Parshas Vayeira 5787 "G-d has made laughter for me" - Why did Avraham and Sarah laugh

00:00 The Frierdiker Rebbe related in a letter a story that took place in the days of the holy Baal Shem Tov. Once, on a Shabbos at the Baal Shem Tov’s, many people came to him from all around. Many were simple Jews: people who worked in the fields, wagon drivers, very simple Jews. They spent Shabbos with the Baal Shem Tov. It was a special Shabbos, with a large crowd. On Friday night, everyone came to the table for the meal with the holy Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov showed great warmth to the simple people. His holy disciples, the tzaddikim, the Baal Shem Tov’s great disciples, who were called the “Chevraya Kadisha,” were very surprised that the Baal Shem Tov drew the simple people so close. He gave them wine from his own cup to say l’chaim, gave them some of his challah to eat, and showed them exceptional warmth. All this took place at the Friday-night meal. On Shabbos day, the Baal Shem Tov sat only with the disciples of the Chevraya Kadisha, his great disciples. Everyone else, the simple people, stayed in the shul, in the beis midrash, and said Tehillim and so on. The disciples said nothing, but some of them thought to themselves: Ah, this is much more pleasant now. The Baal Shem Tov is sitting only with them and can speak to them about deep matters of Torah. And about all the commotion the day before with the simple people, they had this feeling in their hearts:

01:47 Why does the Baal Shem Tov give them so much attention? But this was early in the Baal Shem Tov’s work, when his approach to the whole matter of Ahavas Yisroel was not yet known. The Frierdiker Rebbe related the details of the story at length. The story has already been printed in the Tehillim volume, at the end of the book of Tehillim “Ohel Yosef Yitzchak.” There the story is told at length: how the Baal Shem Tov instructed them to sing a niggun in the beis midrash, and while they sang, asked them to place their hands on one another, and placed his holy hands on the two disciples sitting beside him. Among them was the Maggid of Mezritch. When they closed their eyes, they saw a vision: the simple people were saying Tehillim warmly, with all their hearts, and from time to time saying, “Oy, holy Father, holy Father, merciful Father.” They felt close to their souls leaving their bodies when they saw the Divine delight in those simple people’s straightforward recitation of Tehillim. When they finished singing the niggun, removed their hands and opened their eyes, the Baal Shem Tov said to the disciples: Ah, if we, people of our standing, clothed in bodies, feel such delight when we sense the truth in a simple chapter of Tehillim said by a simple Jew

03:15 with warmth—and this is the advantage of baalei teshuvah over tzaddikim, that “in the place where baalei teshuvah stand, even complete tzaddikim cannot stand”; the broken heart of a baal teshuvah is the advantage of simple people—how much more so does Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is truth itself, surely appreciate even more the service of simple people saying Tehillim in this way. The Frierdiker Rebbe goes on to relate something very interesting in the letter. He tells what the Alter Rebbe said he had heard from the Maggid of Mezritch: After this incident, the Maggid was deeply brokenhearted. How could he have entertained such a thought about his teacher at the time, a thought seemingly contrary to the Baal Shem Tov’s holy view? That alone broke him. He was very distressed and tried to undertake various forms of repentance. Then, one night, he had a vision. In the vision, he saw himself in Gan Eden, walking through the higher world. Among the chambers he passed through and saw, he entered one chamber in Gan Eden. A whole group of small children, young Torah students, sat there. And the holy Baal Shem Tov—no, sorry, Moshe Rabbeinu—was the teacher. They were studying Chumash together. Moshe Rabbeinu

04:51 sat with the small children and studied Chumash with them. As they studied, they reached Parshas Lech Lecha. The children learned the verse where the Torah relates that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Avraham Avinu, “I will establish My covenant,” and told him that he and Sarah would have a child, “Avraham fell on his face and laughed”—Avraham Avinu laughed. He said: How could a child still be born to me at the age of a hundred, and to Sarah at the age of ninety? These are the verses the Torah tells us. But the Baal Shem Tov tested the children there in the cheder on this verse and said: There are various interpretations in the Midrashim and commentaries of Avraham Avinu’s laughter, but a verse does not depart from its plain meaning. It may be that Avraham Avinu, in his surprise, really did laugh and could not believe it could happen—that he could father a child at a hundred and Sarah could give birth at ninety. And the Baal Shem Tov concluded: Because even a holy body—the body of Avraham Avinu is a holy body, yet it is still a body. And from the perspective of the body, it is possible that he could not believe it, because it was so

