Vayera 5786
The Birth of Redemption
The Double Prophecy: Hidden Knowledge, Prayer, and Divine Creation
Dedication
In loving memory of my mother
Rivkah Riva bat Nechemia Meir v’ Mindel A”H
PRELUDE
We gather this week in proximity to loss. My mother passed away. We are in a period of mourning—the days when her absence is most felt, when silence seems the only honest response.
Yet we gather to study. Because in Jewish tradition, we honor the dead through learning. We carry their names forward through engagement with text. This is how we say Kaddish not as rote prayer, but as a declaration: the mission continues, the pattern endures, we climb down from the altar of death to continue the work.
My mother's life was not merely personal narrative. It was lived midrash. It was Torah embodied.
The text we study—Sarah's transformation, her becoming young again, her bearing a child at ninety—is not ancient history distant from us. It is her story. It is all our stories. The pattern of impossibility, divine intervention, and miraculous survival that defines Jewish existence was written into her life as plainly as it was written into the Torah.
We begin with her memory. We proceed with her life as our guide. When we encounter Sarah on the page, we encounter my mother. When we understand Sarah's transformation, we understand the redemption that brought my mother into being and sustained her for ninety-one years.
This is how we study. This is how we remember.
Why does God announce Yitzchak's birth twice?
In Bereishit 17, God appears to Avraham and declares that Sarah will bear a son. Just one chapter later, in Bereishit 18, divine messengers arrive at Avraham's tent and announce to Sarah herself that she will conceive. The repetition is extraordinary. It demands explanation.
The two announcements are not redundant. They reveal different dimensions of the same miracle. They are structured to different purposes, spoken in different registers, aimed at different audiences. Yet together they create a pattern that illuminates something essential about how God works in history, about the nature of transformation, about the theology of hidden impossibility. This essay examines what the text itself reveals through the structure of its dual prophecies—what we are meant to learn by reading one announcement against the other.
Bereishit 18 is a continuation of Bereishit 17, woven together through thematic and textual connection. The opening phrase Vayeira eilav Hashem be'Eilonei Mamrei—"And the Lord appeared to him at the Oaks of Mamre"—refers back: who is "him"? Avraham, from the previous parasha. The text practically begs us to realize we are continuing where we left off. Avraham is still in the aftermath of his Brit Milah, his circumcision, performed in Bereishit 17. This context is essential. One cannot read this chapter without holding Bereishit 17 absolutely in mind. The continuation is not optional; it is woven into the very grammar and reference of the text.
Avraham is still weak from his surgical wound. He is still in the transformation that comes with the Brit Milah. And now, in this condition, the angels arrive with the announcement.
Avraham and Sarah are now called by their transformed names. In Bereishit 18, when the text reads vayimahir Avraham ha'ohela el-Sarah, the use of these new names signals something crucial. These are no longer Abram and Sarai. These are Avraham and Sarah.
וַיְמַהֵ֧ר אַבְרָהָ֛ם הָאֹ֖הֱלָה אֶל־שָׂרָ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר מַהֲרִ֞י שְׁלֹ֤שׁ סְאִים֙ קֶ֣מַח סֹ֔לֶת ל֖וּשִׁי וַעֲשִׂ֥י עֻגֽוֹת:
The names have been changed as of Bereishit 17. The new names signal what? Transformation. But the promise of children—hasn't been fulfilled yet. The text announces the names before the reality arrives. This creates the tension underlying everything. The names promise what is not yet visible, what seems impossible.
When Avraham hears the promise in Bereishit 17:17, his response is immediate and direct. He falls on his face and laughs, saying in his heart: "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?"
וַיִּפֹּ֧ל אַבְרָהָ֛ם עַל־פָּנָ֖יו וַיִּצְחָ֑ק וַיֹּ֣אמֶר בְּלִבּ֗וֹ הַלְּבֶ֤ן מֵאָֽה־שָׁנָה֙ יִוָּלֵ֔ד וְאִ֨ם־שָׂרָ֔ה הֲבַת־תִּשְׁעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה תֵּלֵֽד:
When Sarah overhears the visitors in Bereishit 18:12, she too responds with laughter, but with a different focus. She laughs within herself, saying: "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my husband being old also?"
(יא) וְאַבְרָהָ֤ם וְשָׂרָה֙ זְקֵנִ֔ים בָּאִ֖ים בַּיָּמִ֑ים חָדַל֙ לִהְי֣וֹת לְשָׂרָ֔ה אֹ֖רַח כַּנָּשִֽׁים: (יב) וַתִּצְחַ֥ק שָׂרָ֖ה בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ לֵאמֹ֑ר אַחֲרֵ֤י בְלֹתִי֙ הָֽיְתָה־לִּ֣י עֶדְנָ֔ה וַֽאדֹנִ֖י זָקֵֽן:
Notice what both are fixated on: age. The visible, comprehensible obstacle. Avraham focuses on his own age: "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?" Sarah focuses on hers: "I am old." Age is what captures their attention. Age is what they perceive as the impossibility. Both Avraham and Sarah are reacting to what they can see, what they understand, what falls within the realm of human experience.
But the narrator has already told us something they apparently don't know. Back in Bereishit 11:30, we read: "Now Sarai was barren; she had no child."
וַתְּהִ֥י שָׂרַ֖י עֲקָרָ֑ה אֵ֥ין לָ֖הּ וָלָֽד:
This is not Avraham's thought. This is not Sarah's understanding. This is the narrator speaking directly to us, the readers. The narrator's plain statement: she was barren. Not merely temporarily infertile. Barren. The Hebrew word akarah carries the weight of permanence, of nature, of structural incapacity. It speaks to something deeply rooted, something essential.
The Radak notes on this verse with remarkable precision: "It relates that Sarai was barren and did not give birth except through a miracle that God performed with Avraham—a miracle within a miracle, for she was barren and gave birth, and furthermore she was ninety years old when she gave birth." The Radak employs the phrase nes betoch nes—miracle within a miracle—as the key to understanding the structure.[1] The Siftei Kohen elaborates: "A miracle within a miracle—not only that she was barren, but after despair, for even if she had been capable of bearing children, after she aged and her cycle ceased, it would no longer be possible to give birth."[2]
This is crucial. The impossibility is not singular but dual—layered, compounded, multiplied. Avraham and Sarah see one impossibility: age. We, guided by the narrator, see two: barrenness and age. Not merely the obstacle of advancing years, but the structural incapacity that predates that aging. Structural barrenness combined with post-menopausal biology. Two separate impossibilities, each formidable on its own, now combining to create an obstacle that seems absolute.
The Gemara in Yevamot (64b) states this with clinical precision, pushing the interpretation further: "Our mother Sarah was congenitally barren, as it says 'Now Sarai was barren, she had no child'—she didn't even have a womb." The statement is stark. Not merely incapacitated. Not merely unable to conceive due to injury or disease. The organ itself never existed. She lacked the biological capacity entirely, from birth.[3]
And yet—Avraham and Sarah know nothing of this. They see only age. They are protected from full knowledge of the impossibility. Protected so that they can pray. Protected so that hope remains possible.
The Gemara in Berakhot (54a) teaches a principle about the nature of prayer itself. There exists a category of prayer called tefillat shav—vain prayer. One who cries out over the past—this is a vain prayer. If a woman is pregnant and he says, "May it be God's will that my wife give birth to a boy"—this is a vain prayer, for the gender is already determined. If one was coming on the road, heard a scream in the city, and says, "May it be God's will that this didn't happen in my house"—this is a vain prayer, for it either happened or it didn't.[4]
The principle is clear: We cannot pray for what is already determined. The past cannot be changed through prayer. Established facts cannot be altered. This is not a limitation of divine power, but a recognition that prayer operates in the realm of genuine possibility, not in reversing what has already occurred. Prayer touches the future and the uncertain. It does not reach backward to undo the fixed past.
