(א) וַיִּהְיוּ֙ חַיֵּ֣י שָׂרָ֔ה מֵאָ֥ה שָׁנָ֛ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה וְשֶׁ֣בַע שָׁנִ֑ים שְׁנֵ֖י חַיֵּ֥י שָׂרָֽה׃ (ב) וַתָּ֣מָת שָׂרָ֗ה בְּקִרְיַ֥ת אַרְבַּ֛ע הִ֥וא חֶבְר֖וֹן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ כְּנָ֑עַן וַיָּבֹא֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם לִסְפֹּ֥ד לְשָׂרָ֖ה וְלִבְכֹּתָֽהּ׃ (ג) וַיָּ֙קָם֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֣י מֵת֑וֹ וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר אֶל־בְּנֵי־חֵ֖ת לֵאמֹֽר׃ (ד) גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁ֥ב אָנֹכִ֖י עִמָּכֶ֑ם תְּנ֨וּ לִ֤י אֲחֻזַּת־קֶ֙בֶר֙ עִמָּכֶ֔ם וְאֶקְבְּרָ֥ה מֵתִ֖י מִלְּפָנָֽי׃
(1) Sarah’s lifetime—the span of Sarah’s life—came to one hundred and twenty-seven years. (2) Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. (3) Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, (4) “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.”
(1) Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and Adonai had blessed Abraham in all things. (2) And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, “Put your hand under my thigh (3) and I will make you swear by Adonai, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, (4) but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
בְּאֵר לַחַי רֹאִי, הָלַךְ לְהָבִיא אֶת הָגָר, אוֹתָהּ שֶׁיָּשְׁבָה עַל הַבְּאֵר וְאָמְרָה לְחַי הָעוֹלָמִים רְאֵה בְּעֶלְבּוֹנִי.
Midrash Genesis Rabbah 60:14
Beer Le-Chai Roi: He had gone to bring Hagar, the one who had sat by the well and said to the Life of the Worlds, "See me in my humiliation."
(7) An angel of Adonai found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur, (8) and said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” And she said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” (9) And the angel of Adonai said to her, “Go back to your mistress, and submit to her harsh treatment.” (10) And the angel Adonai said to her, “I will greatly increase your offspring, And they shall be too many to count.” (11) The angel of Adonai said to her further, “Behold, you are with child And shall bear a son; You shall call him Ishmael, For Adonai has paid heed to your suffering. (12) He shall be a wild ass of a man; His hand against everyone, And everyone’s hand against him; He shall dwell alongside of all his kinsmen.” (13) And she called Adonai who spoke to her, “You Are El-roi,” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after He saw me!” (14) Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it is between Kadesh and Bered.—
...The message I shared with the Vancouver community, gathering in memorial a day after the atrocity, was one of encouragement – to stay strong for the sake of the work it is ours to do as we enact the great Jewish mandate to repair our world.
...After the Akeyda – the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Isaac next appears in this week’s narrative, returning from Beer Chai Roi – a place called something like: “The Well Where the One Who Sees Me Lives.” This is the place where, years earlier, Hagar first met God. She had run away, humiliated by her marginalization in the house of Sarah; God saw her and came to her in consolation, promising her the son that would father the Arab nations. The rabbis fill out the bones of the story recounted in Torah, adding that Isaac must have been visiting Hagar.
In the traumatic aftermath of his near-death experience, Isaac seeks out Hagar, who bears suffering of her own. He extends himself in new-found compassion, but also seeking comfort. Isaac and Hagar see one another more deeply now and sensitized to one another’s vulnerability by the strain of their own abuse, Isaac and the mother of Ishmael can help one another.What the Midrash amplifies is our agency in how we respond to trauma. Do we pull in or do we reach out? It teaches something that’s hard to remember when we are singled out by pointed hatred: we are not alone. The atrocity in Pittsburgh occurred within a general climate of xenophobia. This week, my friend Rabbi Menachem Creditor tweeted: “We don’t stand alone, and we dare not stand alone.”
Surely, we grieve a Jewish injury and a Jewish loss. We must combat this hatred with pride in our self-worth as we continue to raise our children in the ways of Torah, practice gratitude, help one another, and celebrate in community. With this Solidarity Shabbat upon us, we seem to have returned to the slogan, “Am Yisrael Chai.” But we are also called, as Isaac was called, to reach out, to be affected not just to protect our own, but to also fortify our empathy for all marginalized peoples, standing with others who are frightened and at risk. May this be a call, not just to strengthen our security, but to strengthen our empathy and our connections.
I take heart in finding, in our rabbinic literature, this very sentiment is expressed by the rabbis in their assumption that traumatized Isaac turned to traumatized Hagar for solace and camaraderie. It is not a new idea at all.
--Rabbi Hannah Dresner
MyJewishLearning.com, Rabbis Without Borders, Nov. 1, 2018
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/rabbis-without-borders/traumatized-isaac-goes-to-visit-hagar/