Please come to my handmaiden; perhaps I will be built up from her (Bereishis 15:13-14)
“I will be built up from her” – In the merit that I will bring my co-wife into my household. (Rashi)
Simply speaking, Sarah herself will merit giving birth to children, as a reward for bringing Hagar into her own household as a co-wife.
However, there is room for another interpretation: Hagar will have children, and they will be considered like Sarah’s children.
Similarly, Chazal say that the Jewish people have only four Imahos: Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah. Yet, many of Yaakov’s sons were mothered by Bilhah and Zilpah, who were the handmaidens of Rachel and Leah. Why are these sons among the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish people, if they are not descended from the Imahos?
The answer is that anything acquired by a servant is automatically acquired by his or her master, who in this case is the mistress. Therefore, the sons of the handmaidens were considered as sons of the Imahos, who were the mistresses. Along these lines, when Sarah said, “I will be built up from her,” she meant that the child to be born to Hagar will be considered Sarah’s child.
But, as we know, it did not turn out that way for Sarah. Her handmaiden Hagar eventually gave birth to Yishmael, who was not considered Sarah’s son at all. And for good reason. It is written about Hagar: She saw that she conceived, and lost respect for her mistress.
Hagar severed her subservient relationship with Sarah. She no longer effaced herself as far as Sarah was concerned; she saw herself as an equal, as someone with an independent identity. Consequently, Hagar’s son could not be considered Sarah’s son.
It was different with Bilhah and Zilpah. We don’t find them taking an active and independent role. It never says, “Bilhah said...” or “Zilpah said...”; it only says, “Rachel said, ‘G-d has judged me,’” and “Leah said, ‘Good fortune has come,’” and so forth. Bilhah and Zilpah did not have independent identities. They did not name the children they gave birth to, because they completely effaced themselves; they stepped aside and attributed everything to their mistresses Rachel and Leah.
Thanks to this, they merited establishing four of the Twelve Tribes.
But Hagar was told by the angel: You shall call his name Yishmael.
Hagar had the authority to name her own child, because it was indeed her child, and not Sarah’s. Hagar had broken off her subservient relationship with Sarah. Consequently, she was left with her own child, who was in fact a wild man.
If we take a closer look at the story with Hagar will notice that when Hagar first conceived, she was still subservient to Sarah. She started to disrespect Sarah only later, when she realized that she was pregnant, as it says in the above-quoted pasuk. Ostensibly, this should make the fetus into a mixture of sorts. In the beginning of the pregnancy, it was Sarah’s, and at the end, it was Hagar’s. If so, whose child should it be considered?
The answer is that Hagar miscarried her first fetus, so there never was a mixed child. Rashi says the miscarriage happened because Sarah gave her the evil eye. And why did Sarah do this? Why did she cause Hagar to miscarry? It was because a mixture of this sort is unacceptable. It shouldn’t be. Such a child should not be born. And the second fetus was Yishmael, who was wholly Hagar’s.
We learn a great lesson from all this. When a person grabs for himself, he loses everything. But Bilhah and Zilpah, who totally effaced themselves to Rachel and Leah, remained connected to them and thereby merited establishing four of the Twelve Tribes.
Getting back to the naming of Yishmael, the angel told Hagar to name the child, as mentioned above. But later on it says: Avram called the name of his son, to whom Hagar gave birth, Yishmael.
Rashi explains that Avraham knew prophetically to call the child by the name that was revealed to Hagar. In the end, who named the child? Avraham did.
But why didn’t Hagar name the child herself, as the angel told her? Why didn’t she at least tell Avraham what name the angel said the child should have?
Hagar had a reason. In the beginning, Hagar could have given birth to Sarah’s child. Since she threw off her subservience, the child was not considered Sarah’s. Then she fled from Sarah, and the angel told her: Return to your mistress and subjugate yourself under her hand.
The angel told Hagar to become a handmaiden again. If she does that, ostensibly she could once again have a child that will be considered Sarah’s. However, the angel also told her: You shall call his name Yishmael.
This indicated that it was already too late for the child to be considered Sarah’s. Hagar lost the opportunity. The child will not be Yitzchak, but rather Yishmael, who was so named “because Hashem listened to your suffering.” The child was named after the personal trials and tribulations of Hagar, rather than bearing a name that relates to the Jewish people.
However, Hagar was not happy with this. When she returned to Sarah, she didn’t want the angel’s decree to be fulfilled, that the child will be Yishmael, named after her. That’s why she didn’t tell Avraham what the angel said. She hoped that Avraham would call the child Yitzchak. But it didn’t turn out that way. Avraham called him Yishmael, since the child was in truth Hagar’s, not Sarah’s, as the angel had said.
