#abrahamandsarah

I am, admittedly, not in the habit of reading the holiday Torah portion in advance. As I read the story of Hagar and Ishmael in shul on Thursday, the first day of Rosh Hashana, there appeared to me a reading of that story more topical and urgent than any other — and also more universal and evergreen.

For the story of Hagar and Ishmael is, above all else, a story of deportation.

Genesis 21:9 has our foremother, Sarah, insisting that Abraham “cast out” Hagar, the servant of her household and surrogate childbearer of Ishmael, “for the child of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

That statement cuts me to the quick. Three verses earlier, Sarah is rejoicing and a great feast is held in honor of Isaac’s birth, a moment of abundance and blessing. Yet this feeling does not last long in the text before Ishmael’s presence feels like a threat — specifically, an illegitimate claim on Abraham’s resources. Sarah’s insistence that Hagar and Ishmael be cast out for the sake of her son Isaac’s inheritance has the same vicious hostility of people who speak of undocumented immigrants “draining the system,” claiming welfare and health care that “rightfully” belongs to citizens, the “legitimate” children. This is a script that seems to only amplify the more it is refuted. Those who might be called undocumented become “illegals,” “criminals,” an abstract class of grifters. Their humanity is obscured by projections of their laziness and greed. Hagar, too, becomes an abstract symbol of illegitimacy. Sarah no longer refers to her by name, only by her status, that of “slave-woman.”

This turnaround is scary when we think of how Ishmael came to be for the very sake of Abraham and the need for his household to contain an heir. Ishmael too is defined by his role and his parentage. He came into the world because he was needed. The moment he and his mother appear to stop “contributing” to the household, they become dependents, and furthermore, threats. Ishmael too, is a child of Abraham, yet reduced to his household function.

So too, do the undocumented come to make contributions. They are, whether we like it or not, asked here, demanded even, to fulfill the needs of our household. And yet the idea lingers, that they will take more than they give. That they will claim what is not rightfully theirs. That their presence is a concession on our part. Since we need them, we must keep “their” opportunities for abusing that need under control.

Even more searing, the description of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, the wilderness of Beer-sheva, where she “wanders,” desperate and so, so alone, and finally as their skein of water runs dry, hides her son under a bush so she does not have to watch him die. “Sitting afar, she bursts into tears.”

In my hometown of Cleveland, a woman, Leonor Garcia, has taken sanctuary at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, just before her scheduled deportation to Mexico, which would separate her from her nineteen-year-old and three-year-old daughters. As she remained in the church, Immigration and Customs Enforcement pounded on the door of the house where her two children live, frightening them even as they were made aware that Garcia was residing in sanctuary elsewhere. Leonor had to witness her children’s fear from a distance, helpless against their intimidation. How many mothers are stuck wandering in a desert somewhere on the southern border? How many have to choose between watching their children die, and not being able to watch their children die, so great is their helplessness and grief?

Given that we read it on Rosh Hashana, what does this story actually offer to us about forgiveness? Forgiveness seems in pretty short supply here. Sure, God comforts Hagar (but opens in oblivious douchebro style with “What troubles you, Hagar?” like, “HOW ABOUT THAT BANISHMENT INTO STARVATION AND LONELINESS YOU ARRANGED FOR ME AND MY CHILD? THAT’S BEEN A LITTLE TROUBLING.”) Anyway, God summons a well, ensures that the twosome are taken care of in the desert, Ishmael eventually sires a great nation, ok fine. But these are palliative measures, happening well after the fact. There is no forgiveness in this story because there is no reckoning with what was truly *wrong.* Hagar and Ishmael present a most challenging opportunity for forgiveness: how do we deal with children, with families, who we think are not supposed to be here? Whose presence feels like a mistake?

Because when Sarah looks at Hagar and Ishmael, she sees a mistake. She sees things that are not as they should be. She sees something that has gone wrong.

And she’s right.

Something very much did go wrong.

It was wrong that Sarah could not conceive until her old age. It was wrong that she had to suffer so many years of feeling like a failure, of unmet longing, of desperate compromises.

It was wrong that Hagar’s will - her womb, her parenting - had to be subordinated to the demands of her mistress and the household. It is wrong that Hagar did not have her own domain, children that belonged to her and her spouse alone. It is wrong that she had to live a half-life.

There is very much a mistake at the center of this story. A heartbreaking, mostly blameless, searingly painful mistake.

And Sarah and Abraham’s choice — one sanctioned by God, who insists that Abraham set aside his distress and follow the orders of his wife — is to try and nullify the evidence of that mistake.

Again - Sarah reduces Hagar to her function as slave-woman. She is no longer a person, she is all but erased. Hagar is sent away to the wilderness. No other people are there to shelter her, to comfort her. Hagar no longer has a place in the world, nothing to validate or support her existence, she is a practically a ghost. All this is Sarah’s intent. To cast out the slave-woman and her son, and to move forward as if they never existed. As if they never had to exist.

As if her failure never required their existence.

As if Sarah had never failed.

How do we deal with the mistakes that dwell in the households of our souls?

I’m hard on Sarah, it’s true. This is an ugly episode for her. But my heart breaks for her too, for wouldn’t we all like to banish our mistakes, our painful histories, to the desert? Wouldn’t we all like to nullify their existence, especially when we finally do achieve our greatest dreams?

But Hagars and Ishmaels live among us. They live in our communities. Perhaps they are, in some way, a mistake. It is not they who are the mistake, though. The mistake is the desperation of their lives. The misery and fear of their original homes, the conditions so awful that they must flee or die. Either way, they too live half-lives, full of never-ending anxiety. Even as they dwell in our household they know they only get to stay as long as they do whatever we need. And stay on good behavior.

Hagars and Ishmaels dwell, too, in the households of our souls.

The remainders of our mistakes live inside us. We might like to project all of our anger, jealousy, sadness, onto some concrete being, and send it away.

But that story only ends in more tears. The saddest, loneliest, most desperate tears.

And, spoiler alert, the household of Abraham and Sarah has a lot more trauma ahead after this incident. Banishing Hagar does not exactly bring the utopian reconciliation that Sarah envisions.

What would happen if, instead, we saw our mistakes, the humans who represent all the brokenness, the wrongness of our world, and kept them as part of our households. What would happen if we found a way to let our most brilliant triumphs live alongside our greatest disappointments? For that is Isaac and Ishmael, to Sarah. And at the start of this parsha, they are playing together. Sarah’s sadness, the mistake of this son that is not hers, exists right alongside the miracle of her child’s existence. And for a moment, all are still people. No one is crying. And there is enough for everyone.

May we resist the temptation to nullify the humanity of others in an attempt to save ourselves. May we all find ways to see the people we depend on as fellow humans, rather than vessels of our frustrations. May we find ways to let our mistakes live with us, in laughter, abundance, and peace.

Abram Goes to Egypt Pages 4-5