sarah laughed...

chagall's  sarah and the angels

i have often wondered at the condemning words so often spoken about the laughter of sarah, when she found our that she would conceive and bear a son (Exoous 21). Why is it assumed that Sarah's laughter was one of mockery?  Why, if her laughter was such an offense to The Creator, was Abraham told to name their son, Laughter?  What if Issac, which means Laughter, was chosen because Sarah's laughter came from utter delight and the kind of disbelief that says..."can you believe it?"  What if Laughter is his name to mark and remember the moment that Sarah found out she would actually bear a son, and her delight was uncontainable?  This possibility changes how we have historicially understood this story and our view of Sarah.

I imagine that the men who wrote the commentaries in years past, never waited for a pregnancy test to read positive, or wept as the blood flow each month marked one more lost chance of a child.  In my brief experience with infertility, i got a glimpse of sarah's pain.  I road that horrible rollercoaster of anticipaiton and pain, of faith and grief...my heart breaking as the hope each month that maybe this time, was dashed when  my empty womb released the signs of death.  Women live with life and death each month as their bodies repeatedly cycle through the preparation for caring and nurturing a new life...and then bleed, as the unnecessary nutrients and prepared walls of their womb slough off and die. Women who long to conceive are acutely aware of this, and i have wept with them, prayed with them and laguhed with them in the miraculous moments of discovering they were finally going to bear a child...

Was this cycle of hope and expectation, crushed and rekindled each passing month in the mids of the commentators as they condemned sarah for her laughter?  I remember the tears that came with the first signs of my unfertilized womb, the anguish and anxiety that i might not conceive, the fear that something was wrong with me...the longing and ache of my empty arms...and then... the thrill at finding out that i was going to give birth...that a life was growing within me!  I can only imagine Sarah's delight and surprise as she found out that she would no longer be barren...that she would bring forth life, and it would be a sign and symbol of the Hand of G-d on her life. That the shame and sorrow associated with being barren would plague her no longer.  Her conceiving was a miracle... and she laughed, in utter delight with a sense of 'can you believe it?!! finally... you're kidding...really???  not in mockery but in a child like way that expresses awe at the gracious giving and is exuberant when receiving a gift.   

I think this is the spirit of Sarah's laughter... and i think G-d was so charmed by her child like wonder, that Issac's name, Laughter, marks the impossible promies of G-d, and acts as a reminder for the miracles that take us by surprise and the wonder of belief...

Just a different lens...a possibility of looking at the story through the eyes of a woman...

Comments

[Ben]

Beautiful words. I'm adding a link to your site. I think it so like G-d that I am reading Wes about tears and get sent to you on laughter. Thanks.

[anj]

Yes, this is beautiful re-framing that rings so true.

[Sarah]

I had never thought of the story in this way. Thanks. I love that Sarah laughs, even if it is out of cyncism rather than joy - I love that we are able to laugh at our Creator and be fully human (I'm not sure if I was Sarah and that old that I would believe the promise of a dusty stranger) and that God still fulfills God's promises to us. Thanks for giving me a new way of thinking about the text.

[Mark]

Susie, :-)

Thanks for this amazing perspective. We are midrashing this text (Genesis 18:1-15)tomorrow at Panera and preaching on it this weekend. Your insight opens a whole new lens...

[Charity]

Whereas I appreciate your elaboration on the view of a woman who so desperately longs for a child of her own (and we know Sarah waited 24 years before she had the chosen Isaac), I feel that you are neglecting God's response to Sarah's laughter, the God who knows all our thoughts. For He asks Abraham, "Is anything too Hard for the Lord?" This seems to imply a little more to Sarah's laughter than delight.