"Lech-lecha and the Marriage of Sarah, God, and Abraham"

NOVEMBER 3-4, 2006 / 13 HESHVAN 5767

By Akiva Herzfeld, Class of '07

"Lech-lecha," God says to Abram, "go by yourself" or "go for yourself."  Although God addresses Abram in the singular, when Abram goes forth to Canaan he does not go alone.  Abram takes his wife Sarai and a group of other people with him on his journey.

The opening of this week's Torah reading brings our attention to the relationship that is formed between God and Abram and how that singular relationship affects the other relationships in Abram's life, especially his relationship to his wife Sarai.  As God and Abram forge an eternal covenant together, the personal marital relationship of our first patriarch and matriarch, with all its conflicts and raw emotions, is also exposed before our eyes. 

The first difficult domestic issue between Abram and Sarai occurs in Egypt, when Abram tells the Egyptians that Sarai is his sister.  During the war against the five kings, the couple again has to deal with people who covet Sarai (see Rashi on 14:13).  While physical separation and jealous emotions surround their marriage, Sarai's barrenness with the resulting anxiety and strain that this can bring to a marriage is obvious all along.  Sarai eventually initiates a conversation (16:2) with her husband on the subject of her infertility, and suggests that her maidservant Hagar serve as the childbearer.  The Hagar episode increases the stress in their marriage.  Sarai is scorned by her maidservant.  Finally, she tells Abram that it's all his fault.  "Let God judge between me and you," she declares to her husband.  

When Abram agrees to send Hagar away, he demonstrates the intensity of his devotion to Sarai by conceding to her demand of absolute love.  Abram tells Sarai that she is more important to him than the pregnant Hagar, and by extension she is more important than the future of his name and covenant with God.  At a later point, God asks Abraham for a sign of absolute devotion, and Abraham concedes to God’s demand as well.  Each time Abraham offers his absolute love, with Sarai and then with God, someone else (Hagar, Sarah) is wounded and despairs.  Sarah’s death would occur after Abraham hears "lech-lecha" (22:2) and goes off with Isaac to find God without her. 

The story of Abram and Sarai's marriage is about their search for balance in their relationship with each other and with God.  God is a source of blessing in their marriage.   God restores Sarai to Abram when they are in Egypt, and God tells Abraham that Sarah will bear a son for him.  But God is also the source of anxiety in their marriage.  The need to fulfill God's covenant had been the principal point of tension between Abram and Sarai, as they struggled to have a child and fulfill the covenantal promise.     

Abram initially laughs when God tells him that his wife will bear a child.  There are painful echoes in the sound of Abraham's laugh.  They had finally resigned themselves to their fate, and then God intervened again with the promise to Abram that Sarah will bear a child.   In the end, however, the sound of Yitzchok means rejoicing.  Abraham and Sarah rejoice because they are able to find happiness with each other, with the blessing of God.   

God can be a source of tension in a marital relationship, but He is also the source of all blessing and happiness.  Abraham and Sarah's marriage is evidence of the struggle entailed in managing the appropriate space for God in a relationship.  As Abraham and Sarah begin the journey to establish universal monotheism and love of God, their love for each other increases and God becomes a greater part of their spousal love.    

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 *God does not speak to "Abraham" and "Sarah" until chapter 17, until then he is speaking to Abram and Sarai.