#mitzrayim

Another choice made by readings of the text is the choice not to really consider Hagar Jewish. The entirety of Abraham's household converted alongside him. Hagar is apart of that household as a slave and as a “wife”, though the former inherently complicates the latter. If one does not identify Hagar with Keturah, there is no reason to think she is impious; in fact, the text directly contradicts that by noting her naming of HaShem and ability to converse with an angel twice. If one thinks she is Keturah, then only Rashi's word- not the Torah- says Hagar reverted to idol worship, and that very reading is apart of a narrative where she repents doing so, and this is how she takes the name Keturah. Even in progressive readings, Hagar is identified with Islam, despite not being Muslim, upholding her alienation. Is King David a Christian because Jesus allegedly descends from him? Is Isaac an Edomite because he fathered Esau? Even if you insist that it makes sense, Ishmael himself is not always so aggressively cast out as people think. There are Jews named for him. These progressive readings also often fail to recognize the very real harm done by Sarah to Hagar as an enslaver, and some even attempt to place all the blame on Abraham. Abraham has plenty of blame to bear, of course, but Sarah is the instigator within the narrative.

This alienation is not Hagar's alone to bear; Egyptian Jews in scripture are often alienated. Some midrash make Asenath a child of rape, and Jacob's niece, so they don't have to deal with two of the founders of the 12 tribes being half Egyptian. Some offensively read the son of Shelomit as a gentile, despite him having a Jewish mother, simply because he has an Egyptian father. Bithiah is not allowed to breastfeed Moses because even as a convert, her milk is unclean. The term “Erev Rav” is used as an insult, and the group is blamed for the Golden Calf and said by some to reincarnate solely to cause suffering, despite there being no textual evidence for any of it. This alienation has nothing to do with the actual behavior of these people; it is simply a polemic against their ethnic origin.

As I have mentioned, Hagar is often associated with Abraham's wife after Sarah's death, Keturah. How is this so? Quite simply, the genealogies overlap. The names of each woman's sons and grandsons do not repeat, but they both populate the same geographic area of the Arabian Peninsula (as a result both are sometimes connected to the same trade of incense and spices). Additionally, Hagar has a seperate line of descendants from Ishmael named Hagarites, implying she had more children. These children keep to the same geography. Similar (negative) behaviors are ascribed to all these descendants in Midrash. Additionally, the promise to make Hagar have many descendants doesn't quite make sense if she only has one child, and while there are many tribes within it, there is only one Ishmaelite nation. Abraham is promised the same, and he has at least 8 children, who beget far more than one nation.

In the Rabbinic tradition, one of the main explanations for her name Keturah is about her chastity- evoking the idea that she was “closed up” until she met Abraham again. I reject this. Keturah is also related to the word for incense; she is the only human to give HaShem a name. Her voice rose to the Heavens to do this, rose up like incense smoke. This second interpretation is similar to an existing one also found in Rabbinic scripture, that she was “perfumed with good deeds”.

In midrash, Ishmael is often painted extremely negatively. The word mezahek (meaning to play, mock, or laugh) is taken to mean that he was an idol worshipper, (attempted) murderer, and rapist in some literature. This goes along with multiple negative midrashim on Keturah's children. They are seen as “waste” of Abraham, idolatrous, robbers and thieves who intentionally did not receive Abraham's blessing and refused the gift of Torah and won't have a portion of the world to come. “The offspring of Keturah” is sometimes used as an insult because of this. There are also some positives- some use the basis of the midrash that Abraham chose not to bless these descendants to state that he actually did bless them, and because HaShem confirmed the blessing of Issac, the blessing of Keturah’s children was also affirmed. Some also believe that the gifts of Abraham to them were not sorcery, but wisdom and ethics, and that these went on to influence “Eastern Religions”. People also refute that “sorcery” was fully a forbidden thing; arguably, Abraham and Moses were both sorcerers, as men who had power from a contract with a Celestial being (in this case, HaShem). Further, Solomon is sorcerer that had a contract with an earthly supernatural being. Such arguments put forth that only specific kinds of harmful sorcery are forbidden, and that attempts to make blanket bans (such as by Saul) have no positive textual effect that would indicate they were the correct stance.² Some also dispute the idea that Hagar Keturah was a concubine and therefore “lesser” to Sarah, by stating the confusing language around wives and concubines refers simply to unnamed concubines, and that Hagar Keturah was a full wife. Some also use the basis of the midrash to say that other cultures have wisdom equal to Judaism.

