Maureena’s Torah Reflections
Parashat Chayei Sara. Genesis 23:1-25:18
Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah (Gen. 25:1).
Hagar is one of my favorite women in the bible. According to a midrash Keturah is Hagar, Sarah’s female Egyptian servant. Sarah, who was barren, gave her to Abraham to have a child in her name. When Hagar was pregnant with Ishmael conflict broke out between the two women. Sarah turned against Hagar and dealt harshly with her and Hagar fled from her. An angel of the Lord found her in the wilderness and told her to return to Sarah and submit to her.
Before leaving that place, Hagar gave God a new name, “El Roi, the God Who Sees”: “So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (Gen. 16:13).
Hagar returned to Sarah. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael and Sarah to Isaac. One day Sarah saw the two boys together. She turned to Abraham and said, “Cast out this slave woman with her son,” for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” Abraham listened to Sarah and cast them both out into the wilderness of Beersheba (Gen. 21).
After this Hagar is lost to the family. She reappears in today’s parashah where it says that after Sarah’s death Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah (Gen. 25:1). Many definitions are given as to why Hagar’s name was changed to Keturah, one of which is that her deeds were as fine as incense (ketoret).
The rabbis wondered how Abraham found Keturah. Some say that after Sarah died Isaac went looking for Hagar and brought her back to his father. It was a reuniting moment. Both Ishmael and Isaac buried their father in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 25:9).
So why is Hagar important to me? Hagar is the only person in the Bible—male or female, Jew or Gentile—who named God personally. She was a woman. A woman who was tossed away and driven away. A slave who had been sexually used and verbally abused. Falling on her face, she gave God the name El Roi, the God Who Sees and God whom she saw.
A moment for thought: Do you have a new name for God?
Prepared by Prof. Sr. Maureena Frits nds
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4