"Return from the Place of Shattering"
“And they made a covenant at Be’er Sheva, and Avimelech and Pichol, the chief of his army, departed and returned to the Land of the Philistines. Then Avraham planted a tree (Tamarisk) in Be’er Sheva, and called out, and proclaimed and invoked the name—YHVH, the eternal God of the World” (Genesis, 21:32-33)
As I write, the morning following the elections, it is not yet known who the next president of the United States will be. But however that question is resolved, the elections have already put an exclamation mark on the brokenness of our country and society. I inhabit the so-called liberal progressive part of our society, and from that vantage point, the fact that more or less half the voters in this country voted for Donald Trump after witnessing four years of his presidency calls for deep inner reckoning. Does the recognition that half the country voted for a man who encourages white supremacy, the worst misogyny and sexism, xenophobia to the extent of total disregard of the humanity of immigrant adult and children and more and more, shatter our social contract beyond repair? Is there anything still to be done with the shards of the trust that made us a nation?
When I look at this week’s parasha with that in mind it is striking how many relationships were most probably shattered and broken in the stories we read this week. How are we to imagine the relations between Lot and his daughters after he offers them to the mob, following which they get him drunk enough to impregnate them? How are we to imagine the relationship between Avraham and his wife and child—Hagar and Yishmael after he sent them into the desert to die? How are we to imagine the relationship between Avraham and his wife and child—Sarah and Yitshak after he takes his son to the mountain to be killed? It is saddening to notice that the biblical text is largely silent on these questions and has little to say about how these people may have reclaimed their sense of self, let alone any sense of relationship.
