Vayera 5784

Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quick, three seahs of choice flour! Knead and make cakes!” Then Abraham ran to the herd, took a calf, tender and choice, and gave it to a servant-boy, who hastened to prepare it. He took curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them; and he waited on them under the tree as they ate. They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he replied, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will return to you next year,*next year Heb. ka-‘et ḥayyah; cf. Gen. 17.21; 2 Kings 4.16–17. and your wife Sarah shall have a son!” Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, which was behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years; Sarah had stopped having her periods. And Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “Now that I’ve lost the ability, am I to have enjoyment—with my husband so old?”

One day Elisha visited Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to have a meal; and whenever he passed by, he would stop there for a meal. Once she said to her husband, “I am sure it is a holy agent of God who comes this way regularly. Let us make a small enclosed upper chamberaenclosed upper chamber Or “upper wall-chamber”; lit. “an upper chamber of wall(s).” and place a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand there for him, so that he can stop there whenever he comes to us.” One day he came there; he retired to the upper chamber and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call that Shunammite.” He called her, and she stood before him. He said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak in your behalf to the king or to the army commander?’” She replied, “I live among my own people.” “What then can be done for her?” he asked. “The fact is,” said Gehazi, “she has no son, and her husband is old.” “Call her,” he said. He called her, and she stood in the doorway. And Elisha said, “At this season next year, you will be embracing a son.” She replied, “Please, my lord, agent of God, do not delude your maidservant.” The woman conceived and bore a son at the same season the following year, as Elisha had assured her.

Another meaning of the words ולשרה בן, that Sarah would by then have a son, is to tell us that a son i.e. male issue, is dependent on the female element being predominant whereas daughters are the result of a preponderant male element during marital union. We know this from Nidah 31 based on Leviticus 12,2. The angel prophesied that the physical union of Abraham and Sarah which would result in her impregnation would correspond to the rules laid down, or hinted at, in Leviticus 12,2. [compare Midrash Hagadol in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak that the sex of the embryo is determined in accordance with whose orgasm occurs first. If the male completes his orgasm first, the result is a daughter, if the female is first, the result is a son. Ed.] Scripture alludes to who was first by the way the birth is described. Chronicles I 4 18, states: "and his wife, the Jewess, gave birth to Yered, etc." [Every other issue mentioned in that chapter is described in terms of the husband fathering instead of as the wife giving birth. Ed.] In Genesis 22,24 the repetition of "and his concubine whose name was Re-umah, etc.," is another example of the principle we described. The words "whose name was" were quite unnecessary otherwise. Accordingly, the angels attributed the forthcoming son to the predominance of the female, i.e. Sarah's input.