“God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the cry of the boy (Ishmael) where he is” (Genesis 21:17)

 The Torah speaks powerfully to us this week in Parashat Vayera.  Hagar and Ishmael, banished from the presence of Abraham and Sarah, are struggling to survive in the desert.  As Ishmael hovers at death’s door, God hears the so-called “silent cry” of the boy, who is so weakened he cannot even make a sound, and provides water to save his life. In a most poignant way, the Torah and the midrash teach that God “heard the cry of the boy ‘ba’asher hu sham,’where he is.

Both the midrash and Rashi understand this story as teaching an important lesson, when they imagine the ministering angels hastened to indict God on the basis of what they later understand as Ishmael’s sins as an enemy of the people of Israel. “Sovereign of the Universe!,” the angels cry out. “Would You bring up a well for one who will one day slay Your children with thirst?” “What is he now?” asked God. “Righteous,” said the angels. Said God: “I judge man only as he is at the moment.”

God does not condemn Ishmael for what he has been, or for what he might do in the future; God heard Ishmael’s cry where he was, as he was, in the moment of his suffering.

This is our challenge: To be able to practice such empathy, such finely tuned listening skills, such attentiveness to others and their needs that we might be able to hear even the cry that is silent, and to respond to others not as we wish to see them, but as they truly are. What a critical skill, and how difficult to put into practice.

All around us, in our personal lives, in our society and throughout our world, we see the results of our inability to hear the cry of the other as he or she is.  Nations fight battles and seemingly endless wars, unable to understand the claim or needs of the other.  Governments like our own find themselves locked in seemingly insurmountable gridlock, in part because our elected officials have become experts and talking and not hearing, forgetting that one of the greatest tasks of governance and diplomacy is the sacred art of listening, the ability to hear the other person as he or she is, not as we wish he or she was, or as he or she might be in our worst fears.

People who care deeply for one another – husbands and wifes, devoted partners, parents and children, teachers and students, dear friends, co-workers, and even mere acquaintances – are often locked in an endless cycle of misunderstanding and self-fulfilling prophecies because we forget the simple magic of listening deeply to one another, and hearing the other as he or she is.  Instead, we often think we know the other, we know what he will say, we know what she is thinking, we have her figured out, we believe we know how the story ends. 

If we are created “B’tselem Elohim,” in God’s image, we must see God in this story as our role model and work to encounter the other as he or she is, without prejudice, without barrier, without assuming we know anything at all.  We must open our eyes, our ears and our hearts and encounter the other, and thereby, become more like the Other whom we call God.