It would be interesting – I shouldn’t say only ‘interesting’; it would be informative and instructive too – to take note of the name of our first mother, Sarai, or Sarah as it became later, and to study what her name tells us. After all, the name Sarai wasn’t given to her by accident; Hakadosh Baruch Hu made them give her this name and there’s something important there. It’s teaching us something very fundamental about this great architect of the first Jewish home.
‘Sarah’ means ‘one who looks’; from the word ‘sar’, to look. An officer in lashon kodesh is a ‘sar’ because he looks, he inspects to see what’s doing. The Gemara also says about a shochet who must use a perfectly smooth knife, sar sakina – he has to inspect his knife before slaughtering to see if there are any nicks, any imperfections. Sar means to look, to inspect.
And so it was arranged m’Shomayim that the parents of our first mother should give her the name Sarai because one day that would be one of her greatest features: She would be a looker; she would always be looking.
The Home Mashgiach
What does it mean that she was looking? So concerning Sarah our Sages quote the possuk in Mishlei (31:27) about the eishes chayil: צופיה – She watches, oversees, הליכות ביתה – what goes on in her house. It means that the eishes chayil is not just a balabuste who keeps the house, making sure that everything is taken care of; that everyone should have food and clean clothing and everything else. That’s a very big thing but it’s not everything. An eishes chayil is also the mashgiach of the house. Like a mashgiach in the yeshivah – his job is to look around to see, “Is everything going all right here?”, “Are the bochurim coming on time to davening, to the sedorim?” – that’s also the job of the mother in the home.
Of course the father too – the father also must keep his eyes open – but he’s usually outside, in the office or the beis medrash, and so to a great extent the mashgiach of the home is the mother. And that’s what Sarah epitomized. צופיה הליכות ביתה – She was watching what was doing in her house, looking constantly to see if everybody is behaving properly.
That’s the model, by the way, for every Jewish mother. She’s always tzofiyah, always looking over the shoulders of her children, always keeping an eye on the children. It doesn’t mean they have to know that you’re watching them – it’s unhealthy that they should think you’re suspecting them, that they’re under surveillance; but they are. Constantly you have to be on guard. Where is your child when he walks out on the street? You must train your child to be willing to reveal to you and be open with you. “Where were you when you went out on the street tonight?”, “Where are you going now?” There must be specific answers; a certain destination. “I’m going to Chaim’s house,” or “I’m going to Rivka’s house to do homework.” And you have to find out who Chaim and Rivka are because the friends are very important.
Seeing in the Dark
Especially when it’s dark. Children should be in the house after dark, even older children. No such thing as children on the streets at night! Everybody must come home by a certain hour – just to wander on the street is out of the question!
And in the home, the same thing. Constantly tzofiyah, constantly. A mother must always keep her eyes on the children. Are they doing anything dangerous? Are they looking into books or magazines that they shouldn’t be? Boys and girls in the same house must be watched constantly. Constantly!
Now, exactly how to do it, it’s impossible to give any exact prescriptions; everything depends on the circumstances. But at least we should know the general rule – no hesech hada’as! A mother and father shouldn’t remove their minds from their children at all! At all times they should be thinking about their children and watching them, keeping an eye on them. That’s how you walk in the footsteps of our first mother, Sarah.
What Sarah Saw
Now, in this week’s sedrah we find one of the incidents where Sarah was looking and saw something she didn’t like and she took action. And it’s a model we should study because it’s teaching us something: ותרא שרה – And Sarah saw, את ישמעאל מצחק – that Yishmael was laughing; he was joking around (Bereishis 21:9).
Now, what exactly Yishmael said or did we don’t know. Everyone knows what the meforshim say; they include in the word metzacheik all kinds of things: עבודה זרה – He did idol worship, גילוי עריות – and also immorality, ושפיכת דמים – and even murder. But that’s not the pshat. Because we know that Avraham didn’t want to expel Yishmael. רַע וַיֵעֵינֵי אַבְרָהָם בָר מְאֹד בְּהַדָּ – It was bad in the eyes of Avraham, only that Hashem told him, “אל ירע בעיניך – It shouldn’t be wrong in your eyes. Listen to Sarah. She sees better than you” (ibid. 21:11-12).
Now, if Sarah had seen Yishmael killing somebody you think Avraham Avinu would have tried to protect him? If Sarah told him that Yishmael is מצחק, that he committed crimes of immorality and he worshiped idols, so why should Avraham hesitate? Even a regular Orthodox Jew today in Boro Park, if chalilah he heard that his son had done these things he would pick him up by the scruff of the neck and kick him out. “Get out of my house! You’ll worship idols in my house?! Out!”
She Saw the Future
No; Sarah didn’t see anything like that. We follow peshuto shel mikra and we understand that Yishmael was ‘jesting’; he was laughing, guffawing, that’s all. That’s what mitzacheik means. And that’s what the Sages meant too. Because Sarah was thinking that if somebody is always in a jesting mood in my house, if he’s not going to be serious about life, that’s already avodah zarah and gilui arayos and shefichas domim. Eventually, it could be, he’ll even do those things.
