THE AMBIGUITY OF ISAAC - Parshat Vayera

One of the most difficult things about writing on the Torah in English is that it’s almost impossible to convey the beauty of the original language. But at the same time - you gotta try!

Because really, one of the most important things to communicate, if you can - because you totally miss it in English - is how dazzling the text is in the original.

So, let’s give it the ol’ ParshaNut try!

This week, the place in the parsha that I found particularly linguistically dazzling was the scene in Chapter 21 when Issac is born. And all the fun is in playing around with Isaac’s name.

Let’s start with the name itself. Isaac (YITZCHAK, in the Hebrew) means, “he will laugh." It’s the name God said they should give, back the the last parsha, when he first announced that Abraham and Sarah would have a kid (Ch. 17). It seems like God is making reference to the fact that, when he first told Abraham, Abraham literally fell on his face and started laughing.

Weird choice for a name, though. Like, is it "Oh, he, Abraham, will laugh, will he? Well, why don’t we just call your son that, if you think it’s so funny?!" Or is is, "He (Isaac) will laugh one day.” But if so, about what? Weird. (Side note: I’ve also always thought it was weird that in English Isaac has those two A’s. What’s up with that?)

Ok, so he’s born, and they do name him Isaac. Gotta do what God says, obvi. And then the next six verses have the strangest wordplay with the name in a couple of different ways.

1. So first of all, in verse 6, Sarah says:

“God has made me laughter (TZCHOK). Everyone who hears will laugh (YITZCHAK) at me.”

This is pretty surprising. Sarah’s been given this great miracle, she’s given birth at the age of 90, after being unable to conceive her whole life. But she doesn’t seem grateful. She seems angry and embarrassed. Like, “Oh, great, I’m going to be a laughingstock! Did you hear the one about the 90-year-old pregnant lady?”

OK, so let me now admit, that this isn’t the way the commentators read this verse at all. They understand it like:

“God has made joy for me. Everyone who hears will be happy for me!”

That’s a very pleasant reading, and it’s totally possible. But I have to say, I think it can be read either way. The meaning is ambiguous. And I wonder if this ambiguity reflects an ambiguity in Sarah’s actual experience. As if she’s saying, yeah, I’m happy, this is great. But I’m also bitter because this took so long, and happened in such a strange way. Why didn’t God just let me get pregnant when I was young, like a normal person!?!

And if there’s this hint of her dissatisfaction with this great miracle, maybe that helps us make sense of an earlier scene, when Sarah first hears about this promise that she’ll have a child. When she hears, she laughs, and says, “Am I going to have joy, now that I am withered and my husband is so old?” (Ch. 18, v. 12)

God seems to get mad, and says, why is Sarah laughing, does she think I can’t do what I said?! Which, BTW, seems totally unfair, because he didn’t get mad when Abraham laughed. But maybe Sarah’s laughter is already tinged with bitterness, like, “Give me a break! NOW I’m going to have a kid?? I’m too old to even enjoy it!!!" So God gets upset - in this version - because Sarah is essentially saying, ‘This plan is ridiculous.' And so, even when it happens, she’s still a little bit aware of what a ordeal it’s been and not 100% cool with the way things have gone down.

2. The other weird use of the Isaac language is in verse 9, which reads:

"Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, [Ishmael], who she had with Abraham, playing around (METZACHEK). She said to Abraham cast out that slave-woman and her son, for the son of that slave will not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”

This one’s a little harder to pick up on if you aren’t reading in the Hebrew, but the word for playing around, metzachek, comes from the same root as the word for laughter, tzchok, which is the same root as Isaac’s name, Yitzchak.

So the first question is, “Whoa, chill out Sarah, what’s the big deal?! Ishmael is 'playing around’ and you are ready to cast them out into the desert, presumably to wander off and die??" What’s wrong with playing around? What exactly was Ishmael doing that prompted such a reaction?

Maybe the coolest answer is the one Rashi gives, which he takes from Midrash Rabbah, that cites three opinions: 1. That he was practicing idolatry. 2. That he was having some kind of illicit sex. 3. That he was going to murder Isaac. I won’t get into all the fancy connections the Midrash makes to prove how the word for "playing around” could mean all of these things. But if you are familiar with Jewish Law, you’ll recognize them as the three cardinal sins, which you should die before doing.

Well, if he was doing these things, then ok, it makes sense that Sarah would freak out. But it does seem like a little bit of a stretch. In fact, in another version of the story, in Tosefta Sotah, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says it’s just too crazy to think that Ishmael was doing this stuff right there in Abraham’s house. Let’s just assume he was fighting over the inheritance.

Which is a great answer, because that’s the most obvious thing they could be fighting over. And Sarah even says, right afterwards, no way this kid will share the inheritance.

But then why just say he was “playing around”? Why, again, leave it so ambiguous?

Well, here’s a thought, given the language connections we’ve been looking at so far. Remember that 'playing around’ has the same root as 'Isaac.’ So it’s like he was 'Issac-ing.’ In other words, he was trying to be Isaac, to take his place, to be the inheritor. And then what seems like very ambiguous language is actually very precise in telling us exactly what was going on, on a psychological level, that made Sarah so angry.

That’s a pretty cool way of reading the text, that you can only really see in the Hebrew, but I hope I’ve done a fair job of showing you how it works.

One more answer I want to share with you, before I go, because I think it connects the two stories we’ve looked at here. The Radak says that “Playing around,” means: Ishmael was teasing him because he was born to old people.

If this is true, then it connects to the earlier read of Sarah’s comment, that, essentially, “God has make a joke of me. Everyone who hears will laugh at me.” So then Ishmael does exactly that, triggering her greatest anxiety, and she explodes. If this is true, then the use of the 'laughing’ language, throughout the story, is actually pretty consistent, even though it seemed so ambiguous.

But all of this ambiguity around the name Isaac brings us back to our original question: Why was he named Isaac, “he will laugh”? Strange name, like we said. But even stranger when you soon realize the the defining moment of Isaac’s life, in the narrative and throughout tradition, is when he is taken up to be slaughtered by his father and offered as a sacrifice. Nothing funny about that!! In fact, Isaac is maybe the least appropriate character in the Torah to evoke laughter!

And so the ambiguity in the use of his name - the lack of clarity over what it means, exactly, and how we are supposed to read it - ends up reflecting an ambiguity in his whole existence. Is it a blessing, a miracle, a great joy? Or is it actually a just a small glimmer of hope after years of suffering, that immediately turns into the most terrifying sacrifice?

Isaac represents both of these things. He’s an ambiguous character in the Torah. And so his Hebrew name itself reflects that ambiguity.

And I, for one, find that dazzling.