The Genesis of
Infertility: A Contemporary Reading of Biblical Responses
Rabbi Julie Pelc
Adler
After
the first humans’ expulsion from Eden, the twin values of conception and
reproduction ceased to be as simple as would the commandment, “be fruitful and multiply”
might suggest. Sarah,
Rebecca and Rachel[1] (three of
the four matriarchs in the Torah); as well as Hannah[2]
in N’vi-im face serious challenges
trying to conceive[3]. Each woman is vocal about her struggle
in a way that befits her circumstance and personality, creating echoes that
span the generations, resounding for modern women who share their struggle.
Rachel lashes out
with words of anger, Hannah cries out to God in desperation, Isaac pleads with
God alongside Rebecca[4],
and Sarah takes matters into her own hands in order to ensure offspring for her
husband. Biblical women and their
partners confront and respond to a myriad of interconnected factors related to
infertility, struggling with the fact of their barrenness, its theological and
sociological implications, and an attempt to make meaning in their suffering.
THEOLOGIAL
The text
attributes the power of opening and closing wombs to God[5]. As God is therefore an active player in
the struggle of each of these women for fertility, their quest becomes one of
theological import. Hannah’s
prayers are perhaps the most oft mentioned, as her pleas to God are credited as
the invention of silent prayer (“Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips
were moving but her voice was not heard”) [6].
Whereas Hannah’s
physical response to her suffering is to weep, Sarah’s is to laugh. The absurdity of the promise and the
possibility of hope so long denied must have hurt as deeply as had her years of
barrenness. Yet, Sarah is
chastised for her laughter, as if to deny its acceptability as a legitimate
emotional release to the decades of dreams deferred.
The most readily
answered prayer is that of Isaac, uttered on behalf of his wife, Rebecca[7]. She becomes pregnant seemingly right
away: “And Isaac entreated YHVH for his wife because she was barren and YHVH
was entreated of him and Rebecca his wife conceived”. The Hebrew is almost playful, using words with a lyrical
lilt and symmetry between the one requesting and the One answering the prayer[8]. Also, Rebecca is referenced twice in
the same sentence as אִשְׁתּֽוֹ׃, “his wife”, thereby emphasizing the strong
connection between the two and illustrating his active participation in
entreating God. He never abandons
hope that Rebecca, herself, might conceive (taking another wife in her stead or
chastising her for her barrenness).
God here is immediately responsive, and the couple moves from infertile
in Genesis 25:21 to expectant parents of twins in the very next verse. For Isaac and Rebecca, there
never seems to be a loss of hope or faith in God’s ability to alleviate
Rebecca’s barrenness.
Rachel, on the
other hand, seems to suffer a crisis of faith in the face of her
barrenness. Rather than to God,
Rachel cries out to her husband, Jacob, saying, “Give me children, else I die!”
Jacob seems to hear in her plea a misdirected (in his opinion) source of the
infertility and replies in anger, “Am I in God's stead, Who has withheld from
you the fruit of the womb?” [9] Jacob chastises Rachel for lashing out
in anger at him, making a demand that he sees to be completely inappropriate
and outside the range of his power to fulfill. Jacob, however, does not pray to God or make any pleas on
Rachel’s behalf. There seems to be
antagonism and resentment between these two, perhaps rooted in their shared
frustration at Rachel’s inability to conceive (especially in contrast with her
extraordinarily fertile sister and co-wife).
Interestingly,
Sarah is silent in response to her many years of barrenness, even in the face
of the seemingly absurd promise (in the face of her infertility) made to her
husband that he be the father of many descendents[10]. She, rather than pray to God, takes
definitive action to make God’s promise true. She seems to acknowledge and accept that the promise of
procreativity is made to Abraham and not to her; she seems to see her role,
instead, as the intermediary whose actions might make the promise
fulfilled. Without a word of
complaint or resentment, she offers her husband an alternative route to
fertility that includes another woman, her handmaid, in her stead as the bearer
of offspring.
SOCIAL
For women in
Biblical times, the social implications of infertility are great. In two of the four cases, other women
use their strong fertility as a tool to torment their infertile rivals. Rachel is called, עֲקָרָֽה׃, or
“barren”, in contrast with her sister, Leah, whose ease with fertility (and
resulting fecundity) torments Rachel.
Likewise, Hannah’s infertility is mentioned specifically in
counter-distinction with that of her co-wife, Peninah. Hannah weeps in response to her
suffering, so wholly at a loss and staggering with grief, she appears to the
outside eye to be drunk. This
ancient form of bullying is suggested by the text to compensate for the fact
that the infertile wives are more beloved by their husbands than their
procreating counterparts.
Sarah, too, is called barren by the text[11];
she opts to share her husband with another woman in an attempt to “give” him a
son. Jealousy between women is an issue here, too, as Sarah ultimately expels
the handmaid and her son because of an incident between her own child and the
boy that she found too disturbing to tolerate[12].