You hear that chiddush of our first mother? If a man is laughing and joking in my holy house – if he is always in a light frame of mind – then such a person, who knows what can happen to him? He is capable of the worst things! Someone who doesn’t take life seriously – and life is very serious – so he’s a candidate for big trouble.
The Hilarious Shidduch
Now, we might think it’s too extreme – what's wrong with laughing in a house? So listen to this story. They tell about Rabbi Akiva Eiger that he was making a shidduch with someone in Warsaw. One of his children was being meshadech with the son or a daughter of a wealthy Varshiva Jew – a frum Jew.
So Rabbi Akiva Eiger was in Varsha for the tenoyim and when they sat down at the table together, Rabbi Akiva Eiger leaned over and whispered to the mechutan, “Are you satisfied with the shidduch?”
The mechutan said, “Everything I’m satisfied with, only one thing not.”
“What’s that?”
“The mechutan,” the man said.
He was making a joke; he was saying he wasn’t satisfied with Rabbi Akiva Eiger. It was just the opposite; because actually that's the whole reason he made the shidduch. That was the whole yichus, that he’s getting Rabbi Akiva Eiger as a mechutan! It was a jest. “The mechutan is the one problem.”
“What’s the matter?” Rabbi Akiva Eiger said, “What is it?”
So the man said, “I’m just joking. Just a leitzanus.”
“Joking?!” Rabbi Akiva Eiger was frightened. How can you joke? Leitzanus?!” He wanted to break the shidduch off. You can't make a shidduch with a letz. Finally the man persuaded him he didn’t mean anything.
The Great Men Understand
So we hear such a story and we think he was a fanatic, a silly fellow. But you have to know that Rabbi Akiva Eiger was a very smart man, a talmid chacham of the highest madreigah. He was very far from being silly. We’re the silly ones. We don’t have any idea what leitzanus means, how dangerous it is. Such an innocent leitzanus, a sagi nahar language – the man really was saying admiring words: “That’s the whole reason I wanted the shidduch!” But sof kol sof it was leitzanus and a great man like Rabbi Akiva Eiger understood that leitzanus is perilous! Even the words! It’s a ruination of character! Even though you don’t intend it!
Now, I can’t expect that we should understand that right away. To us it seems extreme because we’re in America too long already. America after all is a country of laughter. If you pass down the block at night, you hear everybody laughing at the same minute at the same joke they heard on the radio. The whole block is laughing at the same minute. All laughing. You see pictures of the politicians, they’re all laughing. People on the street corners, they’re all laughing. It’s a laughing country.
The Gentile Great Ones
It’s a national tradition. You know, Abraham Lincoln, one of the things he’s famous for is that he used to tell jokes. I mention him because he was a great man among the gentiles, one of the best; look at a picture of Abraham Lincoln – a distinguished man, a sage of the gentiles. So this sage is sitting, let's say, in a tavern and he’s telling jokes. That’s how the history books describe the scene. And as he comes to the punchline, the people become hysterical. They fall on their feet on the floor laughing. “Oh, Abe! That was a great one!”
Did you ever hear about such a thing among Jews? Did you ever hear in the Gemara of the great sage, Rabbi Meir, telling jokes and all the sages fell off their seats laughing? But that's a picture of a gentile sage. That’s a picture of America.
And so what do we expect? Of course we can’t understand Rabbi Akiva Eiger. Our guffawing American heads should understand such greatness? And surely not the greatness of Sarah Imeinu. Sarah Imeinu was much greater than Rabbi Akiva Eiger. And so we can’t expect to understand it completely. But at least we should know that the fault is with us.
Happiness and Mitzacheik
In Sarah’s house, everybody had hadras kodesh. There was holiness in that house, a yiras Hashem. And so when she saw that Yishmael was jesting she was so stunned by what she saw. In her house, somebody should be so unserious?!
Now, I’m sure Sarah smiled in that house all the time. She was a woman of good cheer; always smiling and friendly. וישועה באהלי צדיקים קול רינה – In the tents of the righteous there’s always the sound of song and joy (Tehillim 118:15).
But to jest? In such a house? It’s like somebody should come into your synagogue dressed like a clown and dance around – not on Purim. Everyone is davening and he’s wearing a big red nose, laughing, and doing cartwheels. You’d be overcome by indignation.
That’s what it was here; the same thing. Sarah, in her beis hamikdash, when she saw that take place, so she told Avraham, “He can’t be here.”
Because great men don’t joke around. They’re cheerful, yes. They’re friendly. They smile. They’re happy. But they’re not jokers! Because when you’re a joker, the boundaries become impossible to guard. You’ll joke about this, about that, and everything becomes unserious – it’s very easy to become an unserious person ingantzen.
And therefore when Sarah saw Yishmael fooling around she knew he had to be sent away. Because she had sharp eyes, she saw the results of such a thing. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu approved of her decision: ויאמר אלקים אל אברהם – And Hashem said to Avraham, כל אשר תאמר אליך שרה שמע בקולה – “Whatever Sarah is telling you about Yishmael’s jesting, listen to her voice” (ibid. 12).
