Both the Midrash and Rashi comment relatively briefly about Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian handmaid who becomes the mother of Ishmael, Abram’s, later Abraham’s, first born son. The commentaries fall into two general categories.
First, since Hagar is identified as Egyptian and Sarai had spent some time in Pharoah’s palace while pretending to be Abram’s sister rather than his wife, Hagar is imagined to be a daughter of Pharoah. Remember that, when Pharoah took Sarai to live in his house, there were unidentified plagues upon the household. When Pharoah realized that these plagues were due to the presence of Sarai, he called Abram into his palace, chastised him for lying, and sent both Abram and Sarai out of his house and his country.
Rashi assumes that Pharoah was so impressed by the plagues that God had brought upon his household to protect Sarai that Pharoah must have said: "It is better for my daughter to be a handmaid in this man’s house than a mistress in another man’s house." In Rashi’s view, when Pharoah expelled Abram and Sarai he sent his own daughter with them. We will return to this interpretation in just a minute.
The other category of Midrashic comments about Hagar revolve around the mystery woman Ketura, who marries Abraham after the death of Sarah. Simply put, a Midrash says that Hagar returns to Abraham’s life, as his wife not his concubine, using a new name, Ketura. We will also return to this interpretation.
Examining the plain Torah text (Chapter 16 Verses 1- 16 ) Let’s look at what happens to Hagar. Sarai suggests that Hagar be her surrogate in childbearing. Abram agrees. In doing this, Hagar’s status is lifted from handmaid of Sarai to concubine of Abram. Hagar conceives immediately and becomes rude and disrespectful to the barren Sarai. Sarai complains to Abram, now legally responsible for the behavior of Hagar, who tells her to do as she sees fit. Sarai treats the pregnant Hagar cruelly. Forshadowing the events we will read next week, Hagar escapes into the wilderness where she encounters a messenger from God, sometimes translated as an angel of God.
God’s messenger tells her several important things. First, she must return to her mistress Sarai. Also, God will multiply her seed. She will have a son, and she must name him Ishmael, because God has taken notice of her plight – God has heard. While a straight forward reading of the text would make it appear that a pregnant Hagar ran into the wilderness, this may not be so obvious. The grammatical construction of this conversation, in which each of the messenger’s pronouncements is introduced separately, leads Rashi to interpret that Hagar was actually not pregnant during this conversation, but had lost her original pregnancy due to Sarai’s cruel treatment. Rashi infers that Hagar returned to Sarai, coupled with Abram again, and then conceived and bore Ishmael. This interpretation may in some way lessen the status of Ishmael, but either way, Ishmael remains the first born of Abram, whether or not he was the first pregnancy of his mother.
Note that in this conversation, the messenger calls Hagar by name, making her the first woman in Torah to be called by name by God. She responds in kind, calling God a God of seeing, because God had seen her plight.
Hagar’s behavior in this story can be interpreted as either supporting or contradicting the Midrash of her being one of Pharoah’s daughters. Pregnant Hagar’s arrogance towards Sarai becomes more understandable if she was carrying a potential prince of Egypt as well as a baby for Abram and Sarai to raise. On the other hand, if she were a princess of Egypt wouldn’t she have gone there when she ran away from Sarai?
According to Islamic tradition, when Hagar and Ishmael are expelled from Abraham’s household following the birth of Isaac, they eventually settle in Mecca. This also argues against Hagar being Egyptian royalty.
In preparing for this drash I thought of two issues that were not addressed in the Midrashim I read. Assuming that Hagar, whether or not she was Pharoah’s daughter, came back to Canaan with Abram and Sarai when they left Egypt, had been in their household for several, some say ten, years before Sarai brings up the possibility of Hagar bearing a child for her. What were those ten years like? What was the nature of the relationship between Sarai and Hagar during that time? Perhaps Hagar, the most common meaning of the name being "the fugitive", had been a slave in Pharoah’s house, met Sarai there, and then saw coming to Canaan with Sarai’s family as a chance to escape her previous life?
Related to this very open question of the preexisting relationship between Sarai and Hagar is the question of why Sarai, or God, chose Hagar for this mission. Torah makes it clear that Abram was a very wealthy man, with too large a household, to many flocks, and too many slaves, to share large swaths of land with his own nephew. Certainly, in his household there were many female slaves, and Sarai could have chosen any one to bear a child for her. But she chose Hagar. Why?
While I hope these questions inspire the novelists among us, the Torah is clear that Sarai, later Sarah, did not do right by Hagar. She is cruel to her during her pregnancy, and then more than thirteen years later, following the birth of her own son Isaac, expels Hagar and Ishmael from her house and community. Nachmanides attributed the Islamic Jewish conflicts of his era to the mistreatment of Hagar by Sarah, and the tension between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael is felt again in our own times. We pray regularly in the Birkat Hamazon for peace between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael.
It is only in the Midrash about Hagar returning to Abraham as Ketura that we can find some healing and wholeness from this conflict. The Midrash says that during her entire time in exile, Hagar had not had sexual relationships with other men, such that she was an adornment, the meaning of Ketur, when she returned to Abraham as his wife. There are Islamic sources that refer to Abraham visiting Hagar and Ishmael in Mecca during the interim between her leaving Abraham’s household as the mistreated and exiled handmaid and returning, after the death of Sarah, as his wife.
I want to close with a quote from Dalia Marx, a professor at HUC Jerusalem in a drash posted on the Netivot Shalom Website.
"Each of us is Hagar sometimes - lost and abandoned in the middle of the wilderness, standing hopelessly and full of yearning in the face of dangers that beset that which is dear to us.
Each of us is Abraham sometimes - torn between our great loves and unable to repair the tears.
Each of us is Sarah sometimes - hurt and abandoned and feeling forsaken, even within our own homes and families.
May we not have to wait a generation's time for repair and consolation! May we learn to open our eyes and see a well of living waters and pour balm over the wounds of the past!"
For myself, I add, May we always hear the voices of the angel in the wilderness.
Shabbat Shalom.