Interestingly, few midrashim connect the fact that rather directly after the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael, HaShem tests Abraham by asking him to take Issac to Moriah. “Your son, your only son, who you love” can be read as angry mockery of Abraham for his behavior towards his firstborn. After Abraham almost gets Ishmael and Hagar killed so Ishmael won't mistake himself for Issac's equal and share Abraham's inheritance, he is told to sacrifice the very child he did that on the behalf of. Even if Abraham did not give the demand and was encouraged to have Hagar and Ishmael leave, he only sends them away with a waterskin and the clothes on their back into the desert. Even Sarah did not demand such treatment. HaShem certainly did not tell him to behave in such a way.

The fact that Abraham does this also means that Issac can no longer hold illusions about his father. He may not have known the circumstances of his brother leaving, though he likely knew his mother's hatred of Ishmael and Hagar. If so, he knows now the low his father sank to. An Islamic interpretation of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates their version of the events at Moriah, is that what Abraham is being asked to kill is not Ishmael, but his sense of ownership over him. In the reading I present, Abraham kills that ownership over both sons by failing in his parental duties. Issac is still his father's heir. But Abraham descends from Moriah alone.

In the story of Hagar, there is a resonance between her life and the archetype of the Wandering Goddess from Egypt. This was one of two myth cycles in Egypt that had primary importance; the other, which one will likely be familiar with, is the kingly succession that occurs between Ra, Osiris, Set, and Horus. The Wandering Goddess is not an individual, but again, an archetype. The most famous story about it is the story of Sekhmet³/Hathor as the blood thirsty Eye of Ra, but Tefnut, Horit, Mehyt, Nehemtua, Ai, and arguably Isis, all also have myths on this mold.

The characteristics of the Wandering Goddesses are that (1) a woman or someone important to her is wronged in some way (in many stories the female protagonist is raped), (2) the woman wanders in the wilderness as a result, sometimes to seek revenge, other times just the escape the situation, or in one instance, she is imprisoned (3) she is convinced to return (often by Thoth or another deity) or is freed, (4) her leaving and returning is connected to water, and specifically may be connected to the Inundation of the Nile with varying degrees of narrative explicitness. Often at her return, she may be ritually purified with water (a navigation of the goddess in a sacred lake).

This is not a perfect fit, but listen; Hagar is (1) taken from her home as a slave and offered to a man without agency on her part, and is subsequently mistreated by her mistress, (2) she flees out of despair and likely not a small amount of anger (3) she is convinced to return by an angel acting on behalf of HaShem, (2) after a length of time her angry mistress demands she be cast out, where she ends up in the wilderness again, (3) an angel appears to help her and her son, and (4) both instances of an angel appearing are connected to a well of water.

From a historian's perspective, I don't know if this echo is deliberate or not (Egyptian art and literature does, provably, impact ancient Jewish scripture), but from a devotional perspective I recognize it. It reminds me of Miriam, who also had a well- a magical one, that followed her. I think Hagar had another well that was much the same, and this well one day overflowed and became the Red Sea. After all, it is through the Red Sea that Moses had to lead the Hebrews and the Erev Rav to freedom. The incident is full of birth imagery, and there already is a strong parallel between the first Jew having an Egyptian slave, and his descendants ending up as slaves in Egypt. The same word is used for both Hagar's treatment by Sarah and the treatment HaShem predicts Abraham's descendants will experience in Genesis 15: ‘anah. The promises of HaShem in Genesis 15 overall are a mirror image of the message of the angel to Hagar in the next passage. It is also only after being slaves that Jews really become Jews- it is only after slavery that the Torah is given at Mount Sinai. It merely makes sense to me that the waters that made a passage to freedom were the waters of Hagar. Hagar is also apart of the first generation of Jews, where the entire concept is born, and the crossing of the Red Sea precedes a rebirth of the nation, signified by the giving of the Torah and 10 Commandments. Hagar's name also mirrors the future slavery in Egypt, where the Hebrews are “strangers”. We are told that, because we know what it was to be strangers in Egypt, we should treat the stranger kindly. Upon freedom, like Hagar, the new Jewish nation struggles through the desert- and I have already mentioned that both Miriam and Hagar have a well.