Yet paradoxically, the Shita Mekubetzet (Ketubot 104a) raises a severe teaching. It tells of the day Yehudah Nasi died. A proclamation was made: "Whoever says that Yehudah Nasi is dead will be stabbed with a sword." It is a harsh decree, seemingly illogical. Either he is dead or he is not dead. How can a proclamation change that reality?
The Shita Mekubetzet's reasoning is extraordinary. It explains: "For if they knew with certainty that he died, they would not seek mercy for him, for the revival of the dead would not be even for them to seek. Rather, this teaches that even if he died and they don't know that he is dead, they sought mercy for him by virtue of the presumption that he is alive, so that he might live through their prayer."[5]
The principle revealed is stark: Once people believe something is impossible, they stop praying. Hope dies. Prayer ceases. The psychological certainty of impossibility kills the very thing that could change the situation. The mind gives up before God has a chance to act. The decree to remain silent about death was not about denying reality but about preserving the capacity to pray, which requires hope.
There is a profound tension here that the tradition holds in creative suspension. On one hand, we cannot pray for what is already determined—the past is fixed, facts are facts. Yet on the other hand, we must not declare situations hopeless, lest prayer cease entirely and the future become equally fixed. Prayer operates in a zone of genuine possibility—not in reversing facts that are truly established, but in opening futures that have not yet crystallized into fact. The boundary between these two realms is delicate. What crosses that boundary? What we know to be impossible versus what we believe to be impossible.
Had Avraham known the full impossibility—that Sarah had never conceived in all her years, that her barrenness was structural and ontological, that she didn't even possess a womb—he would have understood, correctly, that this falls outside the realm of prayer. It would be like praying to change the past. Like praying to alter established biology. He would have known it was impossible. And in that knowing, he would have ceased to pray.
Instead, Avraham is protected from full knowledge. He is allowed to perceive only one obstacle: age. Advanced age is daunting, yes. But it is not categorically impossible. There are rare cases in human history; age leaves room for hope. Age leaves room for prayer. A man one hundred years old and a woman ninety years old conceiving is extraordinarily unlikely—but it is not metaphysically impossible in the way that creating a womb that never existed is impossible.
And God, through the dual prophecy, hints at something deeper beneath the surface. Why is God announcing this twice? Why does the text repeat the promise? The repetition itself becomes pedagogical. It whispers: It's worse than you think. Yet I will still fulfill it. To us, the readers positioned above the narrative, the narrator reveals what the characters cannot know: the full scope of the impossibility. We see the miracle within a miracle. We understand what Avraham and Sarah are being spared from knowing. We understand that God's promise transcends even what we think is absolutely impossible.
This is why there are two prophecies. The first prophecy maintains hope and prayer in the present moment. Avraham can think: 'She's old, but I can still pray, I can still hope.' The second prophecy does not reveal anything new about the impossibility—it too focuses only on age, the same obstacle Avraham and Sarah perceive. But we as readers, armed with knowledge from Bereishit 11:30 where the narrator told us 'Sarai was barren,' understand that something far more dramatic must take place. It isn't merely turning back the clock to restore youth and fertility. It is fixing the clock entirely and giving it a new timepiece—creating biological capacity that never existed. The dual prophecies teach us that God can fulfill promises even when the obstacles are far deeper than the protagonists themselves comprehend.
Bereishit 18:2 introduces three visitors. The text itself states that Avraham "lifts up his eyes and sees three people." The visitors appear as people, as men. Yet tradition understands them to be angels—malachim—messengers. Rashi's reading makes explicit what the midrashic tradition has understood: each angel has a distinct mission. But the missions themselves are broader than they first appear. The angel Raphael is assigned to heal Avraham following his circumcision—mercy mediated through angelic agency for a body wounded in the cause of covenant. Yet this healing mission does not end with Avraham. Rashi notes that this same angel, after completing his work with Avraham, then proceeds to Lot to save him. So the 'healing' mission encompasses both Avraham's physical restoration and extends into merciful intervention on behalf of Lot.
Meanwhile, no angel is assigned to heal Sarah. This absence speaks volumes. She is not merely postmenopausal and in need of hormonal therapy. The real issue is not age, though that frames the visible obstacle. According to the text itself, she has structural barrenness. She has never been able to conceive. And if we follow the most radical reading from the Gemara, she lacks the biological apparatus entirely. What she requires is not healing—restoration of something previously functional. What she requires is creation itself. What she requires is what no angel can provide.
And here is where the text teaches us something remarkable through its very structure. Avraham undergoes healing. An angel is assigned to restore him. This is restoration after circumcision. The angel Raphael mediates this divine care. Avraham's body is tended, his wound is healed, he recovers.
Sarah undergoes something entirely different. No angel is assigned to heal her. No angel can heal her. And do you know why? Because she doesn't need healing. Healing implies restoring something to its previous functional state—repairing what was broken, curing what was diseased, returning it to normalcy. But Sarah was never fertile. There is no previous state to restore. There is no womb to heal; the Gemara tells us she never had one.
What Sarah receives is not healing but transformation—the creation of something entirely new.God doesn't restore a previously existing capacity. God creates, from nothing, something that never existed. This is why no angel can do it. This is why God must act directly.
But here is the critical point: It is not that simply an old woman was given the capacity to bear children. Rather, Sarah underwent a dramatic transformation into something she never was—a young woman, biologically capable for the first time in her life of bearing a child. She did not regain youth; she experienced youth as a new creation. The difference is decisive: restoration implies returning to a previous state; creation implies bringing into being what had never existed before.
The narrative immediately proves this through its very logic. Just two chapters later, in Bereishit 20, after the birth announcement in Bereishit 18, we read something striking. Avraham fears for his safety and tells the court of Gerar that Sarah is his sister. Avimelech, king of Gerar, "sent and took Sarah." She is chronologically ninety years old.
Now, here is the narrative puzzle: Why would Avimelech desire a ninety-year-old woman? The question seems to answer itself—it doesn't make sense. Yet Avraham fears Avimelech will take his wife, and indeed he does.
This only makes sense in one way. If she has become young again—if she has been restored to physical youth—then the entire narrative logic of Bereishit 20 makes sense. If the divine transformation included not merely restored fertility but actual physical rejuvenation, then Avimelech's interest is comprehensible. Sarah does not simply regain lost capacity; she undergoes restoration of her physical youth. But here is the critical theological point: what God creates is not merely "youth" as such—which Sarah experienced decades earlier—but rather youth conjoined with biological fertility for the first time in her existence. Throughout her youth, she was barren. She never experienced youth as a fertile woman. Now, at the moment of her restoration, she becomes something her younger self never was: a young woman capable of conception. The transformation is not merely temporal regression. It is the creation of a new state: fertile youth, which has never existed within her before. She underwent physical transformation so complete that a foreign king desires her—not as a restored shadow of her former self, but as a woman in the fullness of reproductive capacity.
And the text itself bears witness. A ninety-year-old woman cannot be attractive enough to tempt a king. A young woman can. A ninety-year-old woman cannot conceive. A young fertile woman can. The narrative testifies to what occurred: not mere restoration of youth, but the creation of a state Sarah never experienced—youth unified with the biological capacity for motherhood.
This proves it in the text itself. No angel does this. No angel can do this. This is God acting directly, creating what was not.
Sarah undergoes transformation the same way Avraham underwent transformation through Brit Milah, but in a different register. Avraham becomes a ger—a proselyte, spiritually a new person through the covenant marked on his flesh. The circumcision marks the body. The name change marks his identity. He has been transformed into Avraham, the father of multitudes.
Sarah also undergoes transformation—not through a ritual mark like circumcision, but through direct physical metamorphosis. And here lies a decisive parallel: just as Avraham could not father Yitzchak without transformation—the brit milah requiring the restoration and renewal of his sexual capacity—Sarah could not bear a child without equivalent transformation. Both underwent rejuvenation of their reproductive capacities. Where Avraham bears the covenant written upon his flesh in circumcision, Sarah bears the reality of transformation in her entire being: physical youth renewed, fertility created where it had never existed.
