"Why Hagar Left"

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dear chevra,

As we start to rev ourselves up for the High Holy Days, I am stirred to recall that R' Phyllis Berman wrote an extraordinary midrash she says she got from her mother who got it from her mother, etc., back to Sarah and Hagar. In this version of the story, Hagar and Sarah conspired to get Ishmael and Hagar out of Abraham’s tent because they feared (from a visionary dream) that Avraham was planning to make his oldest child (Ishmael) a burnt-offering to God. The midrash is much richer than that one episode, taking the friendship between the two back to when both were in Pharaoh’s harem.
 
It is an astonishing and totally well-rooted midrash, published as “Why Hagar Left” in the multi-religious collection The Tent of Abraham published by Beacon Press. The editors also gathered or wrote other peace-pointing midrash from Jewish, Christian, & Muslim sources. Available from Beacon, edited by Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister, Scottish American Sufi teacher Saadi Shakur Chishti, and me. See also <https://www.amazon.com/Tent-Abraham-Stories-Christians-Muslims/dp/0807077283>

Shavua tov and shalom, 
Arthur