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.

[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.

[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