The echo between Hagar and slavery in Egypt has been noted before, of course. I have read a few midrashim and other religious writings, mostly authored in the past decade, connecting the two. However, not many simultaneously draw the lines between Hagar and Moriah, or use the perspective of comparative religion.

Central to the Wandering Goddess archetype is also the contrast between rage/suffering and mercy/joy. When the heroine leaves to wander, having suffered or occasionally seeking to cause suffering, she is full of rage, and this is connected to the dryness of the Nile during Shemu, the harvest season. When she returns, the water returns, starting the Season of Akhet (Inundation), granting mercy upon the people of Egypt even though she was wronged. This would be marked by various festivals of merry making. This is also connected to the behavior of the star Sirius, whose movements and color match up to the behavior of the Nile (red as it recedes, blue as it returns with the water). These goddesses are also associated with lions and fire, which are used to underscore the wrath element. There are other explanations around the myth as well, from another expression of Kingly authority; to the cycles of the sun (all of these goddesses are connected to a solar diety in some way, usually as their “Eye”- which also connects a bit to “El Roi”) or moon; or to menstruation. In the story of Horit, her suffering is seen as ensuring that she is compassionate to all women.

Hagar is seen as “haughty” by many, and while her perspective is primarily portrayed as despairing, she is also angry with Sarah- either because she thinks Sarah is beneath her or because of her role in Hagar's situation. Her mercy is also vaguely present (mostly in regard to Ishmael), but not emphasized. Both are partly due to Hagar's emotions and thoughts not being emphasized in the text next to Sarah and Abraham's- the main times we are given her perspective are in her desert wanderings, and even there it is limited.

These heroines also have titles or are associated with figures who have titles referring to them as “the Distant One”; which really isn't that far off from being “The Stranger”. Butler argues that the “Wrath” of the Wandering Goddess is the same quality as her distance. The primordial Nun is a state where there are no distinctions between things- all is one. This is the site of the “first” Wandering Goddess myth, where Tefnut becomes distant from Atum after being created. In creating distinction from Nun, one is no longer part of “all things” and therefore risks becoming “no thing”. The act of becoming is the act of alienation, and the act of alienation is the act of destruction. In many stories, to express this idea, the wrath of the heroine is also less important than the distance of her. In this way, the act of being “the Stranger”, and the lesser loved consort (another form of alienation) ties Hagar to the theme of wrath even with the limited information the Torah gives us about her emotions and perspective. The joy and mercy of the heroine's return are about undoing the alienation and re-establishing their relationship to the totality of existence while maintaining individuality. This is an inherently liminal idea, and Wandering Goddess stories and rites were often associated with welcoming foreigners into Egyptian society and trans people⁴ (“women-men” and “men-women” are referenced, likely meaning both transmasculine and transfeminine individuals). In the bounds of the text, Hagar is reintegrated through her relationship to HaShem, an act which saves her from death, even if one does not identify her as Keturah. The act of identifying her as such presumes there was some sort of reconciliation with Abraham, and therefore reintegration not only with HaShem, but with the (at this point) only other human worshippers of Hagar's “El Roi”. Hagar Keturah's liminality extends further. Her first name can mean “the stranger” but it can also mean “the convert”. Her distance and returning and bolster this theme, as would the fact that some of her descendants are among the Erev Rav who stood at Sinai (such as many of the Midianites).