This is not metaphorical. Avraham's transformation enabled fatherhood; Sarah's transformation enabled motherhood. Both required direct divine action because both transformations went beyond healing—they were creations. Neither restoration of lost function, but creation of unprecedented capacity. The brit milah marks Avraham's body; Sarah's transformation marks her entire person. Both are equally profound, equally total.
But here is the decisive difference: Avraham performed the brit milah on himself—a commandment he executed through his own agency. Yet the inner transformation it effected—the restoration of his sexual capacity—came from God alone. God commanded; Avraham acted; but God performed the deeper metamorphosis. With Sarah, there is no commandment, no human agency, no intermediary of any kind. God acts directly, immediately, upon her entire being. She becomes young. She becomes fertile. She becomes capable of motherhood for the first time in her existence. This is pure divine creation, unmediated by ritual, unperformed by human hands, accomplished by God Himself and no other.
Here we encounter a profound paradox. It is much deeper than we realize, deeper than the protagonists themselves realized. Essentially, what happened is impossible—and yet nothing is impossible for God. This is the foundation upon which the entire theology of redemption rests: the conviction that transformation transcends the boundaries of the natural world, that creation exceeds restoration, that God's power is infinite.
The entire theological structure of transformation and rebirth flows from Bereishit Rabbah 53:5. This midrashic passage is dense with meaning, weaving together Bereishit 21:1 ("And God remembered Sarah") with profound textual connections that establish Sarah's story within the larger covenantal narrative. The midrash begins by connecting Sarah's remembrance to God's faithfulness to Avraham: "And God remembered Sarah. [This is connected to the verse] 'That You have kept for Your servant David my father what You spoke to him.' 'That You have kept for Your servant'—this is Avraham. 'What You spoke to him'—'At the appointed time I will return to you.'" The midrash places Sarah's story not in isolation but within Avraham's covenant. Her remembrance is connected to God's faithfulness to Avraham's promise. This establishes Sarah not as a separate story but as woven into the larger arc of covenant.[6]
But the midrash's deepest insight connects Sarah to Psalm 113, a psalm that would become foundational to Jewish liturgy, especially in the Hallel recited at Pesach.[7] The midrash quotes: "He makes the barren woman dwell in her house as a joyful mother of children. Hallelujah." The midrash explicitly identifies Sarah as this barren woman: "He makes the barren woman dwell in her house—this is Sarah, 'Now Sarai was barren,' a joyful mother of children—as it says 'Who would have said to Avraham that Sarah would nurse children.'"
This is the title of Sarah's transformation, what becomes her destiny: Em HaBanim Semeicha—a joyful mother of children. Not merely a mother, but a joyful one. Not merely bearing a child, but experiencing the profound joy and fulfillment of motherhood.
The midrash then presents three interpretations of how this transformation occurred, each revealing a different dimension of the miracle.
The midrash asks: In the phrase "And God remembered Sarah as He had said," what does "as He had said" refer to? One answer: what He said to her directly. "And God did for Sarah as He had spoken"—what He spoke to her through an angel. In this reading, the announcement came through an intermediary, but the fulfillment came directly from God.
But Rabbi Nehemiah offers an alternative reading that reverses this: "And God remembered Sarah as He had said"—what He said to her through an angel. "And God did for Sarah as He had spoken"—what He Himself said to her. In this reading, God's direct word is what gets fulfilled.
Either way, the principle remains the same: direct divine action, not mediated through intermediaries. No angel is assigned to perform Sarah's transformation. God Himself is responsible. This is why later, when we speak of the Exodus, the text insists: "Not through an angel, not through a seraph, not through a messenger, but God Himself." This same principle operates here with Sarah.[8]
Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Nehemiah debate whether the phrase "for a blessing with milk" in Psalm 113 refers to nursing. Does the phrase about nursing milk indicate that Sarah simply nursed the child? Rabbi Nehemiah responds with an insight: "But she was already promised [a child when nursing was mentioned with] milk! Rather, this teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, restored her to the days of her youth." The midrash does not speak metaphorically. Sarah was actually restored. Physically rejuvenated. Returned to the days of her youth. This is literal, not symbolic. This explains why King Avimelech desires her—she didn't merely become fertile; she became young.
Most striking is the statement attributed to Rabbi Yehuda, in the name of Reish Lakish: "She had no womb at all, and the Holy One, blessed be He, carved out a womb for her." Notice the verb carefully: glaf—to carve, to fashion, to sculpt. Not to heal, not to restore. To create. This is the crucial theological point. God is not healing Sarah. God is fashioning, crafting, creating something entirely new.
The verb choice is deliberate and extraordinary. When we heal, we restore what was damaged. When we cure, we return something to its previous functional state. But when we carve and fashion, we bring into being what did not exist. The verb suggests divine artistry, divine craftsmanship, divine power working at the level of generation itself. God is not mending what is broken. God is bringing into existence what was absent from the very foundation of Sarah's being.
The midrash concludes with Rabbi Ada's meditation on divine recompense, a principle that extends the transformation beyond Sarah herself to her descendants: "Rabbi Ada said: I am a keeper of deposits. Amalek deposited with Me bundles of thorns, and the Holy One, blessed be He, returned to him bundles of thorns... Sarah deposited with Me mitzvot and good deeds, and the Holy One, blessed be He, returned to her mitzvot and good deeds." This principle establishes that Avraham and Sarah's spiritual inheritance is not merely personal but generational. The trials that establish Sarah's transformation also establish a pattern of redemption for her descendants. What we build spiritually—our mitzvot, our good deeds, our faithfulness—becomes encoded as inheritance for generations to come.
Later in the parsha, Avraham's fundamental worldview is revealed through his response to the announcement of Sodom's destruction. In Bereishit 18:23-25, Avraham approaches God with an extraordinary plea: "Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?" This response reveals a contrast between two possible visions of how the world operates.
There is one worldview, represented in Noach's time, that operates with static judgment. In that view, all bad will perish and all righteous will survive. The result is the flood—complete destruction. The wicked are removed; the righteous are saved. The world is sorted into categories, and the categories are fixed.
But Avraham operates from a different worldview. He does not accept static judgment. When told that Sodom will be destroyed, he doesn't say, "Excellent, get rid of the wicked." Instead, he says, "Maybe there's some good in this place. Maybe things can be transformed. Destruction is not the answer." He argues, with escalating urgency, for mercy over destruction. He does this seemingly opposite of what you'd expect. The natural response would be: "Get rid of the wicked, raise the righteous." But Avraham says: "Maybe there's some righteous people, save the whole city."
The same tension appears earlier in the parsha with Yishmael. Avraham knows from God that Yishmael will be rejected in favor of Yitzchak as the son of promise. The future lines of the covenant will not flow through Yishmael but through Yitzchak and Sarah. Yet Avraham responds: "O that Yishmael might live before You!" Avraham doesn't accept the rejection. He wants to keep Yishmael "within the fold," to continue relating to him, to maintain relationship even within the new covenantal structure. He wants to hold on to Yishmael because Avraham believes in transformation, not rejection.[9]
Avraham's entire project rests on a radical theological conviction: the world is fundamentally redeemable. This is not naive optimism but a deep conviction born of faith in God's creative power. For if the world cannot be transformed—if the wicked cannot become righteous, if the barren cannot bear children, if the enslaved cannot be freed—then how can one man, with perhaps one woman, stand against an entire culture and claim to effect change? Avraham's solitary defiance of Sodom, his intercession for mercy rather than destruction, his refusal to accept the rejection of Yishmael: these actions are only comprehensible if he believes transformation is possible.
This is why Avraham cannot accept a static view of the world. He does not divide humanity into permanent categories of righteous and wicked, saved and damned. Instead, he believes in the power of transformation itself—that God's creative power can establish what was not, that redemption is available, that the future is not fixed by the past.
Bereishit 18:6 records Avraham's instruction to Sarah. He tells her to hurry, to quickly prepare three seahs of fine flour, to knead it, and to make ugot (matzot—unleavened cakes). The word ugot appears here at the moment of Yitzchak's birth announcement. This is not coincidental.
