Parashat Lech Lecha – Part 2

"Sarai said to Abram, G-d has kept me from having children." (16:2)

Sarai and Abram are the first recorded case of infertility in human history. This hits especially close to home given the two miscarriages my wide and I had in the span of 6 months while trying to start a family.

Up to this point in the Torah, no less than 25% of the narrative deals with who gave birth to whom. Clearly, children were central to ones identity. This is still the case today, but (perhaps unfortunately) to a lesser extent. It is clear from the narrative that Sarai and Abram loved each other very much. In a truly unselfish act, Sarai offers her concubine to Abram as a second wife, knowing full well the bond that could develop between Abram and Hagar, at her expense. Sarai wanted so much for her husband to have children that she was willing to take that risk.

Abram was torn between the desire to have children, and the love for his wife. Though clearly yearning for a child, Abram, as the first Jew, would not consider taking another wife. The Torah does not tell us that Abram married Hagar; instead it says that Sarai took Hagar and gave her to Abram. While Abram surely treated Hagar with honour and respect, the Torah records no conversations between the two.

This seems to be a case of infertility treatment. The couple wanted to have children naturally, but when the wife saw she couldn’t, she did everything in her power to give her husband a child. In those days, the only infertility treatment available was taking a surrogate, today there are many more options. This passage is where Judaism derives its ruling on the permissibility of fertility treatments.

Rabbi Jay Kellman writes “And Abram came to her, and she conceived” (16:4). The birth of Yishmael no doubt evoked mixed emotions. Surely Abram and Sarai where happy that Abram was no longer childless, but no doubt Abram, perhaps even more so that Sarai, felt sadness that his child could not be her child.”

It was the selflessness of Sarai’s act that is why she merited a son of her own. And it is this amazing marriage that should be a model to us all.