In Parshat Lecha Lecha, things are moving, when at the beginning Hashem tells Avraham to move to the Promised land, but with the famine Avraham (still called Avram) goes down to Egypt. Rashi explains that this was one of Hashem’s tests, Avraham was quite entitled to go down to Egypt during famine. The question was would he return to the Promised land, particularly after we read that after the incident of Sarah and Pharaoh, he became rich. He did return and under Hashem’s command travelled and settled in much of the holy land.
On the way down to Egypt, quite fascinatingly, Avraham says to his wife Sarah “behold I now know that you are a beautiful woman,” as if he had not realized till then. Being frightened that the Egyptians will murder him to grab this beautiful woman, to stay alive, he asks Sarah (still called Sarai) to say she is his sister, and not his wife, and she is promptly taken into Pharaoh’s palace. Avraham’s behaviour towards his wife and placing her at the mercy of Pharaoh, does not look too good, but you have to look hard for sages who are prepared to criticize him. The Ramban takes him to task, and says he committed a great sin, both by not trusting Hashem and going down to Egypt, and then by putting Sarah in such great danger and for that we were punished with return to Egypt in slavery.
The Maharal completely refutes the claim that Avraham committed a great sin, as we can see both he and Yitzchak repeated this behaviour when then went to live in Gerar and told the same story that their wives were their sisters, and Avimelech took each of them into his palace, and was similarly punished.
Rav S R Hirsch takes a wider approach and explains that the Torah deliberately presents our forefathers as human and as such made mistakes. The Torah does not hide their mistakes and as such Hirsch feels that this enhances their character and we can learn from their mistakes. Hirsch does try to justify Abraham’s actions in the sense that he was not so much concerned about his life, but more that Sarah would become a concubine to Pharaoh without any freedom. This is why Abraham explains to her gently “I now realize what a beautiful woman you are.”
The Alsheich also looks at this differently and explains that Hashem felt it necessary to send Avraham and Sarah to Egypt and to punish Pharaoh for his intentions, to teach the Egyptians moral behaviour. He adds that similarly Yoseph when first in Egypt ran away from committing adultery with Potiphar’s wife. The message to Bnei Yisrael when they were in exile was to behave morally and in doing so Hashem shortened the years of exile. Perhaps we can add that the Pharaohs didn’t learn the lesson. When Israel was in Egypt, Pharaoh called the midwives and told them to throw the baby boys into the river, interestingly why not the baby girls? Maybe he wished to keep them so that they could satisfy the desires of the Egyptian men.
The Talmud however has praise for Sarah and in Baba Metzia. tells us “A man should always be careful to honour his wife, as blessing is on his house because of his wife, as the verse tells us – “and Avram was treated well because of her.” The Talmud in Brachot relates that Ula was invited to R Nachman’s house for a meal and was invited as the guest to recite the Birchat Hamazon over wine. R Nachman asked Ula to pass the wine to Ilta, R Nachman’s wife. Ula did not, and remarked that he had learned from R Yochanan that a woman is only blessed through her husband as the verse says “blessed is the fruit of a man’s loins”. Ilta, as you may imagine, was pretty upset and in anger she went to the cellar and smashed 400 casks of wine.
When I was young, I was always amazed that the Frumkin wine shop was wholly managed by my grandmother. One day she called me over to ask her what it said on a label and I realized that despite her amazing capabilities, she could not actually read English – another amazing woman.
Shabbat Shalom with prayers for all our hostages, soldiers and all Israel.