The word ugot is found together with matzot when the unleavened bread of Pesach is described later in the Torah (Shemot 12:39),as the bread to be eaten at the celebration of freedom and redemption. This textual echo connects Avraham's preparation of unleavened bread to the future commemoration of the Exodus—a pattern the midrash explicitly recognizes. Indeed, matzot appear again when Lot flees Sodom in Bereishit 19:3, where Lot too offers the divine messengers unleavened bread. The appearance of unleavened bread in moments of salvation, transformation, and divine intervention is not random; it is a theological signature in the text.
Rashi notes the connection in Bereishit 18:10 with precision: "At this time next year—it was Pesach. Next Pesach Yitzchak was born." The connection is not merely linguistic but theological. The text is establishing that Yitzchak's birth occurs at Pesach, at the festival of redemption and freedom.[10]
Bereishit 15 in the Brit beinHabitarim God prophesies to Avraham: "Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land for 400 years." This prophecy contains an implicit question: When do the 400 years begin? When does the clock start ticking?
The answer comes from the biblical and rabbinic chronology: Yitzchak's birth marks the beginning of the exile. According to Seder Olam Rabbah, Yitzchak was born on Pesach, the fifteenth day of Nisan. The precision of the text is remarkable: from Yitzchak's birth to the Exodus from Egypt is precisely 400 years. And Yitzchak is born on Pesach, the very festival that will commemorate the escape from Egypt.
This chronological connection is not arbitrary. The appearance of ugot in Bereishit 18:6—the cakes Sarah bakes when she learns of Yitzchak's imminent birth—echoes the ugot matzot that the Israelites will bake at the moment of their liberation 400 years hence. Avraham serves unleavened bread at the announcement of redemption's beginning; his descendants will eat unleavened bread at redemption's fulfillment. The pattern is complete: Sarah's cakes foreshadow the Exodus; Yitzchak's birth on Pesach establishes the date from which the 400-year exile will be counted.
Ugot Matzot are round—circular cakes. Circles represent cycles, repetition, ongoing patterns. The round Ugot Matzot encode the cyclical nature of redemption. There is a pattern: dual impossibility, then divine intervention, then miraculous deliverance, then joyful continuation, and then the cycle repeats. Each generation faces its own Red Sea. Each generation must choose to trust in redemption or to despair. Each generation can embody the pattern or break it.
Most of us need to thrust ourselves back into the recesses of our collective memory and remember that day that we left Egypt. But what does Avraham have to do? He has to anticipate the future. He has to anticipate the day that his descendants will leave Egypt. Avraham is not commemorating what has already happened. He is celebrating what will happen. He has not yet left Egypt—that is 400 years away. Yet he celebrates Pesach now, in faith.
Avraham celebrates Pesach before Pesach happens. His faith is so complete, his trust in the divine promise so absolute, that he celebrates their liberation as if it has already occurred. Avraham serves ugot matzot—round unleavened bread—not because he is commanded to do so, but because his emunah (faith) anticipates the redemption his children will experience. He lives the pattern before the pattern happens.
This anticipatory faith becomes a family inheritance. When the angels visit him in Bereishit 18, he serves ugot matzot. And remarkably, when those same angels later visit Lot in Sodom in Bereishit 19, Lot also serves matzot. The pattern of faith and redemption is transmitted through Avraham's household. Those who have lived in Avraham's tent and absorbed his vision understand the cycle of redemption. They recognize in unleavened bread the signature of divine deliverance.
The parsha contains the seeds of the entire redemptive narrative. Personal transformation (Sarah), covenantal rejection and acceptance (Yishmael and Yitzchak), the rescue (of Lot), all woven through Bereishit 17-19. The text teaches through narrative detail: through what is served at the table, what shape the bread takes, what time of year it occurs. Pesach. Round bread. The cycle of return. These are not decorative details; they are theological signatures embedded in the text itself.
Egypt is woven throughout from the very beginning of Avraham's story, not introduced for the first time at the Exodus. It is not a surprise element. It is a constant, encoded presence, foreshadowed in the narrative from the start.
Immediately after arriving in Eretz Yisrael, Avraham goes down to Egypt. Bereishit 12 records this descent. Pharaoh attempts to take Sarah. And what happens? He receives makot—plagues. Avraham departs with "great wealth." The Ramban notes, pointing to Midrashic interpretation, that this pattern is intentional, not accidental. Right there in Avraham's own journey, we have the Egypt story replayed in miniature: plague, deliverance, wealth obtained through God's intervention. The exodus from Egypt is not a new narrative; it is the fulfillment of a pattern already established in Avraham's life.
The Targum Yonatan on Bereishit 16:1 identifies Hagar as Bat Pharaoh, daughter of Pharaoh who was given to him as a maidservant. This is significant. This is not merely incidental information. When the Jews leave Egypt centuries later, who leaves with them? Bat Pharaoh leaves. According to Divrei HaYamim, Bitya (the daughter of Pharaoh) leaves Egypt, converts, and marries an Israelite. She becomes part of the redeemed people.
Why does this matter? Why is the Maase Avot—the pattern of the fathers—so important? Because the national story must contain the pattern established in the beginning. What happens at the beginning foreshadows what will happen nationally. Hagar Bat Pharaoh as part of Avraham's story foreshadows Bat Pharaoh leaving in the Exodus. "There you have the Banim"—the sons—because the national story contains this Egyptian strand from its inception.
Later, Bereishit 21:21 records: "And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took for him a wife from Egypt." Yishmael marries someone from Egypt. He carries Egyptian lineage forward. Through Yishmael, there is an Egyptian strand woven into Avraham's family. "What the subtext is: It's this Avraham and Sarah story. But from the very beginning there has been this Egypt aspect to it." Egypt is not external. Egypt is part of the story from the beginning. It is woven through the household. It is part of the very tissue of the narrative.
Egypt is woven throughout Avraham's story from the very beginning, not introduced for the first time at the Exodus. It is a constant, encoded presence, foreshadowed in the narrative from the start.
Already in Parashat Lech Lecha, the Egypt motif appears. Immediately after arriving in Eretz Yisrael, Avraham goes down to Egypt (Bereishit 12). Pharaoh attempts to take Sarah. And what happens? He receives makot—plagues. Avraham departs with rekesh gadol—"great wealth." The Ramban notes, pointing to Midrashic interpretation, that this pattern is intentional, not accidental. Right there in Avraham's own journey, we have the Egypt story replayed in miniature: plague, deliverance, wealth obtained through God's intervention.
This orientation toward Egypt versus covenant becomes a defining choice in Avraham's family. In the same parsha, when Avraham and Lot separate, Lot looks around and chooses. Bereishit13:10 states that Lot "gazed upon the entire plain of the Jordan, which was well-watered everywhere...like the land of Egypt." The text makes the comparison explicit. Lot sees a place that reminds him of Egypt and chooses it. He chooses to move toward what is familiar, toward Egypt-like fertility and ease, away from the covenantal promise Avraham has embraced. Where Avraham remains in the land of covenant, trusting the promise despite the visible landscape favoring Lot's choice, Lot chooses the tangible over the covenantal.
Later, in Parashat Vayera, this Egypt-covenant divide becomes even more acute. The parsha itself contains the seeds of the Exodus narrative: Sarah's transformation, the promises fulfilled, the pattern of redemption encoded in unleavened bread and the announcement of Yitzchak's birth on Pesach. The narrative structure teaches through contrast: those aligned with covenant and divine promise move toward redemption; those aligned with Egypt move away from it. The text makes clear which choice Avraham makes and which choice Lot makes.
The choice is encoded in the text from the beginning. There are two orientations available: toward covenant, toward the future, toward freedom. Or toward Egypt, toward the past, toward what is comfortable even if it captivates and destroys. The text makes clear which choice Avraham makes—he remains in the land of covenant, trusting God's promise—and which choice Lot makes. Lot pitches his tent toward Sodom, the city of wickedness.