Yet more resonances also occur in that the Inundation of the Nile was the New Year for Egypt (once called the Opening of the Year, now called either the Crown of the Year or most commonly Nayrouz by Copts). This was, again, around the time some of the Wandering Goddess festivals were celebrated,⁵ and was relevant to the myth even for goddesses who did not have late/mid summer celebrations. What portion of the Torah do we read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year? Why- the one with Hagar! Specifically, Genesis 21, when she is cast out with Ishmael. This chapter, though only part of Hagar's story, also is the best one to represent the Wanderer archetype at play if one was only allowed to pick one chapter to do so. With careful analysis, it contains all 4 of the basic elements that most stories in that archetype had, though restructured into a narrative that glorifies only one god, with the Wanderer becoming a mortal being.

Again, I don't know if it would be at all fair to hypothesize if this was intentional or otherwise an exhibition of cultural exchange. However, this kind of influence isn't unheard of. The Song of the Sea has similarities to Egyptian literature (and as a result, repurposes ideas that are Egyptian in origin and glorify the deeds of Pharaohs into a war song that glorifies HaShem's victory over the Pharaoh), the Seraphim are likely based on Uraeii imagery that was popular in ancient Palestine, the Tale of Two Brothers has a narrative beat also found in Joseph’s life, and the story of Moses has similarities to the Story of Sinhue. Intentional readings also exist; Bithiah has been connected to the breastfeeding goddess Thermouthis by Josephus, the Sybiline Oracles (written by Egyptian Jews) list Isis as Ham's wife, and Artapanus wrote about how Thoth/Hermes was actually Moses.

Moving on from comparative religion: another layer to this is the idea of seeing and being seen. A matter I am particularly concerned with is what I call “the violence of the gaze”- the idea that perception itself can be violent. This comes largely from my experience with gender; with being sexualized young, with being harassed when I covered my hair, with being transgender in a time where increasing awareness has led to increased hatred. Something you may hear from a trans person is that they no longer go swimming. This is because most swimwear exposes the body, especially when wet and clingy, to the point where it can be very easy to be “clocked” and opened to harassment. Even if nothing bad happens, the exposure itself can lead to feelings of dysphoria and humiliation.

However, at the same time, I was taught to be secretive as a child. “Never write something down that you don't want read in front of a judge”, lectures about not talking about my home life, fear that I would suppressing my freedom to even do community service, and other such lessons spilled almost constantly from my mother. In her absence during my teen years, I found verbally disemboweling myself to be a rush. All the secrets, filthy and wretched, in the air. I managed to restrain myself from doing it constantly, and I keep things to myself now, but I know why I did it. It was not only the pressure, but the idea of someone seeing me, understanding me, and helping me.

What a wonderful world that is, where someone seeing you means they will save you!

This violence of seeing haunts Hagar alongside her salvation through being seen. We are told that Sarah thought Hagar to be “haughty”, despite the issues of translation. This perception has been taken as truth, and used as justification for viewing Hagar as a villianess by many Jewish thinkers. This is sometimes taken to the point of Sarah causing her to miscarry and this being seen as right. The reason I do not take Sarah at her word is simple; every slaver thinks their slave is haughty, or in America, “uppity”, especially when that enslaved person is a woman. The act of believing you are a person despite being enslaved is enough to be declared “haughty”. In doing so, you believe you have worth and resist total subservience, which to the person exploiting you is incredibly inconvenient, and is your “fault”. You are acting above your “proper place”. Even trying to be stoic about your situation can be labeled as such. “Haughtiness” in concept is also commonly applied to abuse victims and marginalized people. Anyone in a situation where another person thinks they are inferior and expects they have a right to dominate and use them lives under the weight of the idea, though it is especially racialized and applied to women. In a way, the accusation itself is a confession.

There is a monster of the Red Sea, which I have before identified as Hagar's well. This monster is named Rahab. In scripture it is vaguely identified with Egypt, and defeated by G-d. The name means pride, splendor, and insolence. Something interesting one finds allusions to in some midrash (I have not personally found one more explicit on the matter) is that Pharaoh did not drown. He was eaten- by some manner of creature that dwelled in the Red Sea. Such a wild, prideful creature; surely Rahab would not have only accidentally eaten Pharaoh, and it seems it would buck a command. But even a terrible dragon must yield. As it is her well, it is her responsibility. Did Hagar, acting as the hand of G-d, as many humans do, subdue Rahab? Did she manage to bring such a terrible creature to heel?