MEANINGS: RABBINIC AND
PERSONAL
Traditional
readers of text imagine meaning in each and every corner; it is not surprising,
then, that generations of rabbis noticed the abundance of infertility in the
lives of the biblical matriarchs.
Some postulated that God intentionally created the situation of barrenness so as to make each of these women
to despair her fertility, desiring the desperate pleas from these righteous
servants. In a midrash on Genesis,
the rabbis imagine that “the efficacy of prayer and the value of suffering [is]
that [it] leads to purification and brings people closer to God:” [13]
Why were the matriarchs barren?
R. Levi said in R. Shila’s name and R. Helbo in R. Johanan’s names: Because the
Holy One, blessed be He, yearns for their prayers and supplications. Thus it is
written, “O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks,/Hidden by the cliff” (Song of
Songs 2:14): Why did I make you barren? In order that, “Let Me see your
face,/Let me hear your voice” (Song of Songs 2:14).[14]
Similarly, rabbis in the Talmud,
suggest that the matriarchs and patriarchs were initially childless “because
the Holy One, blessed be He, longs to hear the prayer of the righteous.”[15]
Perhaps the
rabbinic mind was comforted by this explanation for infertility. Perhaps an afflicted couple in the
Rabbinic period would encounter this teaching, relax into their suffering,
breathing a sigh of relief, “oh, so God just wants my prayers. That explains it.” But,
somehow, I can’t imagine that this platitude worked for very long, especially
if the pleas continued and prayers for children remained unanswered (or the
divine answer was “no”). In
moments when hope wanes and doubt creeps in, I tend to prefer the company of
Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah.
We do not like
unanswered prayers any more than did our predecessors. We crave meaningful answers to our
questions. We want someone to
listen when we ask, “Why?” and not offer
lovingly unhelpful suggestions like, “it’ll happen when the time is right” or
“maybe you need to relax and stop thinking about it so much”. In quiet moments, we answer our own
wordless “Why?” with equally (if
not more) unhelpful answers, “God hates me” or “I’m not meant to be a mother”.
Again, our
matriarchs precede us with their own answers to try to explain that which seems
inexplicable. Genesis Rabbah 45:2 recounts,
“And Sarai said to Abram, ‘Look,
the Lord has kept me from bearing” (Gen. 16:2) as follows: “Said she, I know
the source of my affliction: It is not as people say [of a barren woman], ‘She
needs an amulet, she needs a charm,’ but ‘Look, the Lord has kept me from
bearing.’”
Sarai attributes her infertility to
God’s will. I can imagine a seemingly endless stream of well-meaning friends
and acquaintances periodically stopping by Sarai’s tent, accustomed to her
husband’s hospitality and welcoming generosity, confounded by the couple’s lack
of offspring. Each takes Sarai’s
hand, offers a long look of disbelief, and suggests, “it’ll happen when the
time is right” or “maybe you need to relax and stop thinking about it so
much”.
We are the
inheritors of a Jewish tradition steeped in the art of inquiry (and the pursuit
of questions), familiar with righteous indignation (even arguing with divine
decrees), and probing for answers wherever they might be found; we are also the
inheritors of a tradition that includes the reality of infertility. As such, we include in our search the
possibility of skepticism about the role (or existence of) God, medical
interventions heretofore impossible, and a multiplicity of media through which
conception are normative.
[1] Genesis
11:30; Genesis 25:21, 24-26; Genesis 29:31; Genesis 30:1-2, 9, 17, 22
[2] I Samuel
1:2, 5-6, 2:21
[3] Though less
is written about them, Michal in II Samuel 6:23 and the wife of Manoach in
Judges 13:2-3, 24 also struggle with infertility. Michal’s infertility is never alleviated and is unique in
that there seems to be no hope and no possible intervention for her; there is a
sense of the inevitability of her childlessness, “Michal the daughter of Saul
had no child unto the day of her death”
[4] Genesis
25:21
[5] Genesis 16:1-2;
Genesis 20:17-18; Genesis 29:31; Genesis 30:22; 1 Samuel 1:5;
[6] 1 Samuel
1:10-16
[7] Genesis
25:21
[8] The verse uses
parallel words like “vay·ye‘·tar and vay·yê·‘ā·ṯer (same verb used for that
which Isaac does and that which God does in response to the inquiry) and with
the repetition of sounds in words like Yitz·ḥāk and lə·nō·ḵach.
[9] Genesis
30:1-2
[10] Genesis
11:30,16:1-2, 21:1-3
[11] Genesis 11:30
[12] Generations
of scholars have struggled to discern the precise nature of the boy’s misdeed,
as the Hebrew verb, “metzahek” has multiple meanings
[13] “Infertile
Wife in Rabbinic Judaism”. Judith
R. Baskin. Jewish Women: A
Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.
Jewish Women’s Archive, 2005.
[14] Genesis
Rabbah 45:4
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