06:22 astonishing—how could such a thing be? And from these words, which the Maggid related to the Alter Rebbe, he was reassured, because he felt how directly this applied to him. Even the Baal Shem Tov said this about Avraham Avinu: even Avraham Avinu, whose body was holy, could, from the perspective of the body, find certain things difficult to accept. In the same way, from the perspective of the body, there could have been something he himself found difficult to accept—that is what the Baal Shem Tov said. And in our parsha, we find something similar with Sarah. When the angels came and said, “At this time next year, Sarah will have a son,” “Sarah was listening,” and “Sarah laughed within herself”—Sarah laughed. She said, “After I have grown old, will I have renewed youth, and my husband is old?” Afterward, Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “Why did Sarah laugh?” and “I have grown old.” And even then, “Sarah denied it” and said, “I did not laugh,” and “He said: No, you did laugh.” This whole account, the back-and-forth between Sarah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu over the laughter. We find that Avraham and Sarah both laughed when they received this news. But Rashi distinguishes between them. Seemingly, that is not

08:01 how it appears from the account here. Rashi distinguishes between them and says there is a major difference between Avraham’s laughter and Sarah’s. There was no criticism at all of Avraham’s laughter. Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not say to him: Why are you laughing? On the contrary, Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “But Sarah your wife will bear you a son,” and that is indeed what would happen. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not rebuke him for laughing. With Sarah, by contrast: “Why did Sarah laugh?” What is the difference? Rashi explains, following the Targum, that the Targum renders Avraham’s laughter as “and he rejoiced”—he was happy. His laughter was an expression of joy. When we come to Sarah, it is described as “mocking.” In other words, this was not joy, not laughter of happiness, but laughter of mockery, as though she had doubts. It was an entirely different kind of laughter. That is why Sarah was challenged: “Why did Sarah laugh?”—as though she could not believe it. In other words, according to Rashi, Avraham had faith and believed, while Sarah laughed and did not believe. This raises a major difficulty, and there are two questions. First, we need to understand: How can that be? What does it mean? Why Sarah in particular? What is the difference between Avraham and Sarah, when they were both—Avraham and Sarah

09:36 were both among our holy forefathers and foremothers, and both had faith. Surely we cannot say that Sarah lacked faith. On the contrary, the Gemara says that Sarah was an even greater prophet than Avraham Avinu. To say that Sarah lacked faith, G-d forbid? Both were among our forefathers and foremothers, a holy chariot for the Divine. Certainly, this cannot be understood at face value. So what is the difference here between Avraham and Sarah? The second question concerns the story itself: According to the explanation the Alter Rebbe gives in the name of the Maggid, there was nothing undesirable about Avraham’s reaction either. As he says, the holy body was [unclear], and his body could not contain it. How are we to understand this? And the main question is that something exceedingly positive came out of all this laughter. The Torah is not telling us something bad about our forefathers. Not only that, but on the contrary: “Therefore he called his name Yitzchak.” As the Torah says, the name Yitzchak itself was given to him because of this laughter. Avraham laughed, Sarah laughed, and then a child was born—the one and only child Sarah had. She was ninety, Avraham was a hundred, and he was their only son. They needed to give him a name. The parents went around thinking about what

11:03 A name had to be given to their child. Imagine: this was their one and only child, she was ninety and he was a hundred, and they had to give him a name. They looked for a name to give him, and the only name that came to mind was Yitzchak, after the laughter. In other words, this laughter was not just foolish laughter, G-d forbid. On the contrary, it was not laughter that [unclear] something wrong, something requiring [unclear]. Quite the opposite: it was something profoundly positive, so much so that the name Yitzchak was chosen specifically because of the laughter. And as the Torah tells us later in the parsha, when Yitzchak was born, Sarah our matriarch herself said out of that laughter, “G-d has made laughter for me.” It became part of his entire being. What is this laughter about? “Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” To get to the heart of it, let us begin with the plain meaning. The Ramban asks, in our parsha, about the difference between Sarah and Avraham. On the plain level, he asks: Why was there joy with Avraham, while with Sarah there was [unclear], and she laughed? To understand this, of course, we need to know the verses. And Hashem was upset with Sarah over this, but not with Avraham. The Ramban answers simply. Avraham our forefather heard the news from Hashem Himself. In Parshas Lech Lecha, there was a revelation of G-dliness in which Hashem told Avraham that he would have

