From the sound of horsemen and archer the entire city is fleeing... the whole city is abandoned...

The Prophet foretells of a time when the descendants of Yishmael will terrorize our people. The sounds of beating hoofs will raise suspicion of an approaching enemy. The fear of unknown arrows suddenly piercing them will cause them to run. The streets will be empty as people will run for their life.

Our current events are an ancient story. Fear of cars suddenly plowing into crowds and of knives stealthily drawn, thirsting for innocent blood, echo fears from a long history.

The Baal HaTurim points out, that there is only one other reference in the entire Torah to this same word בֹּרַחַת, to flee.

When Hagar flees to the desert from her perceived ‘harsh’ treatment at the hands of Sarai, an angel confronts her. He asks her “Where have you come from and where are you heading?” Hagar responds "אנכי ברחת", “I am running away from Sarai my mistress.”

The Baal HaTurim indicates that since Sarai was the catalyst for Hagar to flee, we in turn would one day pay the price by having to run and seek refuge from Hagar’s descendants.

But wasn’t Sarai justified? Didn’t the angel indeed tell Hagar to return and subject herself to Sarai’s so called ‘harshness’? Why then would we have to ‘atone’ for Sarai’s behavior?

Upon realizing she was pregnant the Torah reports that Hagar suddenly lost respect for Sarai. Sarai senses this and turns, in seeming condemnation, to Avram, telling him that it’s his entire fault. She reminds him how after all she was the one who contrived the whole plan for him to beget a child by submitting Hagar, her maidservant, to him. She wonders about his silence and why he didn’t stand up for her honor.

On the face of it it would seem like a classic marital feud with Sarai incredulous over Avram’s silence and Avram somehow clueless or disinterested with the matter at hand.

In what seems like utter anger and frustration Sarai blurts out to Avram, “let G-d judge between me and you!” Is it possible that Sarai could be so furious as to demand G-d’s immediate intervention in her ‘feud’ with Avram?

The Targums of Yonoson and Yerushalmi, seem to have a totally different take on what is being expressed here.

According to their version of the events what Sarai was conveying was much more of a prayer than a complaint. She first laid out before Avram the facts, reviewing how she left her home and family, loyally standing by his side, traveling to a foreign land, enduring the discomfort of their encounter with Pharaoh, and finally was willing to let another woman mother his child to promote his destiny. Yet this woman, Hagar, as soon as she finds out she is carrying Avram’s child demeans Sarai’s ‘so called’ stature and greatness. Sarai then turns to G-d beseeching him not to ‘judge’ and settle the score between her and her husband but to make things ‘right’ by allowing Avram’s destiny to carry on through a child they will both have and thereby restore peace unto them.

There seems to have been a realization here of a need for a change in the game plan. Sarai merely meant to demonstrate the flaw in the character of Hagar that would necessitate going back to ‘Plan A’.

Why was it relevant for Sarai to give her own history of devotion in stating her case. It should have been sufficient to merely demonstrate Hagar’s callousness in her demeaning Sarai?

Certainly Sarai wasn’t looking for praise; her sole goal was the future health of the Jewish nation. But she understood that the only way one could be a worthy ‘mother’ of this nation would be if that mother possessed an ability to constantly remain self-critical and not consider one worthy merely by the yardstick of one’s successes alone. 

Hagar’s knee jerk reaction in seeing herself as worthier than Sarai, remaining blinded to the super human sacrifice that Sarai exhibited over a lifetime, revealed a fatal flaw in Hagar’s ability to ever rise to any possible role in the destiny of Avram’s legacy.

Hagar we are taught was no slouch. The illustrious Rosh HaYeshiva of Slobodka, Rav Yitzchock Issac Sher, alleges that the terms used to describe Hagar as a maidservant is used in a similar vein as the term servant is utilized to label Avraham’s primary disciple, Eliezer, who we are told ‘drew’ and ‘poured’ the fountains of wisdom he learned at the feet of Avraham.

Hagar too was an esteemed and promising student of Sarai. But as she blossomed she began to espouse ideas of her own without humbling herself before her teacher Sarah. That sense of total self-determination and ‘freedom of thought’ were the seeds that would turn out that פרא אדם, wild-ass of a man, Yishmael, who on the one hand bore elements of humanity but possessed the desperate need for the independence of a wild-ass that would never allow those seeds of decency to sprout healthy and responsible behavior.

Hagar had risen to great heights in the academy of Avraham and Sarah. But she lacked a proper perspective of who she accurately was because her need for independence wouldn’t allow her to accept criticsm. By refusing to examine herself objectively she developed a distorted sense of entitlement and superiority and seeking to prove it with the evidence of her becoming pregnant.

When she flees to the desert from Sarai the angel calls out to her, “Hagar , maidservant of Sarai, where have you come from...”, and Hagar responds, “I am running away from Sarai my mistress.”

The Talmud derives from this exchange the following piece of advice: If your friend calls you a donkey, put a saddle on your back!

Hagar was seeking to escape the clutches of her mistress and certainly didn’t see herself any longer as the ‘maidservant of Sarai’, nevertheless when facing the fiery truth of an angel of G-d, she had no choice but to face up to his assertion that she was indeed still the subservient disciple of her towering teacher Sarai, and promptly ‘saddled up’ in absolute agreement, by stating clearly that Sarai is clearly her superior.

Although she ultimately returned to her mistress, accepting her primacy, that seed of dissent within her that she never fully quashed, found its full blown expression in the persona of that ‘wild-ass’ of a man, Yishmael. 

The descendants of Yishmael proudly display a belief and allegiance to G-d that deservedly rises above the other religions of the world in its assertion of a monotheistic belief of G-d. But that instinct to roam free like the wild-ass of the desert coupled to their arrogant sense of moral superiority, refusing to submit to any self-criticism or sound logic, compels them to remain forever ‘unsaddled’, leaving our nation and an entire world exposed to the violent consequences of religious belief bereft of values and morals.

Isn’t that the nature of the 'בורחת', the one who is constantly on the run with no destination other than fleeing from truths that seek to ‘saddle’ one to responsibility and decency? Because someone who refuses to take stock of themselves will forever be running away from himself!

Hagar when asked where she is coming from and where she is headed, responds prophetically to both questions with only one answer: "אנכי ברחת", I am the eternal fugitive, merely running away with no destination, because I refuse to accept truth and responsibility, and there is never any refuge from that.

To a certain extent we are all guilty of ‘running away’. We create for ourselves a convenient relationship with our beliefs and commitments to Torah that we find comfortable, but often refuse to re-evaluate where we are truly holding and hesitate to up the ante in our avodas Hashem. 

Sarah’s successful tradeoff of abandoning the plan for Hagar’s progeny to promote Avraham’s legacy in favor of her son Yitzchok to become the inheritor of that role, comes with a caveat.

The moment we slip into the flaw that expelled Yishmael from our ancestry we become vulnerable to the taunts and threats of the ultimate בורחת, the ‘runner’.

May we in these difficult days make an honest cheshbon hanefesh, personal accounting, as to where we can improve in pulling ourselves away from the enticing instinct of ‘freedom’ that mimics the terrible flaw of the פרא אדם, a nation that seeks our destruction all in the name of G-d.

May the streets of Jerusalem and all the cities of Israel once again be filled with joy and happiness as we rise up to our role as the true heirs of the glorious heritage of Avraham and Sarah.

באהבה,

צבי טייכמאן