Vayera — On Sarah’s Laughter

Parashat Vayera is famous for Sarah’s laughter.

It opens with the mythical scene of Avraham “sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day,” when he suddenly “sees” three men approaching.

These travelers do not arrive by chance — they are divine messengers who have come to tell him, an old man of nearly one hundred years, that within a year he and his wife Sarah — just a decade younger and long barren — will have a son.

Hearing this from inside the tent, Sarah, who, the text tells us had stopped having her period, simply laughs:

וַתִּצְחַ֥ק שָׂרָ֖ה בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ לֵאמֹ֑ר אַֽחֲרֵ֤י בְלֹתִי֙ הָֽיְתָה־לִּ֣י עֶדְנָ֔ה וַֽאדֹנִ֖י זָקֵֽן׃“Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘Now that I am worn out, will I really know pleasure again? And my husband is old!’” (Genesis 18:12)

In fact, Sarah is not the first to laugh at such news.

In the previous parasha, when God announced the same promise to Avraham, he too laughed:

וַיִּפֹּ֧ל אַבְרָהָ֛ם עַל־פָּנָ֖יו וַיִּצְחָ֑ק וַיֹּ֣אמֶר בְּלִבּ֗וֹ הַלְּבֶ֤ן מֵאָֽה־שָׁנָה֙ יִוָּלֵ֔ד וְאִ֨ם־שָׂרָ֔ה הֲבַת־תִּשְׁעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה תֵּלֵֽד׃“Abraham fell on his face and laughed, saying to himself, ‘Can a child really be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, at ninety, give birth?’” (Genesis 17:17)

In both cases, the same word — tzchok (laughter) — describes the reaction of husband and wife. Hence the name of the son who will come to them: Yitzchak — “he will laugh.”

Yet commentators tend to judge Sarah’s laughter more harshly.

While Avraham’s laughter is often read as joy and wonder, Sarah’s is interpreted as doubt or cynicism.

Perhaps, in this double standard, we glimpse the patriarchal lens through which the biblical narrative has often been read by traditional commentaries.

So perhaps as he offers a radically different understanding of Sarah’s laughter, the Kedushat Levi — Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev — commentary could even be called a feminist reading.

Drawing on Psalm 118:21, he interprets her laughter as an expression of gratitude:

א֭וֹדְךָ כִּ֣י עֲנִיתָ֑נִי וַתְּהִי־לִ֝֗י לִישׁוּעָֽה׃“I thank You, for You have answered me, and become my deliverance.”

The Kedushat Levi notes that the Hebrew word עֲנִיתָ֑נִי — anitani can be read in two ways:

not only as “You answered me,” but also as “You afflicted me” or “You caused me to suffer.”

Why, then, would Sarah’s laughter express gratitude for suffering?

Because, he says, what comes to us easily, when we are young or when life flows smoothly, we tend to take for granted.

But when something comes only after years of longing, struggle, and pain, our joy is deeper, fuller — born from the very suffering that preceded it.

Think about the things you didn’t have to wait for, fight for, hope for, despair about, pray for, and hope again for.

When they happened, did they bring the same depth of joy as those things you had to yearn and ache for?

Yes — for better or worse, it seems like some of life’s hardest seasons are gifts in disguise.

They teach us humility, patience, endurance, resilience.

They teach us what hope and prayer truly mean.

And then, the joy that follows is in direct proportion to the sorrow that came before — just as water tastes sweetest after thirst.

Writing these lines, I can’t help but think of the Shir HaMa’alot we sing before Birkat HaMazon on Shabbat:

“Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.” (Psalm 126:5)הַזֹּרְעִ֥ים בְּדִמְעָ֗ה בְּרִנָּ֥ה יִקְצֹֽרוּ׃

And I can’t help but think of something else: the words of the mother of Rom Bratslavsky, one of the Israeli hostages captured at age 19 by Islamic Jihad and held in darkness in Azza for over two years.

Upon his release, as people around him were offering him phones, tablets, anything he wanted — he, she said, only wanted one thing:

“To look at the sky.”

We who are privileged never to have been deprived of seeing the sky may forget how precious it is — how vital it is simply to stand in the daylight and behold the vast blue above us, the expanse that connects us to the starry universe beyond.

As we read Vayera this week, may it be an invitation to remember and savor the things we once longed for and that, in time, came to be.And may it also be an invitation to see our current challenges in a new light:

What if the things we are still waiting for, praying for, perhaps despairing over — and then daring to hope for again — are themselves gifts in disguise?

Here’s to what Ram Dass called the “fierce grace” of life — the unexpected gifts, the opportunities to grow, that come through the challenges we never chose. And from there, might come our most beautiful laughter.