This is a matter for a future midrash.

There is also a tangential matter, that of Hagar and other strangers. A poem I love dearly and which influences my religious thoughts is Sheyd (more accurately, שׁד‎‎) by Ezra Rose. The poem is entirely about the sheydim's plea to be treated with respect, evoking the line “Love the stranger as yourself”. Though Ezra likely does not know of it, the poem rings true to the elements of the spiritual/philosophical system of adorcism, and specifically the zār of North Africa and West Asia. Adorcism is not novel to Judaism; there is evidence that prophets in the ancient kingdoms were adorcists. Saul's “afflicting spirit” from HaShem sounds a bit like a zār spirit; it causes him illness and is soothed by music, specifically, of a lyre. Zār specifically is also practiced by some Jews, alongside other adorcist rites like Stambeli. The spirits in zār represent “Others”, strangers to the main cultural identity of a specific zār lineage. They also represent memory and history (also evoked in Ezra's poem). This has been especially important as zār is heavily practiced by women, and one of the ways it spread was through the enslaved and their descendants- people who often do not get to write history. The other main way it spread was through pilgrimage and migration. It is, of course, mischaracterized as devil worship, and given the oh so fearsome label “sorcery”. This is not dissimilar to how the sheydim have been, somewhat erroneously, called “demons”.⁶ There are many ways of conceptualizing the spirits, or “winds”, as zār is heterogeneous and has no dogma beyond some basic ritual concepts. However, the ideas I resonate with as, admittedly, one uninitiated, are such; the spirits were once human, or intended to be so. They are separated from us by some distant mishap or punishment. When the spirit enters our body, it is an opportunity for reconciliation, reunion, healing of an old wound. By knowing the stranger, they cease to be strange. You undo the alienation. By loving and honoring the stranger, one is healing a rift. Rose's poem reminds us that the sheydim's cries also reach the heavens. The sheydim are everywhere.⁷ The strangers are constantly in our midst. How do we love them?

For me, Hagar is a matriarch (even though she is not considered a Matriarch). Not only that, she is the only matriarch to have been one in her own right for a time, as a woman with a child, as she spent time as a divorcee, and she is individually given a promise by HaShem. Another interesting detail is that Hagar is very brave. Most who meet angels in scripture are afraid and “fall on their face”. Hagar does neither. Further, the prediction the angel gives about Ishmael is interesting- while in our modern era, it is often simply understood to mean that Ishmael (and perhaps his descendants, i.e. Arabs) will be troublesome and always in conflict, it can also be taken to mean that like a wild ass, Ishmael will never be forced to submit to anyone. He will never be a slave.

My relation to Hagar and my private midrash making about her still doesn't make things simple. For example, when I search for experiences in my community that relate me to her, what will inevitably come up is the kidnapping, assault, and forced conversion of Coptic girls. Hagar, after all, is a slave taken out of Egypt, who is used for her reproductive capacity, who calls on the god of her enslaver- implying acceptance of their religion. Do I wish to sacralize that? And this is before considering that in accepting that Hagar is Keturah, one accepts that she eventually went back to Abraham. I understand why; a woman in her position would lack options, and may have no choice. I moved back in with my abuser after 4 years apart for similar reasons, after all, before leaving again. But in veneration of her, in wanting to give her power, my brain recoils against it. I don't want to sacralize that either.

I want Abraham on his knees before her.

This is the tension of rage and mercy, specifically forgiveness, that I mentioned, and I am struggling with it. I never forgave my abuser, and I don't think I will. I don't think it's valuable to myself. This doesn't mean I think constantly about it. There is a difference between forgiving and letting go. Between forgetting what wrongs someone did and recognizing the value and significance someone brought to you

I relate to Hagar as an Egyptian. I relate to her as a stranger. I relate to her as a survivor. I relate to the bowshot; I have at times, weeped over so much as the torn wings of butterflies. The tradition is to name converts “ben Avraham bat Sarah”, the child of Abraham and Sarah, because they are thought of as the first Jews. But I am sure it surprises no one that I think of Hagar as my mother, and a reflection of myself. B'nei Keturah- child of incense, child begging my cry to fly to heaven. Yes, I am such a child, yes, I am an Egyptian, yes, I am of the Erev Rav.

