShem promised them that their descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. Sarah proposes to Abraham to take Hagar as a concubine and adopt her son as his own (a kind of surrogate motherhood), and this is how Yishmael, Abraham’s first son, is born. But after a few years, Sara miraculously gets pregnant, and Yitschaq is born. HaShem tells Abraham כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע, Gen. 21:12 “Your descendants will come from Yitschaq”, not from Yishmael. Yishmael, because he is Abraham’s son, לגדול גוי אשימנו, “will also become a powerful nation.” Now there are two boys at home. And the Tora tells us (21: 9) what Sara witnessed: “And Sara saw that the son of Hagar the Egyptian [Yishmael]… was having fun / was playing [with Yitschaq]. And she said to Abraham: Send this woman and her son away! … “. What happened here? Why did Sara ask to send Yishmael away? Just because he was “playing” with Yitschaq?Did Sara overreact?
HUNGER GAMES
It all comes down to the meaning of the word מצחק “having fun, playing games with”. What is the nature of the “games” that the text describes here? There are a few opinions. According to a first opinion, Yishmael played “bow and arrow” with Yitschaq, William Tell’s style. Sara saw Yishmael, a young adult, “practicing” with her little boy, and she got terrified. Sara understood that Yishmael was, consciously or not, dangerously jealous of Yitschaq and decided to expel him. There is a second interpretation, according to which Yishmael’s games did not threaten Yitschaq’s physical integrity but his moral character. The young Yishmael was not playing with Legos or racing cars. Yishmael, a teenager with testosterone, played games that the Midrash describes as: “Idolatry, promiscuity, and murder.”
NON-VIRTUAL REALITY
Let’s start with the end. Think about those modern video games. A child earns points for killing people while driving a car, shooting and killing bystanders, “eating an opponent’s head, pulling out their stomach after spitting acid down their throat and slicing them in half with a saw” (see here). I don’t know what was the equivalent of Mortal Kombat in those days, but Sara had a very compelling argument about protecting Yitschaq’s character development. Yitschaq, the first Jewish child and the paradigm of EVERY Jewish child, was destined to follow and continue the path of Abraham, the kindest man on earth. As a wise mother, Sara saw that the power of the influence of Yishmael, a young man with a very violent personality, as we will later see, would cause irreversible damage to Yitschaq’s values and personality. Sara also understood that even if she got Yishmael’s mom to rebuke her son once or twice, he would not change. Why? Because Hagar, Yishmael’s biological mother, did not share Sara’s concern. She was OK with her son’s character. How do we know this?
ILLUMINATING MIDRASHIM
Once again, we need the Midrash. Some Hakhamim said that when Sara asked Hagar about Yishmael’s violent behavior, Hagar calmly replied: “metsacheq”, “Don’t worry, he is just playing”, in other words: “These are just children’s games! Don’t take this seriously”.
Hagar reminds us of that permissive mother who, out of naivety (or comfort) chooses not to get too involved with her children’s games, friends, and influences. She thinks, “my son is just having fun, playing with other children”. Similarly, Hagar was probably not bothered by Yishmael’s promiscuous games (who knows what those games were.) or by Aboda Zara. She probably did not care about what Abraham was trying to change in the world. Hagar’s educational philosophy was opposite to Sara’s: Sara wanted to INSTILL in Yitschaq principles and values, whereas Hagar felt that Yishmael would choose his pathway in life when he grew up. Thanks to these Midrashim, our perspective of Sara’s “drastic” decision is a little broader. We can appreciate that Sara felt the power of bad influences and understood that Hagar did not share her concerns.
IN THE END, THEY ARE ALWAYS RIGHT …
And in the end, we see that Sara’s concerns about Yishmael proved correct. Yishmael did not become a man of God like his father, Abraham.
Neither a merchant nor a farmer. In pasuq 21:20 we see the final destination of Yishmael ויהי רובה קשת; he became an archer, a hunter of animals, and perhaps also a warrior, a hunter of people. Yishmael became as an adult, what he played as a teenager.
We have a lot to thank and to learn from Sara.
Among other things,
1. Knowing that bad company, bad friends, and violent or promiscuous games exert more influence on our children than the words and verbal lessons we parents impart to them.
2. The games our children play in their childhood, which they absorb at a tender age, will probably become part of their adult personality. (גרסא דינקותא לא זזה ממקומה)
3. And finally, sometimes we must take drastic measures to protect our children’s minds, innocence, and values. We must educate them as true descendants of Abraham Abinu and Sara Imenu.
