A connection is suggested near the end of the previous Torah portion, Hayyei Sarah, when the banished Ishmael suddenly and mysteriously returns to join Isaac in burying their father (25:9). Generations of commentators were surprised by Ishmael's reappearance and interpreted it as meaning that he had repented. But what were Ishmael's sins? The midrash draws on the verse: "Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing [metzahek]" (21:9). The kindest interpretation of this word holds that, as a child, Ishmael had taunted his
brother Isaac. A harsher view holds that Sarah saw him committing idolatry. Another rabbi says that it was adultery, and yet another, murder (Bere**** Rabbah 53). Clearly perplexed by the banishment of an innocent Ishmael, the rabbis used their exegetical wisdom to divine his guilt.
But Rabbi Sa'adyah Gaon, living among Arabs in Baghdad in the 1Oth century, rejects the stringent explanations and prefers the simplest, most literal one: teased. Moreover, Sa'adyah adds, Ishmael could not have been sinful, or God would not have listened to his voice in the wilderness and saved him (21:17). He translates (into Arabic) Sarah's outburst "the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac" (21:10) as "the son of this aidservant shall not dwell together with my son Isaac." Sarah did not have the right to disinherit Ishmael, Sa'adyah explains. The pioneer of Judeo-Arabic culture in the Middle Ages held temperate views about the Isaac-Ishmael conflict.
As I read the text, Ishmael's disinheritance is not categorical. Even the embittered Esau understood this. At the end of Toldot, Esau watches his father send Jacob off to Paddan-Aram to find a wife from among his mother's kin, lest he marry a Canaanite woman. "So Esau went to Ishmael and took to wife, in addition to the [Canaanite] wives he had, Mahalat the daughter of Ishmael" (28:9).
As Isaac and Ishmael struggle over patrimony today, Jews should recognize Ishmael's inherent rights. Extremists on both sides of the conflict must loosen their grip on exclusivity and, transcending sibling rivalry, come together - as Isaac and Ishmael did at their father's burial - to share an ancient promise. It seems today, more than a year ago, that this prospect of sharing may be near.
Mark R. Cohen, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, is the author of "Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages."
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Exclusivity and Patrimony
