Our innocence does not prove another’s guilt. Adversity is part of life, and, very often, there is not necessarily anyone to blame.
The Torah in Parashat Lekh-Lekha tells of Sara’s decision to have her maidservant, Hagar, marry Avraham. Having been unable to conceive after many years of marriage to Avraham, Sara figured that her maidservant would marry Avraham and bear children who would, in a sense, be hers – “and I, too, shall be built from her” (16:2). Hagar indeed conceived, whereupon her relationship to Sara began to change, as Hagar treated her as inferior. Sara, surprisingly, directed her anger toward Avraham: “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).
Many commentators addressed the question of why Sara blamed Avraham for the situation. From the straightforward reading of the text, it appears that Avraham did nothing other than what Sara requested. He married Hagar, who then conceived. How could he be blamed for Hagar’s disrespectful attitude toward Sara?
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch finds the answer to this question in the word “anokhi” (“I”) which Sara used in this context, as opposed to the more common word “ani.” According to Rav Hirsch, the term “anokhi” has the specific connotation of “I to the exclusion of others.” (The most obvious example of this meaning of “anokhi” is in the Ten Commandments – “Anokhi Hashem Elokekha.”) Sara here tells Avraham, in Rav Hirsch’s words, “I, myself placed her in your arms. She knows quite well that it was I who brought about the whole matter, and brought it about just with the intention of her becoming a mother. So it must be in your behavior and conduct that I have lost value in her eyes.” In other words, as Sara initiated this entire course of action, with the expressed purpose of begetting children through Hagar, it is clear that Hagar’s marriage to Avraham was not meant as a “promotion” to a status equal to, and certainly not superior to, Sara. And thus nothing Sara did could have possible led to the diminution of her status in Hagar’s eyes, and, as such, it must have been Avraham who, through either word or deed, led Hagar to believe she was now superior.
Chazal (Bereishit Rabba 45) were critical of Sara for her response to this situation, pointing to Sara’s angry reaction as an example of the tendency among some women to be “astetniyot” (quarrelsome). In light of Rav Hirsch’s approach, we might learn from this episode that we must avoid pointing fingers at others when adverse situations arise, even when we know that we are not at fault. Sara may have indeed been correct that she could not be blamed for the circumstances, but this does not justify her casting the blame on Avraham. Our innocence does not prove another’s guilt. Adversity is part of life, and, very often, there is not necessarily anyone to blame. Finding a source of guilt has the temporarily soothing effect of supplying a target at which to direct our frustration, and it is therefore natural to begin looking for somebody to blame when adverse situations arise. The Midrash’s criticism of Sara should remind us to avoid this tendency and to accept the reality that even when we are not at fault, this does not mean that somebody else is.