Hagar

[cellio]

Shabbat morning I heard a new-to-me interpretation of Hagar from one of our lay torah readers. Hagar is Sarah's maid-servant (or slave; the distinction is unclear to me), and when it becomes clear Sarah isn't going to be able to have a child she tells Avraham to have one with Hagar, which he does. Things seem fine and dandy until Sarah has Yitzchak, at which point she wants to throw Hagar and Yishmael out. (Is there midrash that casts Sarah in a better light than the plain reading of the text?)

Bruce pointed out that Hagar gets dumped on a lot but always manages to retain her dignity. She doesn't argue with the initial charge to have a son with Avraham. She doesn't lash out when she remains a slave instead of being promoted to concubine or half-wife. When Avraham and Sarah throw her out with nothing more than some bread and water, she leaves quietly. When she appeals to God, it's on behalf of her son, not for herself. She's been treated pretty badly (and I'm not saying one should stand silent when that happens!), but she manages to get by somehow.

I haven't given Hagar much thought in the past. We give high honor to the patriarchs and matriarchs even when they behave badly, but Hagar deserves some credit too. She should (IMO) have been more assertive earlier on, but she didn't lash out when it might have been justified. I wonder what the feminist torah commentaries (which I haven't read) have to say about her.

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

Actually, Hagar does run away earlier (when pregnant) and only returns when a malach appears and tells her to... Some of her current "dignity"/patience may be because she's keeping the earlier encounter in mind.

[cellio]

That's a good point -- she presumably learned from the earlier experience (including learning that God notices her).

[kayre]

Hagar's not entirely innocent, surely? "When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress." So maybe she did lash out.

[magid.livejournal.com]

She also didn't discipline her son when he started playing with Yitzchak (the implication being that it was more teasing than real play).

[cellio]

"M'tzacheik" is ambiguous, though I'll grant that tradition says scoffing or laughing at rather than laughing with. (Laughter figures into our story a few times, but it's not always the same kind of laughter.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Definitely ambiguous.

What I find odd is when she leaves, the description seems to fit more with a woman taking her young son, not one who's in his mid-teens. So perhaps she's an over-protective mom in most ways, but didn't care to mention whatever the 'm'tzacheik' behavior was?

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Midrash interprets "mitzak" here as any of the following:
1) Ishamel tried to rape Isaac. This is derived from the subsequent use of "mitzachek" in Toldot where Yitchak and Rivka are pretending to be brother and sister, until Avimelech sees the two of them "mitzachek" and realizes they are husband and wife.

2) Ishamel tried to kill Isaac.

3) Ishmael tried to get Isaac to worship idols.

The link is obvious because these are the three "yehareg v'al yeavor" sins (murder, idolotry, sexual immorality). Not sure if there is a better source in midrash for the other two.

Midrash also asserts that Hagar was an instigator in this, although there is no textual support for this.

In this light, Sarah is seeking physical and moral protection for her child.

[cellio]

That's an important point, yes. It's hard to know what's meant by "despised"; was she bad-attitude girl, or did she do something more direct? The torah tells us that Sarah abused her, which is why she ran away. It also seems to tell us that Sarah was mad at Avraham and Hagar because they succeeded where she hadn't -- never mind that it had been Sarah's idea in the first place.

I think seeing the angels of God must have been a real turning-point for Hagar.

[goljerp]

Well, there is a midrash that Hagar was a princess in Egypt, but her father said 'better to be a slave of Avram than a princess in Egypt. Of course, it's the Rabbis who made up this story. :-)


I really should write down the d'var I gave a week ago, because I touched a bit on the Sarah/Hagar relationship in it.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

I am not sure that the text supports "abused." The language of the text (from memory) of the first incident is:
Sarah offers to Avraham to have a child by her maidservant.
Avraham goes along with the idea. Hagar's reaction is not recorded.
Hagar gets pregnant, she then alters her behavior to her mistress Sarah ina way desribed pejoratively in the text.
Sarah complains to Avraham.
Avraham tells Sarah "your servant, take whatever steps you want."
Sarah then "humbles" Hagar in a way not described.
Hagar flees.
When queried by the Angel, Hagar states that she is "fleeing" from her mistresses anger.
The Angel tells her to return and endure, because she will have a tremendous reward.

It is entirely possible to constructive a narrative out of it as the noble/raped/abused Hagar and the evil Avraham and Sarah. It is entirely possible to construct a narrative of the eager, consenting manipulative Hagar who seeks to displace her mistress. Midrash makes Hagar an ambiguous figure, so not much help there.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

After Sarah dies, Avraham has many children with Keturah. Rashi quotes a Midrash that Keturah was Hagar, returned under an alias.

You have to wonder what her version of the story would have been. (Or, for that matter, what Abraham himself thought about the feud.)

(And, as a side note, Sarah didn't die until Isaac was an adult. If Keturah was really Hagar, she would have needed divinely-aided fertility to have borne Ishmael, raised him to an adult, left with him, returned only after Sarah's death, and then had six more sons... )

See http://www.ou.org/torah/ti/5763/chayeisara63.htm