Parshat Lech L’cha: Autobiographical longing

I can relate to Sarah.

For many years I had surgery after surgery to try to keep the possibility of one day becoming a mother a reality instead of just a dream.

In the end, after five surgeries, we were able to conceive a child. The pregnancy was fraught with complications and our son was born prematurely due to my becoming so sick, we had no choice but to end the pregnancy to save my life. Our son was born just shy of 29 weeks, and weighed just a hair over 3 pounds.

So, I sympathize and empathize with Sarah.

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Sarah to make the choice to have her slave lie with her husband and conceive a child. No wonder Sarah is filled with anger and jealousy when Ishmael is born.

Today, this contorted relationship would be unthinkable. (Just think of our reaction to the former governor of California’s relationship with his maid… and many different layer’s of “Ick” immediately spring to mind!)

I think Sarah was a remarkable woman. She wanted her husband to have a child and fearing that she would never be able to provide this for him, she makes arrangements so that her husband’s lineage will continue. I think it must have seemed like a sacrifice she could make without any jealousy… until that baby came. That beautiful, small, precious boy. I’m sure every time baby Ishmael cried, Sarah’s arms hurt. How could she not feel angry? How could she not feel unlovable and dead inside when her own slave could do something that she could not?

How easy it must have been for her to start hating her slave — the mother of her husband’s son. I don’t condone her actions when Sarah resorts to beating Hagar so often that the slave runs away. I can understand Sarah’s feelings of rage. When your body refuses to do something that, seemingly, everyone else’s can, it is easy to spiral into depression and into self-loathing. Sarah must have slowly, but surely, over the years and years of her marriage, felt that she would always be denied a basic right: the right to become a mother.

Back in her day, adoption did not exist. Hagar’s child, can never belong to Sarah. She knows this. So, I have a special spot in my heart for Sarah. Especially in our society, it is easy to feel less than human when one is different. For a woman who cannot conceive, every baby she sees is a reminder of what she cannot have; what her body cannot produce. It is a deep, sharp pain. I know. I’ve felt it.