This clarity is not accidental. Avraham's decision to remain in Canaan despite relinquishing the more fertile lands to Lot demonstrates his faith. He makes his decision not for himself but for God. Lot makes his decision for himself, seeing advantage and seizing it, looking backward to Egypt rather than forward to covenant. The narrative structure itself teaches through contrasting choices. In this parsha, we see the two paths laid bare: the way of redemption and the way of return to Egypt. The way of faith and the way of sight.
The Passover Haggadah emphasizes with unusual force a principle about divine action: "The Holy One, blessed be He, brought us out of Egypt—not through an angel, not through a seraph, not through a messenger, but the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself in His glory." Why does the Haggadah insist on this point? Why must it exclude angels? This is not a minor detail. This insistence reveals something fundamental about the nature of the Exodus.
The answer lies in understanding what Egypt represents. The narrow straits, the tzar—the constriction, the constraint, the place from which one cannot escape by normal means. The same root appears in meitzar, narrow straits and tight places. It appears in tzara, distress, anguish, trouble. And crucially, it appears in the imagery of labor and the birth canal. The narrow passage is not merely a place of confinement. It is the passage through which new life emerges.
This is why Psalm 118:5 declares: "From the narrow straits I called to God." These are not merely straits of distress. These are the narrow straits of labor, of birth, of emergence. The person in the narrow straits is going through the passage that leads from one state of being to another. From before birth to after birth. From slavery to freedom. From Egypt to Sinai to the promised land.
Shemot Rabbah (9:7) employs the same phrase nes betoch nes (miracle within a miracle) for both Sarah's conception and the Exodus. The Reed Sea splitting is compared to water breaking in labor. The people emerge as a newborn nation—reborn, not liberated. They are not returning to a previous state. They are being born for the first time as a nation.[11]
Shemot Rabbah (12:4) emphasizes the directness of divine action through its parallel to Sarah. It connects the thunder and hail of the plagues to "And God remembered Sarah—He and His heavenly court." God and His divine court gave the thunder and hail. The parallel to Sarah's remembrance is not accidental. Both are direct acts of divine will, not mediated through intermediaries. Both involve God acting directly, creating what was not.[12]
The Psalms recited as the Hallel prayer encode this progression with remarkable precision. Psalm 113 opens the Hallel cycle with Sarah's individual transformation. The psalm reads: "He raises the poor from the dust, lifts the needy from the dunghill, to seat them with princes, with the princes of His people. He transforms the barren woman into a joyful mother of children. Hallelujah."
תהלים פרק קיג פסוק ז - ט
(ז) מְקִֽימִ֣י מֵעָפָ֣ר דָּ֑ל מֵֽ֝אַשְׁפֹּ֗ת יָרִ֥ים אֶבְיֽוֹן: (ח) לְהוֹשִׁיבִ֥י עִם־נְדִיבִ֑ים עִ֝֗ם נְדִיבֵ֥י עַמּֽוֹ: (ט) מֽוֹשִׁיבִ֨י׀ עֲקֶ֬רֶת הַבַּ֗יִת אֵֽם־הַבָּנִ֥ים שְׂמֵחָ֗ה הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ:
This is Sarah's individual story: barrenness to joyful motherhood.
But Psalm 114, the very next psalm, immediately shifts to the national scale. It reads: "When Israel left Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange tongue, Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion. The sea saw and fled, the Jordan turned backward. The mountains danced like rams, the hills like young sheep."
תהלים פרק קיד
(א) בְּצֵ֣את יִ֭שְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם בֵּ֥ית יַ֝עֲקֹ֗ב מֵעַ֥ם לֹעֵֽז: (ב) הָיְתָ֣ה יְהוּדָ֣ה לְקָדְשׁ֑וֹ יִ֝שְׂרָאֵ֗ל מַמְשְׁלוֹתָֽיו: (ג) הַיָּ֣ם רָ֭אָה וַיָּנֹ֑ס הַ֝יַּרְדֵּ֗ן יִסֹּ֥ב לְאָחֽוֹר: (ד) הֶֽ֭הָרִים רָקְד֣וּ כְאֵילִ֑ים גְּ֝בָע֗וֹת כִּבְנֵי־צֹֽאן: (ה) מַה־לְּךָ֣ הַ֭יָּם כִּ֣י תָנ֑וּס הַ֝יַּרְדֵּ֗ן תִּסֹּ֥ב לְאָחֽוֹר: (ו) הֶֽ֭הָרִים תִּרְקְד֣וּ כְאֵילִ֑ים גְּ֝בָע֗וֹת כִּבְנֵי־צֹֽאן: (ז) מִלִּפְנֵ֣י אָ֭דוֹן ח֣וּלִי אָ֑רֶץ מִ֝לִּפְנֵ֗י אֱל֣וֹהַּ יַעֲקֹֽב: (ח) הַהֹפְכִ֣י הַצּ֣וּר אֲגַם־מָ֑יִם חַ֝לָּמִ֗ישׁ לְמַעְיְנוֹ־מָֽיִם:
The birth continues—national rebirth. The same pattern. The same transformation. But now at the level of the entire people.
The structural parallel is unmistakable and intentional. Psalm 113 presents the barren woman (Sarah) who becomes a joyful mother. Psalm 114 presents the enslaved people (Israel) who becomes God's nation. Same transformation at two scales. Individual birth; national birth. Both require God acting directly, not through intermediaries. Both are impossible by natural law. Both are acts of direct divine creation.
When we recite these psalms, we are not merely commemorating historical events. We are declaring that Sarah's miracle and the Exodus are one pattern at different scales. The individual redemption prefigures the collective. The transformation of one woman becomes the template for the transformation of a people. The pattern established in Bereishit continues into the future of the nation.
Sarah's impossibility is structural—she cannot bear children, she lacks the biological capacity, she has aged past the possibility of conception. Yet God creates what never existed. The result is a child born and a mother who becomes "Em HaBanim Semeicha."
Israel's impossibility is similarly total—enslaved for 400 years, surrounded by the Egyptian army, trapped between the pursuing Egyptians and the sea. Yet God acts directly, not through angel, not through intermediary. The result is a nation born, a people that becomes "God's people, His dominion."
The imagery in Psalm 114 is explicitly corporeal, anatomically resonant with the process of birth itself. "The sea saw and fled"—the waters part like amniotic fluid. The people pass through the opening in birth. "The Jordan turned backward"—water flows backwards, creating passage, like contractions reversing, opening the birth canal. "The mountains danced like rams"—the earth itself responds to the birth. Creation rejoices at the nation's emergence.
Psalm 113 ends with Hallelujah—"Praise God." Sarah has been transformed; the child is born; joy is complete. Psalm 114 follows: Israel has been born; God's dominion is established; the earth dances. Same hallelujah at national scale. The same praise that celebrates Sarah's individual redemption celebrates the people's collective redemption.
Not all commentators address the necessity of the dual prophecy. But the Radak does—both on Bereishit 11:30 and Bereishit 17:17. He notes with care: "God performed two miracles." Not one miracle with two aspects. But two separate miracles, two-fold impossibility requiring two-fold divine action.
The first prophecy in Bereishit 17 is heard by Avraham. The second prophecy in Bereishit 18 is heard by Sarah. Yet both focus on the same perceived obstacle—age. Both Avraham and Sarah react to what they can see, what they understand. "It sounds like they don't know. It sounds like they never knew. Why? Because they both focus on the age." Neither mentions barrenness. Neither seems aware of the deeper impossibility.
What Avraham and Sarah know is insufficient to comprehend the full miracle. But what they don't know is essential to preserve their hope and their prayer.
If Avraham knew the full impossibility—that Sarah had never conceived in all her years, that her barrenness was ontological and structural, that she didn't even possess a womb—he would understand, correctly, that this falls outside the realm of prayer. It would be like praying to change the past. Like praying to alter established biology. He would cease to pray.
