This D’Var Torah was written by a 14 yr old Jewish girl, adopted into a Jewish family after three years in foster care. The adoption was finalized last week, the morning before Rosh Hashanah. The newly adopted girl went to mikvah, changed her Hebrew name to match her new mother’s and gave this D’Var Torah to her Jewish Community.
For purposes of publication, the location has been removed, the names have been changed, but the love remains intact from the first draft to the final..
My First Dvar Torah of My New Life
The Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah are all about parents and kids. Even the haftarah talks about a mom who wants a child, and about how someone else makes fun of her because she doesn’t have one yet. Her name is Hannah, and she eventually gets a son, but she can only raise him the first few years. God doesn’t zap the woman who was teasing her about being childless, and maybe that is OK.
Having kids is important, but so is treating them right. In Torah, people are always wanting sons, but Debbie is happy to have us as daughters, and that may be even better.
Back to Torah. Sarah wants a son, but she doesn’t think she will have one. Abraham has to choose between his first family (Hagar and Ishmael) and his second family (Sarah and Isaac), and ends up making his first family leave with only a bottle of water and some food. In my opinion this is not good parenting. I think that God told Abraham to listen to Sarah and send Hagar and Ishmael away, but God should have also made him send them with enough food and water for a whole journey. Abraham is always sending his servents and camels to do errands and keep people company. He had extra people to help with the akeida story. With Ishmael, should have sent someone to see that his oldest son got safely somewhere else. Maybe he should have even gone himself, get them settled, and then go back to Sarah and Isaac. He should have been a dad to both of them.
