Vayeira: Mockery Manifested
Vayeira: Mockery Manifested

Dedicated in Loving Memory of Mrs. Miriam Hochstein Z'L. She and her Husband supported and nurtured 18 institutions including Aish Hatorah, Neveh Yerusalyem,  Ohr Somayach and the Yeshiva of the Hafetz Hyim in America and Yeshiva Kerem BeYavneh! Her larger-than-life life of 98 plus years inspires us all.



(Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein)

What is the quality of laughter?

This is the question that lies at the crux of one of Avraham‘s major trials in this week’s Parsha. Sarah hears Ishmael, Avraham‘s son and her surrogate son “laughing”, and she insists Avraham send the mother Hagar and the son out of their household. Avraham hesitates. After all, Ishmael is his son. He loves him with a father’s love, and Avraham is the quintessential man of chessed.

Yet when Hashem validates Sarah’s judgment and commands Avraham to listen to Sarah’s voice, Avraham rises early in the morning, suppresses his own innate compassion, and rushes to do Hashem’s bidding. The ability to suspend personal judgment, explains Rav Menachem Freeman in Shaarei Derech, and submit to the will and judgment of a higher Authority, is the definition of passing a spiritual trial. When one is faced with challenges, one must “let go and let God,” for God tailor made this trial for you to push through, for you to become stronger and reach higher.

At this point, had Ishmael done anything terrible to spur Sarah to this judgment? Not really; there was merely laughter.

According to most commentators, it was the quality of this laughter that made Sarah wary. Laughter that lightens a situation and that brings joy into a household is quite positive. But mocking, scoffing laughter is destructive.

According to Rabbi Belsky in Einei Yisroel, Sarah was more attuned to these nuances than was Avraham Avinu, for her laughter at the news that she was to bear a son bore a slight tinge of this disbelief. However, in her case, although Hashem reprimanded her for the laughter, she knew it would not affect her fear of Heaven. (Rabbi Belsky’s interpretation of her denial when asked why she had laughed, lo tzochakti, ki yerayah, means “I have not mocked, for my fear of Heaven would not be affected.”)

Sarah was more able to recognize the mocking laughter which contains the seeds of irreverence, of throwing off the yoke of Heaven, than Avraham was. This is the quality she recognized in Ishmael’s laughter, for this mocking was the first step in throwing off the yoke of Heaven and slowly sliding into transgressing the three cardinal sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder. Better to remove it from the house than to let it grow and infect her own son, Yitzchak, who was destined to be the conduit of Abraham’s legacy.

Didn’t Avraham Avinu also see that Ishmael was headed down the wrong path? What were the differences in the approaches of Avraham and Sarah?

According to the Ktav Sofer, Avraham was aware of Ishmael’s defficiencies, but he was debating whether  he should keep Ishmael home where his own influence might succeed in bringing about a change, or whether he needed to protect Yitzchak from Ishmael’s influence.

Sarah understood that it is easier to throw off the yoke of Heaven than to do teshuvah, Rav Sternbach notes. Further, as Rav Bick points out in Chayei Moshe, she understood that when someone has the background of a fine Jewish home and then nevertheless begins mocking, the scoffer seldom does teshuvah. Therefore, she insisted on protecting Yitzchak.

Nevertheless, Avraham was not ready to abandon his son. As Rabbi Gamliel in Tiv Torah points out, Avraham waited for Hashem’s judgment and actual command before banishing Ishmael from the household. But Avraham never abandoned his son. Avraham visited him, and eventually, Ishmael did teshuvah, albeit well after Yitzchak was fully grown.

Rabbi Nissel, in Rigshei Lev, discusses the paradigmatic roles of Avraham and Sarah as male and female. The relationship between husband and wife, he posits, is the relationship between heaven and earth from the time of creation. Heaven is by definition separated from the earth and from the practical. Yet it rains down ideas and bounty from those heights. The earth, by definition, receives the rain, filters out the impurities, absorbs it and uses it to create and grow new life. Analogously, the male rushes forward with many esoteric ideas and spirituality, but the woman must ground him so that these lofty ideas can be translated into practical use to raise things up.

In a similar vein, Rabbi Goldvicht, founder of Yeshivat Kerem BeYavneh, in his sefer Asufat Maarachot cites our sages and adds the following. Man is Iish and woman is Ishah. When a man and a woman join together in holiness, when they keep God within the relationship, the Heavenly Presence resides with them. However, if they remove God, the Yud (i) from Iish and the Heh from Ishah, (that together form the holy name of God, Yud and Heh)what remains is the letters for a fire which will consume them, esh, (the I-Sh with different vocalizations). Therefore, to do God’s work, man and woman must work together.

Avraham was extremely spiritual, but he needed the practical wisdom of Sarah to enable that spirituality to pass on to future generations, He needed her binah yesairah, the additional insight and understanding Hashem bequeathed to woman upon her creation. Sarah understood, continues Rabbi Nissel, that she must nurture the spirituality of Avraham, but to do so would require putting on brakes, pruning back the spiritual garden of her home so that what grows remains healthy. Sarah understood that Ishmael’s mockery was introducing the seeds of weeds into this beautiful garden. These weeds needed to be removed before they would overtake the garden itself.



We all have negative influences that can invade our homes and God forbid, take them over.

Hashem’s stated purpose in informing Avraham of the impending destruction of Sodom was that he should “command his children and his household after him that they keep the way of Hashem.” Sarah, says the Siach Yitzchak, was enabling Avraham to actualize Hashem’s prophecy through her advice to banish Ishmael, to ensure that Yitzchak and future generations would keep Hashem’s ways even after their father’s death.

Avraham’s trial here was extremely difficult. We all have negative influences that can invade our homes and God forbid, take them over. Thank God it is generally not a wayward son. When that is the case, like Avraham we must seek the advice of a higher authority on how to proceed. We, especially women as the protectors of the hearth, must be extremely vigilant.

We have other negative influences that may invade our homes. We must be willing to banish these influences from our homes, whether it is prurient media reflective of immoral and depraved elements in our culture, or people exerting undue negative influence on us or on our children. Above all, we must be careful of our speech lest we speak mockingly and disparagingly of others, especially in front of our children.

Who knows what damage we may do not only to those we are disparaging, but especially to our children who may no longer view other people or institutions with the respect they deserve. Who knows how their behavior will be affected by our thoughtless but mocking remarks about our brethren or about particular observances.

Mockery has no place in a Jewish home. It’s only purpose is to destroy. A Jewish home must be filled with respect between husband and wife, and for God’s children and all of God’s Torah.

May Hashem grant us the wisdom to recognize the negative influences in our homes, give us the strength to banish them, and help us nurture and grow our families so that they continue to build on the legacy of Avraham Avinu.