he Reading from the Torah today is the story of Sarah and Hagar, two women, one a wife of some stature and the other her maidservant, and how their once predictable and functional places within the household became adversarial and alienating - a misadventure in power.

In summary, it goes like this…

Sarah, Abraham’s wife had been unable to conceive a child, but she had an Egyptian maid called Hagar, and Sarah said to Abraham: “Go to my maid, it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And with God’s encouragement, Abraham went to Hagar and she conceived and bore them a son named Ishmael.” But this event evoked jealousy and anger in Sarah as she perceived ‘contemptuousness’ from Hagar. And, as the story goes, there then came a time when God also granted Sarah a child and his name was Isaac; and Sarah was to have said…with this child “God made laughter for me”, she was so elated by the event. Indeed, in their dotage, Sarah being 80 years old and Abraham being 100, this event was quite something, if not a miracle.

But soon after, when Sarah saw the two boys playing, she was struck by the realization of their shared rights as heirs to Abraham _ Isaac her blessed son, and Ishmael, the son of her maid who held what she felt to be nothing but contempt for her. And so she went to Abraham and ordered him to banish Hagar and Ishmael from their tent, enabling Isaac to be the sole and rightful heir to Abraham. God once again encouraged Abraham to listen to his wife. And therefore, with great pain in his heart, since Ishmael was also his son, Abraham forced Hagar and Ishmael from their home with only bread and water. Hagar, unwilling to watch her son perish in the desert, beseeched God to save him. When she looked up, she saw a well from which she drew water for her child. And so begins the story of Ishmael, a skilled bowsman and sire of a ‘great nation’ called Islam. And from Isaac, as sole heir of Abraham, emanated his descendants, the people of Israel, our ancestors.

The story of Hagar and Sarah is a compelling one of relationships between two women, two brothers, two mothers, between mothers and sons, a father and his sons. It is also a story of desire and fulfillment, sadness and joy, jealousy and hurt, loss and redemption. And most poignantly for me, it is the story of using power because you can, taking control of others ‘for their own good’, and finding wisdom, strength and serenity emerge from rage and obstinance.

When Hagar was cast out of Sarah and Abraham’s tent, she was not consulted; there was no discussion. Sarah simply did not want her son Isaac to have to share his inheritance with his half brother, Ishamael. Nor, one could assume, did Sarah want to compete with Hagar for Abraham’s affection. And, as the story goes, God told Abraham to do Sarah’s bidding; and so, Hagar and Ishmael were banished.

How did Sarah’s initial celebration of Ishmael’s birth to Hagar flip so dramatically? Her insensitivity to Abraham also seems incomprehensible. She compelled him to turn away his son even as she acted so extremely on behalf of her own.

Was Sarah’s act one of a mother blindly protecting her child from receiving less than what she thought was his due? Or was she acting on behalf of Abraham whom she knew to favour Isaac but who was unable to summon up his own resources to banish his son. And what about the fact that she may have simply made a ‘difficult’ but ‘just’ decision? Ishmael lived and sired his own nation as did Isaac, whereas, their lives lived as brothers, under the same roof, may have precluded them from achieving such lofty goals.

And what about Hagar, forced to protect her son from certain death, she is supplicant, and asks God not to save herself but to save her son.

Both are stories of a mother’s love for her children and the extremes to which we, as mothers (and parents) will go, in order to defend, protect and keep our children from harm, even if it means hurting someone else. I have been there, as I am sure many of you have.

But what about the reverse, what about the love of a child for his or her parents? Did Ishmael love Abraham any less than Isaac did? Did Isaac love his mother even though she orchestrated the removal of Ishmael, his half brother? This love of child for parent is unequivocally as complex and simple as parent for child. And this is where our family’s story begins.

About a year ago my brother and I began to notice that my mother was repeating herself, forgetting things, withdrawing, sequestering herself at home. She did not want to go out, was increasingly confused and was clearly losing her sight and her hearing. And, ultimately she seemed to be losing interest in everything. Her so-called golden years were tarnishing.

My father, on the other hand, was walking 2 or 3 miles every morning; calling up radio stations or writing letters of protest when they featured someone he didn’t like or didn’t agree with; giving donations to organizations that look after either animals or kids; closing bank accounts in banks where he had to talk to a machine; shopping at six different stores where he could get the best deal on orange juice and shortbread cookies; and golfing. He bought a cell phone so he could check up on my mother when he was out; she may have wandered down to the underground parking, looking for him, if he took too long. In summary, he was managing…

And then, my mom put a plastic container in the toaster oven and turned it on.

My dad began to sleep with one ear open, prepared all the meals, and began a life of visiting doctors, becoming frustrated and feeling his own health becoming compromised.