¹ This website lays out a Hebrew text, a transliterated text, and a translated text with hyperlinks for specific words and other things of interest. I referenced Gen 15, 16, and 21 while writing this article. http://www.qbible.com/hebrew-old-testament/genesis/16.html

² Magic of the Ordinary by Rabbi Gershon Winkler covers a lot of interesting ground about Judaism and how it isn't actually that alien from ideas like sorcery and “shamanism”. However, I am critical of several elements of his writing, ranging from the way he presents Christianity (he displaces a lot of misogyny in Judaism as being Christianity's fault, as well as the shift in Judaism from a more “shamanic” religion despite that shift starting during the Second Temple period, and ignores the existence of Indigenous Christians who were not converted by force), to the use of the word “shamanism”, which I think is used too broadly by most people. His view of the idea of being Indigenous (or more accurate to his writing, Aboriginal) is also one I am personally skeptical and lukewarm regarding, as a Copt. I think it is a valuable book that should be read critically.

³ Sekhmet is also interesting as she has notably similarities to the gods Anat and Kali, who I have researched together. There seems to have been some cultural exchange at some point that spread the imagery and ideas behind all three figures, associated with the trade of spices that required one to travel the Arabian Peninsula. This trade route seems to also be referenced in Song of Songs. Anat is also interesting as Anat is recognizably transmasculine.

⁴ Here used expansively to include all gender variant people.

⁵ The Opening of the Year used to have a floating date based on astronomical observations and the measurements of the Nile's water level. Today, the date of descendant festivals is fixed.

⁶ This has its partial origins in Greek translations of Jewish scripture, which rendered "sheydim" as "daimones". Daimones were originally a more vague concept of lesser divinities/spirits that overlap with the modern idea of guardian angels, but the term is where we get the word "demon" from today due to Christianity rendering the daimones as a group of evil spirits. Interestingly, the word "sheyd" was possibly borrowed from Assyrian/Sumerian/Akkadian and would have denoted a protector quality.

⁷ These ideas are not exactly new to me. As someone of Irish American descent from my mother, I grew up with a vague sense of "fairy stories", and the perception of the natural world as full of spirits one must respect is one I doubt I will ever shake.

If you like what I write, a few dollars my way via ko-fi.com/rosebijoumme is always appreciated.

Further Reading:

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/keturah-midrash-and-aggadah

https://www.thetorah.com/article/our-stepmother-keturah

https://aish.com/keturah-origins/

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hagar-midrash-and-aggadah#pid-13229

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7021-hagar

https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/article/hagar-stranger/

Inconsistency in the Torah by Joshua Berman

Egypt’s Returning Goddesses: A Theological Inquiry by Edward P. Butler

On the Heels of the Wandering Goddess: The Myth and the Festival at the Temples of the Wadi el-Hallel and Dendera by Barbara Richter

Isiopolis has a series of posts with citations avout the theme of the Wandering or Returning goddess: https://isiopolis.com/tag/returning-goddess/

Notes on Transgressing Gender Boundaries in Ancient Egypt by Mark DePauw discusses the women-men and men-women, though notably uses some offensive language.

Dancing for Hathor by Carolyn Graves-Brown: https://archive.org/details/DANCINGFORHATHORWOMENINANCIENTEGYPTCAROLYNGRAVESBROWN/mode/2up

Dogs, Raging Goddesses, and the Summer Solistice in Ancient Egypt by Jeff Newman: https://open.substack.com/pub/ancientnow/p/dogs-raging-goddesses-and-the-summer

Wine and Wine Offering in the Religion of Ancient Egypt by Mu-Chou Poo

Racial Offense Taken When 'Uppity' Rolls Off Certain Tongues by Justin Grant https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5823018&page=1

Ezra Rose's poem: https://www.tumblr.com/sheydgarden/700116676335812608/feygele-2020-a-sheyd-jewish-demon-inspired-by?source=share

Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt by Hager Al Hadidi

Spirits and Slaves in Central Sudan: The Red Wind of Sennar by Susan Kenyon