Shabbat Kodesh Parashat Vayera
We start the Parsha with the promise made through the visiting “guests” to Avraham Avinu:
“I will surely return to you at this time next year, and behold, your wife Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah Imeinu, who was listening to the conversation, is criticised for “laughing” upon hearing the promise, which seemed odd to her, as she was indeed a very old lady at the time, and never had children before.
A year later, she gave birth to a son. Avraham Avinu gives him the name Yitzchak, which translates loosely into “Will laugh” . Why would one give a name to this long awaited new born son reminding us of the “laughing incident”?
Let us look at last week’s Parsha, in which G’d himself makes the same promise to Avraham Avinu. Following which the Parsha states :
And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and he said to himself, “Will [a child] be born to one who is a hundred years old, and will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?”The simple question arises, why was Avraham Avinu not criticised at all for laughing upon the very same “unusual” promise ?
Interestingly – The Targum – translates the word VaYtzchak Avraham – “And Avraham rejoiced”rather than “Avraham laughed”. The Torah teaches us an important lesson about the sensitivity of our own feelings.
We can laugh as an expression of humor or even “Schadenfreude”…We can laugh as an expression of joy (Wishing Mazal Tov to a good friend is always accompanied with a smile/laugh)
There is another form of laughter mentioned as the our Parsha continues : “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing” . Here however the commentators translate it into “making merry”. Here, the laughter is neither humor nor joy. It is more the laughter of a drunken person – the most negative form of it…
Avraham Avinu gave the name Yitzchak, as in joy, not Yitzchak as in laughter.
May we have B”H many occasions for the laugh of joy, Simcha. We need it now !
Shabbat Shalom and best wishes
Rabbi Chaim Michael Biberfeld