Protected by not knowing: Avraham can pray. And God, through the structure of dual prophecies, provides what is needed. One prophecy to maintain hope in the present. One prophecy to reveal the impossibility to future readers. One voice to guide Avraham's prayer; one voice to teach us about the nature of God's power.
And God did a miracle within a miracle. And God allowed her to have a child.
The miracle within a miracle that defines Sarah's transformation establishes a theological pattern that extends throughout Jewish history. The principle is simple: God performs miracles that transcend human comprehension, miracles that we cannot even fully recognize as deserving prayer until they occur. We cannot pray for what appears absolutely impossible; only ignorance of the full impossibility allows prayer to persist. And yet, when such miracles occur—miracles within miracles—they become the foundation upon which Jewish survival rests.
This pattern established with Sarah's birth continues through the Akedah. Yitzchak is bound on the altar. The knife is raised. Ultimate impossibility—death descending toward his throat. Yet God calls out and spares him. An angel of the Lord calls from heaven: "Avraham! Avraham!" and tells him to take his hand from the boy. Yitzchak comes down from the altar. He descends alive.
This is the pattern of Jewish history: impossibility met by divine intervention; death averted at the moment of its apparent certainty; the future preserved through miraculous rescue. From Sarah's barrenness to Yitzchak's survival, from Egypt's plagues to the Exodus, the pattern repeats. And it continues into our own time, into our own families' histories—though often we recognize these miracles only in retrospect, when we look back and understand how close we came to not existing at all.
The pattern repeats. Sarah's conception was creation in the face of barrenness. Yitzchak's survival is preservation in the face of the knife. Both are expressions of the same divine power. Both teach that God gives new life where death threatened. The miracles are not isolated events. They are manifestations of a consistent principle: God acts directly to create and preserve life.
Immediately after miraculous birth comes precarious existence. Yitzchak emerges from Sarah's womb—immediately vulnerable to the natural world that should have rejected him as impossible. Israel emerges from Egypt—immediately threatened by Pharaoh's pursuing army. The pattern repeats: miraculous deliverance followed by immediate danger.
When Yitzchak is bound on the altar at the Akedah, a sword has been raised. The knife descends. Then comes the calling out: "Avraham! Avraham!" An angel of the Lord commands him to stay his hand. Yitzchak survives the immediate threat. He descends from the altar alive. This is not the end of danger but the beginning of a pattern: repeated threat, repeated miraculous rescue, repeated redemption.
Jewish history is the repeated instantiation of this pattern. The Jewish people have survived because we were reborn at moments when annihilation seemed certain. We have crossed through impossible waters. We have ascended from altars that seemed destined to be our tombs. The pattern repeats—not because the Jewish people have earned it through merit, not because we have deserved divine favor, but because the pattern is encoded in the very foundation of our story, established in the lives of our ancestors, transmitted as inheritance through generations.
The trials that tested Avraham—from the initial call to leave Ur, through the binding of Yitzchak on the altar—became, according to Pirkei Avot 5:3, the "ten trials" through which he "stood fast." These were not arbitrary sufferings but the foundation of a spiritual inheritance. As Rav Chaim Volozhin teaches, the spiritual capacities a righteous person labors to achieve become encoded in their descendants as nature itself. Avraham's willingness to sacrifice, his faith under impossible circumstances, his trust in divine redemption—these became woven into the very fabric of the Jewish people.[13]
This inheritance explains the remarkable resilience of the Jewish people across generations in the face of catastrophe. We inherit not merely Avraham's name but his capacity to survive the unsurvivable. We carry his trust in divine promise even when all visible evidence suggests abandonment. We hold his belief that redemption is possible when redemption seems impossible.
The story of Avraham and Sarah is the story of leaving Egypt. It is the story of Jewish history itself. The pattern is encoded in the text. Transformation, not healing. Creation, not restoration. Direct divine action, not mediated intervention. Cycles of redemption repeated across time.
Sarah's story is not ancient history distant from us. It is the template for Jewish existence. Each generation faces its own dual impossibilities—each must choose prayer over despair, mission over resignation. Each generation is called to emulate Avraham's faith and Sarah's transformation. Each generation is offered the possibility of redemption through the same divine power that sustained our ancestors.
POSTSCRIPT
God performs miracles that we do not always recognize in their unfolding. Often, we see them only in retrospect, when we look back and understand how close we came to not existing at all.
Both of my mother's parents were born in Europe. Their names carried the weight of history. Both of them made journeys that should not have led them to survival—yet they survived. Both their escapes from Europe carried elements of the impossible woven through them.
My great-grandfather's name was Dov David. After World War I, fearing that conscription loomed again, he decided to send my grandfather Nechemia Meir to America. But America did not want what Europe was sending. When the boat arrived at an American port, it was turned away. Jewish passengers were not welcome. The vessel stopped in Cuba, and my grandfather found himself suspended—not in safety, not in danger, but in between. He was fifteen years old and alone. For three years, he waited in Cuba, caught in the space between impossibility and hope. He worked. He waited. He held faith that entry would come. After three years, America's doors opened slightly. He was permitted entry. He established a home. He began a family. The pattern of rejection and return, of impossibility transformed into deliverance, was written into his body and his choices.
My other great-grandfather was named Aryeh Mordechai—which is why I was named Ari David, after my mother's two grandfathers. His daughter, my grandmother Mindel, boarded a ship to take her family to America. I discovered the manifest for the ship that brought them out of Europe. The entire family was listed together, their names written in official script. Except for my grandmother. She was listed alone, separate from the others. Her name stood isolated on the page. When I showed this to my mother, she fell silent. Then she told me something she had never spoken aloud before. My grandmother's eyesight was failing. A doctor stood at the dock checking each person before they boarded. Eyes were inspected. Health was certified. When they examined my grandmother, they refused her. She was not healthy enough. They told her to step aside. They told her to get off the line. She was to remain in Europe. But my grandmother did not accept this decree. She returned to the examination. She stepped forward again. The second time, the doctor passed her. She was permitted to board. She gained entry to the ship. She escaped.
Dual impossibility. Dual deliverance. My grandfather turned away from America and held in Cuba for three years. My grandmother nearly barred from escape entirely—her eyes threatening to strand her and her family in Europe. Each faced the impossible. Each was delivered at the last moment. Just as the text describes for Sarah: hidden knowledge, protected from the full awareness of impossibility, yet delivered. Both my grandparents got on boats. Both were told to go back. Both were nearly turned away. Yet both were permitted passage. The pattern that Abraham and Sarah lived—the pattern of the text itself—my grandparents lived in their bodies.
What Abraham did not know, my grandparents could not fully know either. Abraham did not know the structural barrenness that would require not healing but creation. My grandfather did not know, as he held in Cuba, that he was part of a pattern larger than his individual survival. He did not know that his three years of waiting, my grandmother's second chance at examination, these moments would preserve an entire lineage.
My grandfather's parents—Dov David and his wife—along with his sister and her family, did not survive the Holocaust. Auschwitz took them. The camps consumed them. But my grandfather lived. Through his three years in Cuba. Through his arrival in America. Through his establishment of a home and family. The legacy did not perish. The name Dov David did not disappear into the mass grave or a smokestack or gas chamber. It lives in me. It will live in my descendants.
My mother was born into this inheritance. Rivkah Riva daughter of Nechemia Meir and Mindel. Born from impossible convergences—from my grandfather's three years in Cuba, from my grandmother's second chance, from the survival of the Shoah's remnants. She lived ninety-one years—a gift wrested from the jaws of destruction. She became what the Psalm describes: a joyful mother of children, grandmother –to many, great-grandmother to fifty-five great-grandchildren. With more on the way, God willing. Everyone’s bubbe.
Her life was the fulfillment of the pattern. Not merely survival—flourishing. Not merely endurance—joy. Not merely existence—mission continued, legacy transmitted. She embodied Em HaBanim Semeicha—the joyful mother. She lived Sarah's story. She lived the Exodus. She lived our story.
