Torah Portion for November 4th 2017 Genesis 18:1-22:24

Then Yah Opened Her Eyes….

“This is an example of him intentionally not seeing you, of intentionally not seeing a woman.” This quote was from a work conversation but reminded me of this week’s Torah portion. When I was in seminary I learned that African-American women theologians who started Womanist Theology held Hagar up as a symbol of the Black woman’s experience in America. For me I would also hold Sarah up a Matriarch Black women the world over can look up to though she is flawed like us all. Both Hagar and Sarah were Black women though from different ethnic groups and their story shows us what can go wrong between sisters when we move forward with our plans that are outside of Yah’s will. Hagar is also held up as one of the first people to name Yah when she calls him the El who sees in Genesis 16:13. Before Hagar could see that Yah indeed saw her when everyone else around her did not she had to first have her eyes opened by Yah. For many women being deemed invisible on our jobs, in society and even our families is a normal occurrence. Even for many men in today’s self absorbed world invisibility is a normal occurrence. When we don’t see people it’s easy to enact injustice upon them. The good news is even when we are invisible to the world Yah not only sees us but he knows us and will take care of us, like he provided for Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness. Sometimes we think we are alone and that all hope is gone but when Yah opens our eyes we realize that we had “a friend that sticks closer than a brother.”

For Consideration

  1. Today do you need Yah to open your eyes to his presence in your life?
  2. Today is their someone you have deemed invisible that Yah is asking you to see? Take sometime this week to pray about these questions and I encourage you to read the entire Torah portion and let me know what you think.

Much love and shalom! -Onleilove Chika