My brother says we are the sandwich generation. Our parents are aging, our children are growing, our jobs are demanding, our commitments and obligations seem to be forever expanding. But aren’t we, at the same time, blessed that we have our parents, our children, our jobs, our energy, our health, and the stamina, most days, to do it all. Even though, occasionally, we push the envelope a bit too far and yearn to remove just one of the myriad of obligations.

And what does it really mean to be the sandwich generation? Paul says he’s the lox and I’m the cream cheese, and our partners are the lettuce and tomatoes. And that fresh rye bread with double kimmel is either one of the kids or one of our parents, depending on the hour or the day or the month. And depending again on the size of your family, it could be a major sub.

When it became apparent my parents were going to need help, we started with Homecare. My mother didn’t want it. We began to have conversations like, ”When you can’t manage by yourselves, what do you want? Do you want to stay in your own home with supports? What about filling out forms, just in case? What about retirement homes?” Increasingly, as my mom became less able to see and do things on her own, she became more adamant about staying in her own home. Makes sense: change which was never easy, was becoming even more frightening. But she fired the nurse, she fired the homemaker, she fired the social worker and the dietician and she began to repeat, “I’m no use; I should be you know, down there; my head, my head, I can’t remember anything anymore.” And the most painful thing of all was watching this once avid reader carrying her book from room to room, day after day as if at any moment she would sit down and devour it like she used to. It was breaking our hearts.

At the same time, my dad was having to learn to cook, supervise the laundry (she could still do that) and he was becoming stressed and tired and frustrated listening increasingly to mom repeat herself. His health was being impacted both emotionally and physically.

You see, mom had once been so strong. Bold and brash, obstreperous and sharp. We were meeting a new mom, missing the old one and reluctant to acknowledge the transition.

We felt trapped, needing to wrest any decision-making power from her in order to save my Dad from complete exhaustion and a failing heart. They are 86 and 83, not so different from Abraham and Sarah, but I’m quite convinced there are no more kids in the offing. No miracles, I thought, for this family.

But, you know what, there has been a miracle. We moved my parents into a Retirement home, we gave my mom no option, we took her twice before they moved, trying to extol its virtues, but she was still pretty smart and knew she was being conned, fought us all the way, raged at herself and us and, quite honestly we didn’t know whether she would actually get there. But we love our parents. We realized that we loved my mom enough to take her decision-making powers from her. I can’t believe I would ever say that.

How did Abraham feel when he told Hagar and Ishmael to leave? How did Hagar and Ishmael feel when they were banished, powerless and lost? How did Sarah feel after choosing her own child over her stepson? Sarah’s choice. Was she at all remorseful? Did she identify as a mother with Hagar, could she even consider the extent of Abraham’s pain?

The love we feel for our parents as they become more dependent more closely resembles the love we feel for our children. Dependency engenders a protective passion, a desire to reduce harm and pain, the memories of being a child ourselves and understanding, finally coming full circle with the reflection of love for our parents. But how dare we take away the dignity of anyone ‘for their own good’. How dare we remove the ability for our children and our parents to make mistakes, live with their own decisions, be part of rightful decision-making. How dare we do it? We do it for love. We do it because just sometimes it may be the best thing to do. But I still wonder if it is right.

We have learned to love our parents differently. We have lost the energy for the battle of wits, digging in our heels about doing it our way. We have lost the ability to depend as much on them in times of our own need, because their needs are greater. We have lost the yearning to go home because their ‘home’ is no longer ‘ours’, or to have multi-course Friday night dinners. But you know what, we have gained so much…

We have seen vulnerability and gentleness. We have seen the commitment of almost sixty years together through some very difficult times. We are experiencing an honesty and a wonderfully wry sense of humor in my mother as her only defense against her increasingly harsh reality. And we have seen my Dad learn to listen more often as his children and grandchildren give him advice.

Even as Ishmael and Hagar survived adversity, even as Sarah and Abraham conceived a miracle child, even as Abraham banished his family and Isaac lost a brother, and Sarah and Hagar parted contemptuously: even from loss comes learning and sometimes redemption.

We have been through perhaps the most emotionally difficult time I can ever remember. The psychological exhaustion has been overwhelming. But like coming out of a dark tunnel we have met ourselves again. We are changed. Not only have our parents changed, so have we. Our family is small but we have been through something extraordinary and enormous together.

Ours is also a story of loss and gain, torment and resilience, pain and relief, as are, no doubt, many of yours.

Let us welcome in this New Year by remembering the past year, by appreciating and honouring our many relationships, their ever-changing natures and surprising gifts, and by acknowledging that from loss emerges learning, from challenge, opportunity and from giving selflessly, a full heart.

Happy New Year. Shana tova.

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