With two daughters attending university, a daughter well into her career and supporting herself, and a son in 12th grade filling out university applications, I admit that there are moments that I don’t feel very much like a father of four, that I am “coasting” through fatherhood. After all, the demands of fatherhood have changed since they were adolescents. However, recently, and all at once, the demands of fatherhood came crashing down upon me. Over the course of 48 hours, I had to spend a few hours helping a daughter with an essay for art history. I had to listen to another daughter share her angst and concern about a relationship and then I had to offer advice. Then later that same night I helped our son with his university application as well as engaged in a heated discussion with him regarding an online class that he was taking for extra credit in which he has procrastinated for months. Then finally, a brief conversation with my eldest daughter about her life. Needless to say, I was emotionally drained. Oh, how I almost yearned for those days when bedtime was early, the homework was simple, and the emotional issues much less fraught.
This week’s Parsha is VaYeira. The narrative and adventures of Avraham the Patriarch continue. While healing from his ritual circumcision, he fulfills the mitzvah of Hachnasat Orchim, hospitality. He negotiates with God and reduces the number of righteous people that must be found in Sodom and Gomorrah in order to prevent its destruction. The narrative of Avraham is interrupted as we read the narrative of Lot, the two Angels (the same two that had visited Avraham at the beginning of the Parsha), the destruction of the city, and the impure relationship that results when the survivors think that world has been destroyed. The narrative returns to Avraham as its focus and he and his wife Sarah give birth to a son (Yitzchak), the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael (Avraham’s firstborn son and his concubine), and the final test of his belief, the Akeidat Yitzchak – the Offering of Isaac. While the narrative highlights Avraham’s faith in God, and certainly a man worthy of receiving God’s covenant; the Parsha is replete with a parent’s ill-treatment of a child. Avraham was willing to offer his son Yitzchak as a way of indicating his faith in God. He banished his son Ishmael into the wilderness. Certainly, it is possible to evaluate Avraham’s behavior as a father as a bit negligent, to say the least, and perhaps abusive.
Yet the Torah struggles with portraying Avraham’s sons as just that, sons. When we read the text, we view Yitzchak and Ishmael as little boys, helpless victims in Avraham’s displays of faith. We easily forget that Yitzchak was thirty-seven years old when Avraham was asked to make him an offering to God. Ishmael’s status changes throughout the Parsha. His status changes within one narrative from verse to verse. VaYeira HaDavar M’Ode B’Einei Avraham Al Odot B’no. VaYomer Elokim El Avraham Al Yeira B’Einecha AL HaNa’Ar v’Al Amatecha – The matter greatly distressed Avraham regarding his son. So God said to Avraham, “be not distressed over the (HaNa’ar) youth or your slave woman. (21:11-12). VaYitein El Hagar Sam Al Shichmah V’Et HaYeled V’Yishalcheha VaTeileich BaTeita B’Midbar B’Eir Shava - He placed them on her should along with the Yeled (the boy), and sent her off… (Gen. 21:14). Why does the text easily and seemingly so arbitrarily switch between the use of (Yeled) the boy and the (Na’Ar) youth? The Chatam Sofer, Rabbi Moshe Schreiber, a late 18th early 19th-century German commentator and Halachist, points out that the term Na’ar (Youth) is used when Ishmael is home living with Avraham, and the term Yeled (boy/child) is used when Ishmael is in the wilderness cut off from his father’s influence. A Na’Ar (a youth) was held to the same high standards that Avraham held for himself and his household. This means that as a Na’Ar, Ishmael embodied and lived up to the expectations of Avraham’s teachings. As Yeled (a boy), Ishmael was not held to the same high exacting standard of behavior and belief nor was he capable.
Parenting is no easy task. Quite often it is thankless. As parents, we are constantly forced to make choices. Some of our choices are true tests in our faith in God. Some of our choices leave us feeling that we are stuck between choosing between “bad” and “worse”. Some of our choices mean that we need to know when the child is ready to transition from one stage of life to the next, from “baby” to “toddler”, from “teen” to “adult”. As parents we have a responsibility to our children, to pass along morals, values, and Torah. As parents, we also have the responsibility to determine how much responsibility our kids can handle as they make their way within the developmental process. As a result, we need to see our children as they are and not how we wish them to be. Only then can we help them transition from one stage of life to the next.
Rav Yitz
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