This sheet on Genesis 18 was written by Hagit Bartuv for 929 and can also be found here
"I will return to you next year, and your wife Sarah shall have a son!" (Genesis 18:10). Why was this bit of news necessary?
Imagine that you received such a message: that what you had hoped for, and had cried for, and was upset about, and lost your temper about, and despaired of, is about to happen in the face of all logic and nature. What would you feel, what kind of emotional turmoil would you find yourself in? And of what is the benefit of Sarah entering this tension of excitement and anxiety and hope and preparation for disappointment and joy and distrust? Every fertility doctor will tell you that this emotional intensity is not what it takes to get pregnant. If Sarah had become pregnant without this news, it would have been clear to her and to Abraham and to the entire world that this was a miracle from God. So why did God take the trouble to deliver this news?
When God delivered the news to Abraham and Sarah overhead it, she laughed; for what else could she do in this emotional frenzy?! It is surprising, then, that God called her to task for laughing and demanded that she explain her laughter.
Perhaps the reason is that God wanted to open in Sarah's heart a place to continue yearning for a child, a place that had already been closed up and sealed, so that she could make room for this miraculous pregnancy.
When Sarah laughed and God insisted on discussing this laughter with her, maybe God wanted to force her to ask herself: really, why did I laugh? Perhaps God wanted to compel her to examine the complex emotions that such news engenders and thus enable her? Perhaps God wanted to help her to believe in life once again.
Imagine that you received such a message: that what you had hoped for, and had cried for, and was upset about, and lost your temper about, and despaired of, is about to happen in the face of all logic and nature. What would you feel, what kind of emotional turmoil would you find yourself in? And of what is the benefit of Sarah entering this tension of excitement and anxiety and hope and preparation for disappointment and joy and distrust? Every fertility doctor will tell you that this emotional intensity is not what it takes to get pregnant. If Sarah had become pregnant without this news, it would have been clear to her and to Abraham and to the entire world that this was a miracle from God. So why did God take the trouble to deliver this news?
When God delivered the news to Abraham and Sarah overhead it, she laughed; for what else could she do in this emotional frenzy?! It is surprising, then, that God called her to task for laughing and demanded that she explain her laughter.
Perhaps the reason is that God wanted to open in Sarah's heart a place to continue yearning for a child, a place that had already been closed up and sealed, so that she could make room for this miraculous pregnancy.
When Sarah laughed and God insisted on discussing this laughter with her, maybe God wanted to force her to ask herself: really, why did I laugh? Perhaps God wanted to compel her to examine the complex emotions that such news engenders and thus enable her? Perhaps God wanted to help her to believe in life once again.
Hagit Bartuv is the project and content leader of the Srigim initiative on Israeli moshavim
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