12:34 a child. So of course, it is simple: Avraham heard it from Hashem Himself, and therefore he was not concerned. Sarah did not hear it from Hashem Himself. He explains that Avraham our forefather heard it, but it did not necessarily reach Sarah. Avraham may not even have told Sarah right away, because immediately afterward there was the bris milah, with a whole [unclear] surrounding the bris, and afterward he was ill. It is possible that Sarah knew nothing of the entire matter and that, according to the plain meaning of the verses, the first time she heard of it was when the angels came. And even when the angels came, they had not yet appeared as angels. According to the Ramban, as is understood from Chumash and as Rashi and the commentators say, they appeared as people, as ordinary men. So Sarah did not necessarily know they were angels. They did not arrive and announce that they were angels; they were simply people who came and said—well, what did they say? That there would be a child. From her perspective, since she had not heard it from Hashem and did not know they were angels, it is understandable, on the plain level, why this astonished her. Yes. If so, how could she be faulted? The Ramban explains that she nevertheless should have answered “Amen,” and so on, and should have sensed that they were men of truth, and so on. That was the first [unclear], an extremely subtle matter. But she did not. Still, in her case, of course, the difference between

13:53 Avraham and Sarah—why was it laughter with Sarah rather than joy? The holy Ohr Hachaim adds another point here. The holy Ohr Hachaim says that the difference between Avraham and Sarah is not simply that Sarah did not believe. Sarah certainly believed. What is the proof? The verse itself says that she began menstruating. She immediately saw a change taking place in her body, that she had returned to her youth. So she certainly had [unclear]. She could see with her own eyes that the angels’ words would come true. She had no doubt. It was not mocking laughter, as Rashi’s wording might suggest on its face. Rather, the holy Ohr Hachaim explains that the difference between Avraham and Sarah—and this was Hashem’s complaint—was that Avraham believed without any sign. He did not wait for something to happen, for some change he could see. He believed immediately. Sarah, however, did not believe immediately. Only after she saw that she had returned to her youth, that a change had taken place in nature, did she say, “Ah.” That was when joy arose within her. It was not laughter born, G-d forbid, of a lack of faith. Rather, as he explains, Hashem’s complaint, “Why did Sarah laugh?” meant: Why did you laugh? Why did the laughter arise within you only then, and not before? There should have been [unclear] here. In any case,

15:24 what we see here is that the whole matter of laughter is [unclear]. Here Chassidus comes and explains the root of the matter, its true meaning. Yitzchak’s entire being, and the birth of Yitzchak’s soul, are bound up with laughter. And it had to happen in such a way that both Avraham our forefather and Sarah experienced laughter. As for what is said in the Maggid’s teaching, which he heard above from Moshe Rabbeinu, that the laughter is the body—the meaning is not, G-d forbid, that on the bodily level it was simply laughter in the ordinary sense. The meaning is much deeper. The laughter of both Avraham and Sarah certainly has its place in the deeper intentions and inner meaning of these matters, and we will explain this further through Chassidus. But because this took place while they were in physical bodies, these matters were reflected on the bodily level. From the body’s perspective, it looks like laughter, as though [unclear], as though he does not believe. He laughs: How can this be? It is [unclear]. In other words, as is explained at length in the Rebbe’s sichos, there are two levels to the forefathers: the forefathers as souls, and the forefathers as embodied beings. From the perspective of their souls, everything shines openly, and one sees

16:57 openly the Divine intention and the G-dly dimension of the matter. From the outset, one sees the whole thing in its greatness. When the soul is enclothed in a body, these are still exceedingly lofty matters, but as they appear outwardly from the body’s perspective, they can be interpreted as something negative. In truth, though, quite the opposite: they contain a profound inner meaning. There are extensive explanations of this, and one could discuss it in great depth. The Rebbe gives a simple example—though it is not a simple example. The Gemara says that when Hashem wrote the Torah, He wrote “Let us make man” in Parshas Bereishis, in the plural. Moshe Rabbeinu protested: Why is it written in the plural? The Sadducees, or the heretics, will come and make a great issue of it, as though it says here that there are multiple authorities. And Hashem said, “Write it, and whoever wishes to err may come and err.” Write it that way, “Let us make,” in the plural. And if foolish people, heretics, use it that way—that is their problem. What does this mean? It does not mean that it was not even written [unclear]. That is how it must be written. There is a lofty inner intention in it, with all the explanations given both in the revealed Torah and in the inner dimension of Torah as to why it is written here as though in the plural. But the fact that it was written in a way that allows for “whoever wishes to err may come and err” means that, as these matters descend here below, they descend in a form that leaves room for someone “who wishes to err.” But as we said, in