When I read the text with her life before me, I see what Abraham could not see: the full scope of the miracle. Abraham laughed when he learned that Sarah would bear a child because he perceived only one impossibility—her age. He could not see the deeper impossibility, the barrenness that predated age itself. He was protected from full knowledge so that he could pray. So that he could hope. So that the miracle could occur.
We, reading the text, see what Abraham did not see. We read the narrator's declaration: "Sarai was barren." We understand the dual impossibility. We understand why God speaks twice, why the prophecy is given twice. We understand that God is accomplishing something far more radical than Abraham imagined.
And then I look at my own life. I look back through family records—ship manifests, immigration documents, the fragmented memories of elders now gone. I see the near-misses. I see the last-minute deliverances. I see the moments when everything could have ended differently. My grandmother could have been turned away at the dock. My grandfather could have remained in Cuba. I could have never been born. And yet—we exist. We are here. We carry the names forward. We are the living testimony to miracles we did not fully see as they unfolded.
My mother embodied the joyful mother. Her story is Sarah's story. From structural impossibility—from the destruction of European Jewry, from heritage nearly erased—to joyful flourishing. From barrenness—from generational loss—to fertility—to fifty-five great-grandchildren and counting. From the narrow straits of immigration, survival, fear—to the birth of a people, my family, my lineage, my mission.
Her story is the Exodus story. From the straits—from danger and constraint—to freedom. From slavery to the promised land. From fear to family. From loss to abundance. Her story is our story. Every Jew lives this pattern. Every generation faces its own narrow straits. Every generation must choose: to carry the names forward or to let them disappear. Every generation emerges or does not. Every generation transmits the inheritance or breaks the chain.
From barrenness to life. From narrow straits to birth. From the ship doctor's refusal to last-minute boarding. From near-extinction to fifty-five great-grandchildren. From impossibility to joy.
Like Yitzchak descending from the altar, we survive. Perhaps with scars. Perhaps marked by what we endured. But we survive. We taste the pattern in round bread. We live it. We carry the names forward—Dov David, Aryeh Mordechai, Nechemia Meir, Mindel and Rivkah Riva. We continue the mission. My mother lived this. Her life was the fulfillment of the pattern written into the text itself.
And yet there is more. More than thirty years ago, my mother and father fulfilled a dream that belonged not just to them but to our entire extended family – all of Israel—a dream that had been deferred for two thousand years. They made aliyah. They moved to the land of Israel. My mother walked the same land that Abraham and Sarah walked. She stood in the place where they had dreamed of descendants, numerous as the stars, living free in their own land.
That dream is now lived reality. My mother's children live in Israel. Her fifty-five great-grandchildren were born free in a Jewish country—in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Abraham and Sarah's covenant. They were born not as refugees, not as persecuted minorities fleeing pogroms and Holocaust, but as natives. They play in the streets of Jerusalem and Tzur Haddasah, and Hatzor. They study Hebrew. They serve in the IDF. They build homes on the land their ancestors could only dream of.
My mother helped Abraham's dream come true. She helped Sarah smile.
[1] רד"ק בראשית פרק יא פסוק ל (פרשת נח)
(ל) ותהי שרה עקרה - ספר כי שרי היתה עקרה ולא ילדה רק ע"י נס שעשה האל עם אברהם נס בתוך נס, כי היתה עקרה וילדה, ועוד שהיתה בת תשעים כשילדה, אבל מלכה אף על פי שעמדה ימים רבים מלדת לא היתה עקרה וראויה לבנים היתה אלא שעמדה בעבור חולי מקרי לא טבע:
רד"ק בראשית פרק יז פסוק יז (פרשת לך לך)
הלבן מאה שנה - כי כשיהיה לו הבן יהיה בן מאה שנה אפילו תתעבר אשתו מעתה, כי בן צ"ט היה. וכן תהיה שרה בת תשעים כשתלד. והתמיה שתמה לא לפי שלא האמין כי כבר אמר, והאמין בה', אלא כאדם התמה ואומר דבר גדול הוא זה אם יעשה עמי האל זה, ואמר ואם שרה, כי זה יהיה יותר תמוה בעיני העולם שזקנה בת תשעים תלד, וכל שכן שהיתה עקרה בטבעה:
[2] שפתי כהן בראשית פרשת וירא
נֵס בְּתוֹךְ נֵס לֹא דַּי שֶׁהָיְתָה עֲקָרָה אֶלָּא אַחַר הַיֵּאוּשׁ שֶׁאֲפִלּוּ הָיְתָה רְאוּיָה לָלֶדֶת אַחַר שֶׁהִזְקִינָה וּפָסְקָה שׁוּב אִי אֶפְשָׁר לָלֶדֶת:
[3]תלמוד בבלי מסכת יבמות דף סד עמוד ב
וּכְתִיב: הַבִּיטוּ אֶל אַבְרָהָם אֲבִיכֶם וְאֶל שָׂרָה תְּחוֹלֶלְכֶם. אָמַר רַב נַחְמָן אָמַר רַבָּה בַּר אֲבוּהּ: שָׂרָה אִמֵּנוּ אַיְלוֹנִית הָיְתָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַתְּהִי שָׂרַי עֲקָרָה אֵין לָהּ וָלָד, אֵפִי' בֵּית וָלָד אֵין לָהּ.
[4] תלמוד בבלי מסכת ברכות דף נד עמוד א
וְהַצּוֹעֵק לְשֶׁעָבַר - הֲרֵי זוֹ תְּפִלַּת שָׁוְא; הָיְתָה אִשְׁתּוֹ מְעֻבֶּרֶת, וְאוֹמֵר: יְהִי רָצוֹן שֶׁתֵּלֵד אִשְׁתִּי זָכָר - הֲרֵי זוֹ תְּפִלַּת שָׁוְא; הָיָה בָּא בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְשָׁמַע קוֹל צְוָחָה בָּעִיר, וְאוֹמֵר: יְהִי רָצוֹן שֶׁלֹּא תְּהֵא בְּתוֹךְ בֵּיתִי - הֲרֵי זוֹ תְּפִלַּת שָׁוְא.
[5] שיטה מקובצת מסכת כתובות דף קד עמוד א
יְדַקֵּר בְּחֶרֶב דאלו הֱווּ יַדְּעִי בְּבֵרוּר דָּמִית לָא הֱווּ בְּעוּ רַחֲמֵי עָלֶיהָ דלחייּ ְאִתְחַיַּת הַמֵּתִים לָא הֹוֶה בְּעוּ לְמַבְּעֵי רַחֲמֵי וַאֲהֹכַי אָמַר דַּאֲפִלּוּ הוּא מֵת וְאִנָּהוּ לָא יַדְּעִי דְּלָהו בָּעוּ רַחֲמֵי עָלֶיהָ בְּחֶזְקַת שֶׁהוּא חַי כִּי הֵיכַי דלחיי בְּתִפְלָתָם.
