In our cycle of reading we are now approaching the middle of the Book of Genesis. We are knee-deep in the lively and difficult stories of our mythic ancestors: Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Rebecca, Ishmael. Last week’s portion closed with the harrowing tale of Abraham binding Isaac on a mountain as a sacrifice, and being stopped at the last moment by an angel of God.
This week’s portion, which means “the life of Sarah,” begins with Sarah’s death at 127 years old. In the portion, we witness Abraham’s howling grief, his purchase of a cave for burial, his weeping and eulogizing.
After this, Abraham’s attention comes back to the question of legacy – he needs to see his son Isaac married off if prophecies are to come true. So there is a long episode in which Abraham’s servant Eliezer returns to the Old Country, and persuades Abraham’s niece Rebecca to return with him to become Isaac’s wife. And Isaac loves her and finds comfort with her after the loss of his mother.
Then Abraham himself has a late remarriage to Keturah and a number of additional children. And then at last, at age 175, he breathes his last and is gathered to his people.
It’s the next bit that always catches me.
וַיִּקְבְּר֨וּ אֹת֜וֹ יִצְחָ֤ק וְיִשְׁמָעֵאל֙ בָּנָ֔יו
אֶל־מְעָרַ֖ת הַמַּכְפֵּלָ֑ה
אֶל־שְׂדֵ֞ה עֶפְרֹ֤ן בֶּן־צֹ֙חַר֙ הַֽחִתִּ֔י
אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י מַמְרֵֽא׃
[Abraham’s] sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him
in the cave of Machpelah,
in the field of Ephron son of Tzohar the Hittite,
facing Mamre. (Gen 25:9)
Why this stops me is because in the previous two weeks-worth of Torah we learn of the tricky struggle for Abraham’s legacy. We learn about Sarah offering her servant Hagar to Abraham as a wife so Abraham can have an heir. We read of Hagar becoming the mother of Ishmael. And of the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael after Sarah’s son Isaac is born. These tough stories set us up for an expectation of estrangement and enmity between Isaac and Ishmael.
And yet here is this moment. The two senior brothers, one the heir and one the exile, sons of mothers who were intimate and at war – here they are quietly burying the father whose quest for legacy birthed them and the family trauma into which they were born.
Both Isaac and Ishmael have been traumatized by this father. One through banishment to the wilderness, one through binding on a mountain. We are conditioned to see these two as natural enemies, yet there is nothing in the text to suggest that.
In fact, what we can infer from this verse is that Isaac and Ishmael are in touch. They have been in touch. They knew where to find each other. And considering the speed with which burial happens in Near Eastern cultures, Isaac cannot have sent for Ishmael only after Abraham’s death. He would not have made it in time for this burial scene! Instead, Ishmael had to have been there already. Both these sons doing deathbed vigil at their father’s side.
Midrash notices this too. That Hagar’s exile could not have been the end of the story. Instead, the story of that family continued. And while many midrashim attempt to justify Hagar and Ishmael’s exile so that we don’t have to feel bad about it, another line of midrashim accepts the injustice of it and tries to soften it by suggesting it wasn’t such a complete exile after all. In this line of midrash, Abraham gives Hagar a long trailing scarf and ties it to her waist, so that it would make a trail behind her that he could follow. And he does. He sees where she and Ishmael have gone. He visits over the years. And in one startling midrash, after Sarah’s death, Abraham remarries Hagar, now calling her by the name Keturah, referencing the ketoret, the fragrant scent that she wears. In this retelling of the story it is Hagar who is ultimately Abraham’s surviving spouse and widow.
But whatever mechanics midrash might or might not supply, we know from the simple text of Torah that Ishmael and Isaac somehow remained brothers beyond last week’s events. Somehow what they share is deeper than what separates them. Both of them wounded by the same father, both of them caught in a struggle between mothers, both of them crushed under the weight of history and legacy. They always in my mind seem like young men, bonded over a difficult childhood. But doing the math, Isaac is 75 and Ishmael is 89 when we see them burying Abraham. It has been a very long road, and somehow they have loosely travelled it together.
This simple but eloquent verse of Torah suggests to me the possibility that we can do what Isaac and Ishmael did. We can learn how to honor the elders without being required to carry forward their struggles and their baggage and their grudges. The enmities of the past might invite us but do not obligate us to accept the invitation.
And that is a hard thing to absorb. Because sometimes those old enmities give our lives meaning. Our holding fast to them is a way of offering our loyalty to the ancestors. But the way I see this snippet of Torah, Ishmael and Isaac not only bury their father, they bury some piece of their past or its pain.
Losing a parent is difficult in any circumstance. Losing a parent who has wounded you is especially difficult. Being left holding all that is unresolved, holding grief for the human who died, and holding grief for the relationship you wished you had had but didn’t ever get. What is our obligation to remain bound by those hurts, tied up in them like Isaac on a rock? What is our ability to put some of it to rest – not to forget it, not even to forgive it, but to take away its power over us?
I think that is the blessing of this verse, the prayer and the guidance that it offers. That we not be utterly bound to the wounds of the past. Isaac and Ishmael are traditionally understood to be the forebears of the Jews and the Arabs, respectively. We could apply their blessing here: how might Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, take the risk of doing things differently? Of being mindful of but not utterly obligated by the enmities of their ancestors?
And beyond Jews and Arabs, for any of us in this world? We live lives informed by the worldviews of past generations; our society remains stuck in them even when they have caused horror and have proven to threaten the life of the planet itself. Those worldviews continue out of habit, or out of convenience, or for some out of the promise of personal gain. And for some maybe out of loyalty to the stories we’ve grown up with, even when those stories fly in the face of our lived experience. How can we learn from the story of Isaac and Ishmael – not their parents and not their descendants – but the two of them themselves, shoulder to shoulder, digging a grave for their father – how might we learn to honor the past while also releasing its hold over us.
So that we may imagine all kinds of new beginnings that would not have occurred to us. And remain, loosely, but clearly, family in the process.