This d’var Torah [sermon] was given on Sunday, September 20, 2020/Yom Rishon, 2 Tishrei, 5781 at one of the women’s Rosh Hashana Orthodox minyanim [prayer services] at Cornell. I’ve added in explanations, citations, and translations as much as possible, all else in non-italicized type is written as it was given.
Shana tova!
Thank you, Sarah, for inviting me to speak today. It is always an honor to address the community, even more so this group of women on this special day.
I would not typically be one to speak from the bimah on Rosh Hashana, and so I have never had the opportunity to sit with the texts from yesterday and today and read them with my mind toward a drasha [sermon]. I have, however, always been struck by how women-centered they are and how little that is remarked upon, and so I am also taking this as a moment of healing and renewal – brought out only in these most unique of circumstances – to speak about these women, to tell their stories, and to draw blessings from their lives.
Sarah, Ḥana, and Raḥel. And Hagar.
On their face, the connections between the leyning and the haftarah are straightforward:
Sarah and Avraham are praying for a child, and finally their wish is granted with Isaac. Sarah sends Hagar and Yishmael away, and Hagar cries out.
Ḥana desperately wants a child, prays for one, and with some conditions, her wish is granted.
(Day one)
Avraham’s faith is tested by God when he is asked to sacrifice his precious son, but is given a reprieve at the last moment.
The Jews have been exiled and Jeremiah recalls the image of Raḥel weeping for her children and the fecundity that could be wiped out with the loss of their homeland.
(Day two)
Women’s prayers for children are answered when their faith is robust. The loss of children and is a tragedy for the future of the Jewish people. More than anything, the cries of these women pierce through the texts, Jewish or not.
All three of the Jewish women struggled to have children. We don’t know enough about Hagar to determine either way, but that she had a child when Sarah couldn’t suggests that it was not of the same difficulty for Hagar.
That these women cry out in their capacity as mothers, or would-be mothers, is deeply poignant and troubles me – I worry that we reduce them to their reproductivity. Especially since we hear most about them in Tanaḥ in this way. And Ḥana is, to me, a perfect example of there being so much more to these women.
Despite my excellent namesake, Ḥana is my favorite character in all of Tanaḥ. After reading the first psukim [verses] of the perek [chapter], I feel like I know Ḥana, not as a friend, but who she is on the inside. Her pain, her frustration, her anger, her desperation. Her yearning, her hope, and her faith.
After years of trying, and praying, being bullied by Peninah [Elkana’s other wife] and pitied by Elkana her husband, Ḥana still takes herself to Shilo and makes a vow to Hashem if she is able to have a son. She will eventually give him up to Hashem’s service.
Despite Eli [the High Priest] thinking Ḥana is drunk and disrespecting the sanctuary, the way we pray is in imitation of Ḥana, not just of her movements, of whispering words to ourselves, but in our kavanna, our intention, our dedication.
That we all do tefillat Ḥana [Ḥana’s prayer], not just those of us who sit in the women’s section, troubles the boundaries of maternity and what of men and women we imitate. Hold onto this – I’m going to come back to this thought.
Let’s look at each time these women cry out:
“The Lord remembered Sarah just as He had said, and just as He had spoken then, so He did for her. So Sarah conceived, and she bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time that God had mentioned” (Genesis 21:1).
In this instance, we are recalling Sarah crying out, Hashem’s [“The Name,’' a way of saying God in Judaism, because we do not speak יהוה] promise, and then we see the fulfillment of the promise.
After Sarah gets Avraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away, Hagar fears for her son’s survival in the desert:
“And Hagar went off and sat herself beyond, a bowshot’s distance away, for she said, ‘Just let me not see it, when the child dies.’ She sat down there at a distance beyond, and then she raised up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy.” And then angel speaks to Hagar (Genesis 21:16-17).
Ḥana:
“And she was bitter within, and prayed to the Lord and wept – wept. And she made a vow, saying. ‘Lord of Hosts, if You see Your slave’s agony, and remember me and do not forget Your slave, and if You give Your slave a son – I shall give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall ever be lifted to his head’” (1 Samuel 1:11).
In today’s Torah reading, Sarah does not speak, but I hear her voice everywhere (Genesis 22). There are so many “hineini” [Here I am] responses from Avraham. Sometimes I think it’s Sarah crying out “where are you?” Eiḥa! [!איכה How!] (Lamentations 1:1) Ayeka! [!איכה Where are you!] (Genesis 3:9) What have you done with my son!? It’s not just Avraham who loved Isaac, but Sarah too. Sarah who also changed her name and her life. Sarah who went on the journeys and whose bodily integrity was put at risk in Egypt to “protect” Avraham (Genesis 12:10-16).
And in today’s haftarah:
“This is what the Lord has said: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah – lamenting, bitter weeping. Raḥel is weeping for her children, refusing to be consoled over her children, for they are not’” (Jeremiah 31:14).
What keeps replaying in my head about this haftarah is the refrain of Ephraim, beloved Ephraim, Ephraim, whose name is related to “fruit” or being “fruitful,” during a time when the future of the Jewish people is unsure, when Raḥel is crying out for her missing children.
What do we do when we hear this cry?
I want to posit that these sources together, these women’s cries are another way of hearing the blast of the shofar.
We are often told that the shofar is like a wake-up call, an interruption. We feel its reverberations in our chest. It slams into our ears. Upon hearing its blasts, we are called to our renewals, reminded of Hashem’s malchut [sovereignty], of the ephemerality of the world and of humanity on the anniversary of our creation.
What are we woken up to when the shofar blast is also the cry of Sarah wanting a child, of Hagar’s agony at her son’s suffering, of Ḥana vowing to give up her son if she can just carry him, of Sarah crying out for her son who is about to be sacrificed, of Raḥel mourning for her children, b’nai Israel as they are exiled.
How do we respond to those cries? Whose voices are crying out in silence? Whose cries are alone, are internal?
Just as we imitate how Ḥana prays, we might need to think about how the shofar imitates these women, or how these women imitate the shofar. How might we respond if we heard a voice piercing the silence of a congregation, instead of air passing through a ram’s horn?
I hesitate at all essentialization of women to their reproductive organs and to maternity, but I am rather pleased that shofar and t’fila [prayer], in my reading, are imitations of women, and that given the structural constraints, these imitations are a way for us to see how our tradition has deep resources of women’s examples. Of living complex Jewish lives, of deep love for their Jewishness, for Hashem, for the Jewish future, of leading through their lives. Hagar reminds us of our fallibility, that we can make others cry out, and we hear them, too.
My hope for us all is that in 5781, you and your loved ones receive any many blessings as there are seeds in a pomegranate. May this new year be a year of listening, of goodness, of sweetness, of health, of repair, and renewal.
Shana tova!
I gave this d’var Torah in the Rosh Hashanah bubble (I do not use any electronics, including my phone, or cook, or take transportation, among other things on Shabbat and Jewish holidays) without knowledge of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg z’’l’s death. I love and admire her greatly, and I know that my own journey to inner strength grounded in my Jewish womanhood was guided by her light and example. That I can think about Jewish women beyond their maternity and reproductivity in Tanaḥ is because I was given models in my own life and times, thanks in immense part to Justice Ginsburg. I dedicate this to her memory.
May her family and loved ones be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may her memory be a revolution.
.המקום ינחם את המשפחה שלה והאהובים שלה בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים ויהי זכרה מהפכה