[6] בראשית רבה (וילנא) פרשה נג סימן ה (פרשת וירא) - ז (פרשת וירא)
וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה, (מְלָכִים א ח) אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַרְתָּ לְעַבְדְּךָ דָּוִד אָבִי אֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ לּוֹ, אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַרְתָּ לְעַבְדְּךָ זֶה אַבְרָהָם, אֵת אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתָּ לּוֹ, לַמּוֹעֵד אָשׁוּב אֵלֶיךָ, וַתְּדַבֵּר בְּפִיךָ וּבְיָדְךָ מִלֵּאתָ כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה, וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה, (תְּהִלִּים קיג) מוֹשִׁיבִי עֲקֶרֶת הַבַּיִת אֵם הַבָּנִים שְׂמֵחָה, מוֹשִׁיבִי עֲקֶרֶת הַבַּיִת, זוֹ שָׂרָה, וַתְּהִי שָׂרַי עֲקָרָה, אֵם הַבָּנִים שְׂמֵחָה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר הֵינִיקָה בָנִים שָׂרָה, וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר, מַה שֶּׁאָמַר לָהּ הוּא בַּאֲמִירָה, וַיַּעַשׂ ה' כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר, מַה שֶּׁדִּבֵּר לָהּ עַל יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה אָמַר וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר, מַה שֶּׁאָמַר לָהּ עַל יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וַיַּעַשׂ ה' לְשָׂרָה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר, מַה שֶּׁאָמַר לָהּ הוּא, רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אָמַר כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמָר לָתֵת לָהּ בֵּן, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר, לִבְרָכָה בֶּחָלָב, אָמַר לוֹ רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה וַהֲלֹא כְּבָר נִתְבַּשְּׂרָה בֶּחָלָב אֶלָּא מְלַמֵּד שֶׁהֶחֱזִירָהּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לִימֵי נְעוּרֶיהָ, רַבִּי אַבָּהוּ אָמַר נוֹתֵן אֲנִי יִרְאָתָהּ עַל כָּל אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם דְּלָא יְהוֹן מוֹנִין לָהּ וְצַווְחִין לָהּ עֲקַרְתָּא, רַבִּי יְהוּדָה בְּשֵׁם רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ עִקַּר מֵטְרִין לֹא הָיָה לָהּ, וְגָלַף לָהּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עִקַּר מֵטְרִין, אָמַר רַבִּי אֲדָא בַּעַל פִּקְדוֹנוֹת אָנִי, עֲמָלֵק הִפְקִיד אֶצְלִי חֲבִילוֹת שֶׁל קוֹצִים וְהֶחֱזִיר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא חֲבִילוֹת שֶׁל קוֹצִים שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שְׁמוּאֵל א טו) פָּקַדְתִּי אֵת אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה עֲמָלֵק לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, שָׂרָה הִפְקִידָה אֶצְלִי מִצְוֹת וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, הֶחֱזִיר לָהּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מִצְוֹת וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים וַה' פָּקַד אֶת שָׂרָה
[7] תהלים פרק קיג פסוק ז - ט
(ז) מְקִֽימִ֣י מֵעָפָ֣ר דָּ֑ל מֵֽ֝אַשְׁפֹּ֗ת יָרִ֥ים אֶבְיֽוֹן: (ח) לְהוֹשִׁיבִ֥י עִם־נְדִיבִ֑ים עִ֝֗ם נְדִיבֵ֥י עַמּֽוֹ: (ט) מֽוֹשִׁיבִ֨י׀ עֲקֶ֬רֶת הַבַּ֗יִת אֵֽם־הַבָּנִ֥ים שְׂמֵחָ֗ה הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ:
[8] מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל בא - מסכתא דפסחא פרשה ז
והכתי כל בכור שומע אני על ידי מלאך או על ידי שליח. תלמוד לומר ויי' הכה כל בכור בארץ מצרים לא על ידי מלאך ולא על ידי שליח:
מדרש תנאים לדברים (הופמן) דברים פרק כו פסוק ח (פרשת כי תבוא)
(ח). ויוציאנו ה' ממצ' לא על ידי מלאך ולא על ידי שרף ולא על ידי שליח אלא הקדוש ברוך הוא בעצמו: ביד חזקה זה הדבר כמו שנ' (שם ט ג) הנה יד ה' הויה במקנך:
[10] רש"י בראשית פרק יח (פרשת וירא)
פסוק י -כעת חיה - כעת הזאת לשנה הבאה, ופסח היה, ולפסח הבא נולד יצחק, מדלא קרינן כעת אלא כעת. כעת חיה כעת הזאת שתהא חיה לכם שתהיו כלכם שלימים וקיימים:
[11] שמות רבה (וילנא) פרשה ט סימן ז (פרשת וארא)
נחש בולע נחש אלא יחזור לברייתו ויבלע את תניניהם, מהו ויבלע מטה אהרן את מטותם, א"ר אלעזר נס בתוך נס מלמד שחזר המטה מטה כברייתו ובלע אותן, כשראה פרעה כן תמה ואמר ומה, אם יאמר למטה בלע לפרעה ולכסאו, עכשיו הוא בולע אותו,
[12]שמות רבה (וילנא) פרשה יב סימן ד (פרשת וארא)
וה' נתן קולות וברד כ"מ שנאמר וה' הוא ובית דינו שלמעלה שנאמר (בראשית כא) וה' פקד את שרה הוא וסנקליטון שלו, וה' נתן קולות וברד הוא וסנקליטון שלו, ותהלך אש ארצה, נדונו כמשפט הרשעים בגיהנם היה יושב נכוה בברד, עומד נכוה באש, ויהי ברד ואש מתלקחת בתוך הברד, נס בתוך נס,
[13]תוי"ט על מסכת אבות פרק ה משנה ג 1579-1654
אברהם אבינו - שאנו זוכים ומקבלים טובה בזכותו זה שעמד בכל נסיונותיו לפיכך קראו התנא בכאן אבינו. נראה לי:
ספר רוח חיים על אבות פרק ה משנה ג הרב חיים מוולוז'ין 1749-1821
עֲשָׂרָה נִסְיוֹנוֹת נִתְנַסָּה אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ. כָּאן אָמַר אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ. וּלְעֵיל אָמַר מִנֹּחַ וְעַד אַבְרָהָם. וְלֹא אָמַר אָבִינוּ. יִרְצֶה בָּזֶה עַל פִּי מָה שֶׁכָּתוּב (מִשְׁלֵי כ, ז), מִתְהַלֵּ֣ךְ בְּתֻמּ֣וֹ צַדִּ֑יק אַשְׁרֵ֖י בָנָ֣יו אַחֲריו: כִּי כַּמָּה מִדּוֹת שֶׁהַצַּדִּיק טָרַח וְיִגַּע לְהַשִּׂיגָם. לְבָנָיו אַחֲרָיו הֵמָּה כְּטֶבַע מֻטְבָּע. וּבִקְצָת יְגִיעָה יַגִּיעוּ לָזֶה. כְּמוֹ שֶׁנִּרְאֶה בְּחוּשׁ שֶׁרַבִּים מֵעַמֵּי אֶרֶץ מֵהַיְּהוּדִים מוֹסְרִים אֶת עַצְמָם עַל קִדּוּשׁ הַשֵּׁם. וְהוּא מֻטְבָּע בָּנוּ מֵאָבִינוּ אַבְרָהָם שֶׁמָּסַר נַפְשׁוֹ לָאוֹר כַּשְׂדִּים עַל אֱמוּנָתוֹ. וְכֵן כָּל הָעֲשָׂרָה נִסְיוֹנוֹת הָיוּ לְהֵישִׁיר הַדֶּרֶךְ לְפָנֵינוּ. וְכֵן הַהִתְעוֹרְרוּת לָאָדָם פִּתְאוֹם לִילָךְ לְאֶרֶץ הַקֹּדֶשׁ הוּא מִנִּסָּיוֹן "לֵךְ לְךָ". וְקַבָּלַת כָּל דעבדין מִשְּׁמַיָּא לְטָב מִנִּסָּיוֹן הָרָעָב שֶׁלֹּא הִרְהֵר אַחַר מִדּוֹת הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ וְזֶה שֶׁאָמַר הַכָּתוּב (מִשְׁלֵי כַּד, טז), כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם. וְרָשָׁע יִפֹּל בְּאַחַת (כֵּן מוּבָא הַלָּשׁוֹן בְּסַנְהֶדְרִין (ז.) וּבְמִקְרָא כְּתִיב יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְּרָעָה) פֵּרוּשׁ כִּי הַצַּדִּיק אַף אִם יִפֹּל לֹא יַחֲשֹׁב מְאוּמָה כִּי נוֹפֵל הוּא כִּי אִם הוּא קָם וְעוֹמֵד עַל עָמְדוֹ. וּבְאַחַת יִפֹּל הָרֶשַׁע. כִּי לְמַפָּלָה יֵחָשֵׁב וְלֹא יַחֲשֹׁב זֹאת לִתְקוּמָה לְהֵיטִיבוֹ בְּאַחֲרִיתוֹ:
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