A Taste of Torah - Vayera

This week’s Torah portion, Vayera, is filled with family conflict. In it, Sarah and Abraham fear that they will not be able to conceive a child; Sarah asks Abraham to have a child with her maidservant, Hagar; Sarah becomes jealous of Hagar and the latter’s son, Ishmael; and Abraham takes his son, Isaac, to the top of a mountain to kill him at God’s request. It’s neither an easy nor a pleasant portion. But from conflict and controversy come growth and reconciliation.

When Sarah becomes jealous of Hagar and Ishmael, she demands that Abraham cast them out. Abraham doesn’t know what to do. He goes to God and asks how to remedy the situation. Though we might not agree with how God, Abraham and Sarah handle things, God says to Abraham, “Sh’ma b’kolah ~ Listen to her voice.” God tells Abraham to do what Sarah asks, thus keeping peace between Abraham and Sarah. According to the midrash, this moment, where Abraham yields to Sarah’s wishes, teaches us that in matters of prophecy, Abraham was secondary to Sarah. That’s not what we’d expect from Torah in its own day, for a man to be secondary to a woman, but that’s what our tradition tells us. Sometimes, when we find ourselves amidst conflict, we need to listen carefully, because the answer may not come from where we’d expect.