Ramban (Bereishis 16:06) And Sarai dealt harshly with Hagar, and she fled from before Sarai’s face. Our mother did transgress by this affliction, and Abraham also by his permitting her to do so. And so, G-d heard Hagar’s affliction and gave her a son who would be a wild-ass of a man, to afflict the seed of Abraham and Sarah with all kinds of affliction.
a) Avraham was the paradigm of chesed, so why did this happen?
ReplyDeleteb)Hashem told him to listen to his wife - so again where was the problem? I've heard it was he pushed Hagar away with both hands
c) Why were Hagar/Ishmael's offspring so high in numbers compared to Israel?
are we responsible for Amalek, Ishmael, and Mitzrayim?
a) He was clearly bothered by it but "Happy wife, happy life" and God sided with her
Deleteb) There's dismissing and then there's dismissing. Sarah said "Get rid of them." She didn't say "Toss them into the desert with a day's supply of water." He could've given them camels loaded with supplies to get them back to Egypt. He seemed to have been very "frum" and done only what he was told - send them away,
c) They had a 1 generation head start, right? Yishmael had his 12 boys but we had to wait for Yaakov for our 12. Also, one gets the feeling that Yishmael probably didn't restrict being a "Ben Yishmael" to just family. He probably conquered a bunch of tribes and aborbed them. This would seem to be the case since by the time of Yosef's sale, the Yishmaelites are already reknowned traders and the brothers don't say "Let's sell Yosef to our cousins"
Yes, but we were promised, or the Aovt were promised to have numbers like the sand on the sea, or the stars in the sky. Moshe actually says this has been fulfilled when we entered Eretz israel (or were about to).
DeleteAt present there are approx 1000x as many Muslims as there are Jews, if this is a measure of Ishmael v Israel
Yishmael also got a "You'll have lots and lots of descendants" blessing.
DeleteThe difference is that the Arabs were never invaded, massacred and exiled on a repeated basis. (Actually they did those things on a repeated basis to others including us)
If you count all the descendants of Yaakov Avinu, including the Ten Lost Tribes wherever they are along with all the forced conversions to Islam and Chrisianity, then there's a lot of "us" top.