A.
As our parasha opens, three mal’achim pay a visit to Avraham. Each has a separate mission (עיי בבא מציעא פ"ו:): One has been tasked to destroy the evil cities of Sëdom and ‘Amora, and another to rescue Avraham’s nephew, Lot, from the cataclysm. But the first order of business is to bring Avraham and his wife some long-awaited, good news: ויאמר שוב אשוב אליך כעת חי' והנה בן לשרה אשתך ושרה שמעת פתח האהל והוא אחריו: ואברהם ושרה זקנים באים בימים חדל להיות לשרה ארח כנשים: ותצחק שרה בקרבה לאמר אחרי בלתי היתה לי עדנה ואדני זקן: ויאמר ד' אל אברהם למה זה צחקה שרה לאמר האף אמנם אלד ואני זקנתי: היפלא מד' דבר למועד אשוב אליך כעת חי' ולשרה בן: ותכחש שרה לאמר לא צחקתי כי יראה ויאמר לא כי צחקת: (“And [the mal’ach] said, 'Returning I shall return to you at a time of living, and behold, for Sara, your wife, a son; and Sara was listening [at] the tent’s entrance, and he/it was behind him [vë-hu’ aharav]. And Avraham and Sara were elderly, come into years; Sara had ceased to have the way of women. And Sara laughed within her vicinity [bë-qirbah, i.e., such that those in the tent could hear her] to say, 'After my decline, I shall have pleaseure [‘edna], and my husband is old?!' And Ha-Shem said to Avraham, 'Why is it that Sara laughed, to say, "Will even I therefore give birth, and I am old?" Is there a thing too wonderful for Ha-Shem? At the season I shall return to you at a time of living, and for Sara, a son.' And Sara denied [it], to say, 'I did not laugh'; for she was afraid. And He said, 'No, for you laughed'”; XVIII, 10-15).
This is surely one of the most perplexing exchanges in the Torah. Rashi notes that the implication of the word ‘edna is that Sara immediately began to feel herself being rejuvenated, restored to the status quo ante such that her former child-bearing capability was restored (for this reason, she said that her husband was old, since she no longer felt so, as the Ha‘améq Davar explains).
But this begs the question yet further. If she actually felt her youth being restored, why did she seem to scoff? And when G-d called attention to it, why did she deny it? The entire passage screams out: Dorshéni! (“Research me!”).
B.
To understand what is proposed below, it is first necessary to examine a fundamental concept expressed by a word which has no precise equivalent in English or any other western language. That word is emuna.
If one looks in a Hebrew-English dictionary, one finds such words as faith, trust, belief, creed, and confidence on offer as definitions, each of which expresses part of the story. To understand what the word really means, we must examine how else the root is used.
The young lady who would become the queen of the Medio-Persian empire, Esther, is first encountered as an orphaned girl raised by her uncle, Mordëchai, concerning whom we read ויהי אומן את אסתר (“and he was training/guiding [omén] Hadassa” (Esther II, 7). This is the participle of the qal form of the verb, and it reveals the first stratum of meaning in the Holy Language.
An artisan is an uman, someone who has been trained or educated in a craft, brought from apprenticeship to journeyman status, then on to mastering the art. To train such a person, to bring a craftsman into being is immén, a verb in the factitive, pi‘él conjugation, which brings something into being (in this case, the craftsman).
With the above in mind, we turn the pages of our hypothetical dictionary, and discover that the entry for the English word “believe” is he’emin, in the causative, hif‘il conjugation.
The simple meaning of the root is “instruct, guide”; to do so seriously and intensively in order to produce a result is the factitive immén. So what, precisely, is being caused to happen by being ma’amin?
C.
The Birkath Tov proposes to explain our passage in light of something which he attributes to the first Belzer Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Roqéah זצ"ל, the Sar Shalom.
In discussing the age-old Jewish practice, when one has a pressing personal need, of seeking the bëracha of a recognized tzaddiq, the Belzer tells us, in order for the bëracha to be efficacious צריך להיות לו אמונה בצדיק בזה ובאם לאו קשה לו להוושע (“[the petitioner] must have emuna in the tzaddiq in this matter, and if there is not, it is difficult for him to be helped”).
