In a society that values the rugged individual, the go-it-alone type, above all else, it is often hard to fathom the biblical-rabbinic commitment to the community and to the people as a whole. We moderns are so used to elevating our own concerns above that over the society, to pursuing our private happiness, even when at the expense of others and of our planet, that we look with horror on any assertions of the priority of the communal and the shared.
It’s not hard to see why we cherish the individual so highly. American democracy is founded on the ideal of each individual retaining a wide range of freedoms in which to blossom in a unique way, untrammeled by governmental edict or ideological tyranny of any sort. Thinking for ourselves, acting on our own, the vitality of our country and its cultures attest to the rich reward that individual liberty can bestow.
Yet we also pay a cost for the “me first” mentality. Our pursuit of private gain has produced a deep rift between those who have and those who don’t, creating great animosity from those whose ancestors immigrated to America toward those bold souls who have the courage and the vision to come here now. We have forgotten the art of good manners, since it doesn’t conform to immediate gratification, and we no longer cultivate civic mindedness and volunteerism, since time spent on others is time wasted. Our planet is battered by our selfishness; our skies and our waters, filthy and assaulted by our greed.
Today’s Torah portion speaks of putting the self first. God offers a reward to Avram, our first patriarch, because of his devotion to God and mitzvot. And Avram’s response is “Lord Adonai, what can You give me, seeing that I shall die childless…” In response to Avram’s cry that he is without child, God arranges for Avram to have a child through his wife’s handmaid, through Hagar.
Almost immediately, we are told, trouble breaks out in Avram’s household. Sarai, Avram’s wife, is lowered in Hagar’s esteem. In her bitterness and humiliation, Sarai turns on her husband: “The wrong done me is your fault! I myself put my maid in your bosom; now that she sees that she is pregnant, I am lowered in her esteem.”
Careful readers of Torah will have trouble understanding Sarai’s response. How is it Avram’s fault that Hagar became pregnant when it was Sarai, in the first place, who proposed that Avram should consort with her maid? God didn’t suggest it. Avram didn’t suggest it. Sarai did. All Avram did was to go along with his wife’s suggestion for a way to bear a child. So how could Sarai now turn around and accuse Avram of being at fault?
How is Avram to blame?
The ancient rabbis of Bereshit Rabbah, scrupulous and sensitive readers of Torah, explain this verse through the words of Rabbi Judah, “You wrong me with words, since you heard me be insulted and you were silent.” Avram should have spoken out on his wife’s behalf. His silence is his responsibility and his culpability.
How was Avram silent?
The rabbis compare this case to one in which two men are imprisoned. The king passes their cell and one of them cries out “Spare me!” upon which the king orders that man released from incarceration. As he leaves, the other prisoner shouts to him “I have a grievance against you, for had you just said, ‘Spare us!’ I would be released too. But since you didn’t, he released you but not me.” In precisely the same way, when God made a generous offer to Avram, the patriarch of our people could have said “What can You give to us, seeing that we shall die childless…” then God might have acted to assist Sarai along with Avram. Instead, great spiritual force that he was, Avram’s focus on his own misery — exclusive of his wife’s sorrow — resulted in a solution of only his childlessness too. And getting what he thought he wanted, as opposed to getting what his family needed, turned out to be a disaster for all.
Avram, we are told, was a righteous man, noted for his goodness, compassion, and his generosity. Yet even he slipped into the solipsism of thinking only of himself. He and his community paid a terrible price for that self-centeredness. How much the more so must we, lacking in Avram’s moral greatness, accustomed to selfishness and autonomy, wonder what legacy our training in the pursuit of our own happiness will leave for those we love.
Sarai’s cry accuses us all: “My lack is yours!” In defining our happiness too narrowly, in seeing our own interests in too small a circle, we confine ourselves within walls too constraining for comfort or security. Unless we learn to see “us” in “me” and “them,” there won’t be much happiness for anyone at all. Al tifrosh min ha-tzibbur, don’t separate yourself from the community. Ultimately, it’s all we have.
Shabbat shalom.