18:25 truth, it is not an error. There is a Divine intention here, an inner intention, through which one can reach a deeper understanding. We see something similar in the stories of the forefathers: even in stories that, from a physical perspective, can appear negative, a deeper look reveals how closely the entire matter is connected to its underlying purpose. We see this with Avraham’s laughter, and even more so with Sarah’s laughter. This is the meaning of “G-d has made laughter for me.” The explanation is this: Chassidus explains “G-d has made laughter for me” on the basis of the Maggid’s words. The Maggid of Mezritch says that the great kings—and the kings in those days were mighty rulers—were exceptional, exalted, remarkable people who stood on a very high level. As a result, they were distant and elevated, deeply absorbed in lofty matters. But when people wanted to bring them down, so that they would relate to the people of the country and attend to ordinary matters, something had to draw them into it. Because they were so exalted, bringing them down required things [unclear] that would arouse laughter in them, a sense of

19:53 delight. And to arouse that delight, one must do something special, something novel, something unusual that will impress them by its novelty. That stirred their delight. He gives the example of a talking bird. What does that mean? A bird that talks—what people call a parrot—an animal that says words. That is something extraordinary. If you brought in a person to speak, it would not make the king laugh or give him delight. Of course a person speaks. Even great sages saying profound things [unclear] and giving deep discourses would not have stirred the king’s amazement. [unclear]. It is precisely the fact that a bird speaks that is novel, utterly out of the ordinary. The bird can barely say two or three words, and does not even say them well, but the very novelty of it arouses delight, and that brings about a change in the king. He also gives the example of a small child. The child says a few words, and it inspires amazement; the king becomes happy, and laughter is aroused within him. This is “G-d has made laughter for me,” which was revealed specifically through Yitzchak. The name Elokim signifies the attribute of judgment and tzimtzum, concealment and hiddenness,

21:30 And over the physical world, a world of falsehood, a darkness doubled and redoubled. When a Jew is down here and practices iskafya—restraining himself, breaking his own sitra achra and refraining from something undesirable; when he does not give in to [unclear], but instead transforms the physical, this world and its materiality, making them vessels for G-dliness—that act is something new. It arouses above true laughter and delight from the refinement of the sparks of holiness, as darkness is turned into light. When one practices iskafya toward the sitra achra, as the Zohar says—refraining from it, restraining oneself and breaking its hold—then “the glory of Hakadosh Boruch Hu rises throughout all the worlds.” This is the true laughter and delight of “Elokim has made laughter for me.” And this is also what Yitzchak represents. Yitzchak was associated with the attribute of gevurah, which is connected with concealment, and it is precisely through it that true laughter is reached. That is why Yitzchak’s entire birth had to happen in this way. Avraham laughed too: something beyond reason, which made him laugh. He was utterly astonished by the wonder of the miracle, which came with something new from above [unclear]. And Sarah’s laughter was even greater, to the point that the Rebbe [unclear]

22:56 said to Sarah, “Is anything too wondrous for Hashem?” In other words, what stirred the source of laughter was the “too wondrous”—the sense of wonder, something beyond nature, beyond reason, beyond desires. And from that wonder Yitzchak was born. This expressed the true meaning of “Elokim has made laughter for me”: that it is precisely from the name Elokim and from a world of concealment that laughter and delight emerge—“Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” In our service of Hashem lies the great wonder that the weekly parsha tells us about. It contains the great wonder and the depth of the purpose for which the soul descends below. Yitzchak was the first Jew born Jewish. With him there was this matter, that [unclear], that he was circumcised at eight days old, and with him the entire story of the Jewish people began. What is the purpose, what is the intent, of the soul’s descent below? The parsha tells us: “Elokim has made laughter for me.” A Jew must know that when he performs one act of iskafya, one act of overcoming himself, one step in which he changes his ways in thought, speech and action—not thinking what he should not think, not looking where he should not look, not listening to what he should not hear, and so on—when he moves beyond his coarseness and his sense of self, overcomes his materiality, and

24:23 breaks through the darkness, he brings about [unclear], so that the delight is [unclear] delight above. And this work prepares for the revelation of the future—Yitzchak is in the future tense. Then “our mouths will be filled with laughter,” as explained in the sefarim, and [unclear], that in the future they will call upon Yitzchak. And this is [unclear], the field of Yitzchak, the field of Yitzchak. The meaning of laughter, of “our mouths will be filled with laughter,” is that true laughter and delight will be revealed once the work of refinement is complete, when all these sparks of holiness [unclear], and the world itself will be refined from darkness into light. The revelation of the future will make it openly apparent how “Elokim has made laughter for me”: how the name Elokim, the attribute of judgment, becomes a source of true laughter and joy. Then “our mouths will be filled with laughter”—the great joy of “everlasting joy upon their heads,” in the true and complete Geulah. May we merit to see it with our physical eyes, immediately, right now.