Furthermore, he continues, even if the petitioner himself has emuna, but עומד שם עוד איש אשר אין לו אמונה בצדיק אזי מקלקל גם כן לאותו האיש שלא יוכל להוושע ומקרר אותו גם כן וקשה לו להוושע (“another man is standing there who has no emuna in the tzaddiq, then he also corrupts [the [petitioner], so that he cannot be helped, and cools him down also, and it is difficult for him to be helped”).
The solution, says the Belzer, הוא שיקטין הדבר ויקרר הדבר לפני אותו האיש בדיבורים, מה יוכל להושיע זה הצדיק הדבר הלזה אין לו כלל כח לזה וכדומה שאותו האיש לא ידע שהוא מאמין במחשבתו בצדיק ואזי נשאר הדבר קיים אצלו באמונתו השלימה ולא יוכל אותו האיש האחר השומע לקרר אותו ולהשבית אותו מאמונתו (“is that he minimize the matter and cool the matter down before that man with words, ‘How can this tzaddiq resolve this matter, he has no power at all for this,’ and the like, so that that man will not know that he is ma’amin in the tzaddiq in his thought, and then the matter remains viable for him through his perfect emuna, and that other man who heard cannot cool him down and abate his emuna from him”).
To explain the Belzer’s statement in terms of a modern metaphor, the tzaddiq’s tëfilla and bëracha is a signal generated in response to the petitioner’s request, but the petitioner’s emuna that the tzaddiq can effect a change in his circumstances is the amplifier which boosts the signal, stepping it up to carry it through to the Divine receiver; it is in this sense that the petitioner’s ha’amana is actively causing something to take place. To continue the metaphor, the negativity of the scoffer within earshot is another signal, heterodyning on the first, causing interference and jamming it from getting through. The Birkath Tov quotes another illustrious authority, the great Rabbi Mordëchai of Neshchiz, שנקרא אמונה מל' "ויהי אומן את הדסה" שיכולים להמשיך על ידי אמונה כל דבר (“that it is called emuna because of the expression, ‘and he was omén Hadassa,’ for one can bring anything about through emuna”).
Applying this principle to our passage, here is what is going on:
The Ha‘améq Davar reminds us that the mal’ach is addressing Avraham, and Avraham is repeating his words for Sara to hear. This is what she was hearing at the tent entrance; only in this way does it make sense that Ha-Shem (still speaking through the mal’ach) asks Avraham why Sara laughed, rather than asking her directly, changing her words from “and my husband is old” to “and I am old,” so as not to cause any discord or ill-feel-ing in the household (עיי' בבא מציעא פ"ז.).
The Rebbe now focuses on the phrase vë-hu’ aharav, an example of what I call the Torah’s creative ambiguity. The masculine singular pronoun can refer to the tent entrance (as Onqëlos understands it and Rashi writes), or it can be understood to refer to a person; as the Targum Yonathan and Yërushalmi render it: וישמעאל קאי בתרי' (“And Yishma’él was standing behind [the mal’ach]”).
Yishma‘él the scoffer, whom Sara would later have sent from the camp so that his negative influence not infect and corrupt Yitzhaq (XXI, 9-13). This, says the Rebbe, is what Sara was afraid of: That Yishma‘él’s scoffing would negatively affect the bëracha being effected by Avraham’s words; after all, she had been young once before, and had not then been able to bear a child. Hence, when confronted, she denied not that she laughed, but that she had scoffed at the effectiveness of her husband’s bëracha, that she had been afraid of Yishma‘él’s baleful interference.
But G-d objected that this consideration would apply only if Sara received the bëracha from Avraham’s initiative. This was not the case here: Avraham was clearly repeating the mal’ach’s words, and so a prophetess and tzadeqeth of Sara’s stature should surely have known that the decree was initiated by G-d directly, not by Avraham, and that therefore nothing could prevent it from coming about. From her mouth, in that instance, the employment of such a mechanism was tantamount to scoffing in her own right.
D.
Reading our passage in the light of the Belzer Rebbe’s insight, we find that לא קשיא מידי, there are in fact no difficulties, and everything is clear; what is more, the Torah has illustrated for us the mechanism underlying the age-old custom of seeking a bëracha from a tzaddiq, and the rôle played by the petitioner’s emuna in energizing it and making it effective.
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