A Death That Instructs
Folly of Hilltop Youth
It’s hard to remember that once you’ve been harmed, there’s still opportunities for repair. That’s an ancient and modern lesson. Often we frame this as a zero sum game. Once hurt, we leave no space for reconciliation. Once causing hurt, we sometimes believe that there’s no room to be forgiven.
This week’s portion Hayyei Sarah, The Life of Sarah deals plenty with pain, hurt, and grief. Sarah dies; Isaac disappears; Abraham weeps; Isaac returns; Abraham dies, and Isaac and Yishmael, two separated and wounded brothers, bury their father together.
It’s that last piece I want to focus on. From their youth, they have been pushed away from one another. Sarah, the aforementioned matriarch had a bone to pick at Yishmael for being the first son that Abraham had with Hagar, her maidservant, despite it being her plan for Abraham to have a child with Hagar. The Torah ambiguously tells us that her gripe with Yishmael was that he was ‘toying’ with Isaac. There is little agreement about what he did and many commentators see it as an overreach on Sarah’s part. They were boys and this act resulted in years of a lost relationship.
Isaac, as you recall, a patriarch, turns into a ghost after nearly being sacrificed by his father. He reappears 65 verses later in this portion only to find his way back to reunite his father with a new wife before finding his own wife in Rebecca. At the end of this, when Abraham dies, quite surprisingly, Genesis 25:9 says:
וַיִּקְבְּר֨וּ אֹת֜וֹ יִצְחָ֤ק וְיִשְׁמָעֵאל֙ בָּנָ֔יו אֶל־מְעָרַ֖ת הַמַּכְפֵּלָ֑ה אֶל־שְׂדֵ֞ה עֶפְרֹ֤ן בֶּן־צֹ֙חַר֙ הַֽחִתִּ֔י אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י מַמְרֵֽא׃
His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre.
How did these two, perceived sworn enemies, see fit to find their way back to each other and what might that illustrate for us about the current moment?
In case you haven’t been following, there has been a spate of awful acts of violence from settlers toward Palestinians in the West Bank. The Hilltop Youth, a group of extremists (who, at this point, are not really youths anymore although some are) have been perpetrating reprehensible acts in the name of Judaism. You can read more about it here. Despite it being a small group of extremists, because there are extremists in the highest rungs of power in the governments, the acts of wanton violence grow with impunity.
It’s here that I want to pause and note that it’s still possible to feel unalloyed in one’s support of Zionism and recognize that there are factions within the Zionist movement that act in a way that undermines the Zionist cause. It’s also possible to say that nothing that happened on October 7th or afterward in regard to reprehensibly terrorist acts against Jews makes it ‘kosher’ for these types of incidents to occur.
All of it leaves many of us feeling like we’re running on the same hamster wheel as we always have. I don’t deign to be an expert in geopolitics and recognize that the solutions to this problem of extremists in the West Bank are far more complicated than this Substack can offer, but I do feel like there’s deep Torah for this moment that is connected to that joint burial act above. Because, as we said, how in the heck did Isaac and Yishmael come together?
Here is one powerful answer from a Midrash in Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer1 30:7:
Again after three years Abraham went to see his son Ishmael, having sworn to Sarah as on the first occasion that he would not descend from the camel in the place where Ishmael dwelt. He came there at midday, and found there Ishmael’s wife. He said to her: Where is Ishmael? She replied to him: He has gone with his mother to feed the camels in the desert. He said to her: Give me a little bread and water, for my soul is faint after the journey of the desert. She fetched it and gave it to him. Abraham arose and prayed before the Holy One for his son, and (thereupon) Ishmael’s house was filled with all good things of the various blessings. When Ishmael came (home) his wife told him what had happened, and Ishmael knew that his father’s love was still extended to him.
Once Yishmael had been banished with Hagar, we never saw him and his father interact again, until the Midrash reimagines that happening here, albeit through Yishmael’s wife. This teaching follows another visit from father to son. One wonders what drove the midrash’s author to imagine this moment? Did they desire to see father and son reconciled? We’ll never know but the story seems intentional.
Abraham shows his son he still cares and in turn, Yishmael is reminded that his father loves him. As I noted above, Isaac, wounded from his father’s near sacrifice of him, is only brought back to the story when he finds his father’s new wife. Even wounded, he desires for closeness from the one who harmed him. It’s noteworthy that the text also adds that Isaac settled in Beer Le’hai Roi, the exact place from where Hagar found salvation with Yishmael.
It’s as if the Torah is telling us, all you wounded people who have reason to hate each other forever, it’s not set in stone. Taken together, it creates a plausible narrative for how Yishmael and Isaac, two diametrically opposed characters found a way to come together to honor their father once more. There are other paths forward. There is enough space to hold your wounds and make space for another.
It’s a text I wonder if our siblings in the West Bank are familiar with. Perhaps I am being a pollyanna. Perhaps I am being naive. Perhaps the pain afflicted over the years is too much. But perhaps, there’s still yet hope.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend
A collection of aggadic reinterpretations of the Torah text from around the 8th century CE.