Enough “minor” wrongs can create major tensions. We must endeavor to avoid even minor tensions in our relationships with other people, if for no other reason than to ensure that they do not combine to create major tensions.
We cited and discussed the Torah’s brief description of Sara’s angry comments to Avraham upon seeing how Hagar began treating her disrespectfully: “Sara said to Avraham: My fury is upon you; I placed my maidservant in your bosom, and when she saw she was pregnant, she belittled me” (16:5). Sara had decided to have Hagar marry Avraham so the children would be considered, in some sense, her own, but once Hagar conceived she began belittling Sara and regarding her as inferior. In response, Sara turned to Avraham and blamed him for the situation, as she apparently felt that he did not stand up for his wife’s honor in the face of Hagar’s insolence.
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary to this verse, notes the significance of the term “chamasi” (“my fury”) which Sara uses here to describe her feelings of anger toward her husband. The word “chamas,” Rav Hirsch explains, as opposed other terms used for anger, denotes “continuous small wrongs.” And thus, for example, Chazal famously understood the Torah’s description of the generation of the flood as a time of rampant “chamas” (6:11) to mean that they engaged in theft of small amounts that cannot be claimed in court. Rav Hirsch explains that “chamas” refers not to severe acts of violence, but rather to small, minor annoyances and grievances that, with time, create a generally unpleasant reality. In Rav Hirsch’s words, “chamas” means “small petty needle pricks which disturb one’s life, put one into a ‘ferment,’ continuously disturbing the quiet peaceful atmosphere till it becomes ‘sour’…” (In this vein, Rav Hirsch suggests an association between the term “chamas” and the word “chametz,” comparing small, continuous offenses to a small portion of yeast which causes fermentation.) And thus, Sara here does not accuse Avraham of a single, grievous offense. Rather, she blames the difficult circumstances, whereby she lost her authority over Hagar and her prominent position in the household, on Avraham’s day-to-day mishandling – in Sara’s view – of the situation. She thus describes her grievance with the word “chamas,” charging that Avraham’s actions had the cumulative effect of creating this undesirable and unpleasant situation.
As mentioned yesterday, Chazal in the Midrash express their disapproval of Sara’s anger toward Avraham. Nevertheless, Rav Hirsch’s insight should perhaps alert us to the fact that especially in close relationships, small offenses and infractions, independently trivial and negligible as they may be, have a way of building and accumulating to the point where a general negative environment surfaces. Enough “minor” wrongs can create major tensions. And thus even if Sara’s harsh remarks toward Avraham were not justified, the concept of “chamas,” of anger resulting from the cumulative effect of a series of minor offenses, is one which we should learn from her response. We must endeavor to avoid even minor tensions in our relationships with other people, if for no other reason than to ensure that they do not combine to create major tensions.