Chasidut zu Bereschit 21:78

The third level "acts of lovingkindness" - that behold in the upper worlds God set 'Compassion', which is love and 'beloved' that is the the Holy Blessed Name loves the righteous because of the righteous' holy deeds on the earth, yet in this world they are called 'lovingkindness', that even for a person who is not decent, the Holy Blessed Name does lovingkindness freely, providing for that person's needs. Nevertheless, the righteous who attain the level of rising up every physical thing, which is rising the holy sparks that exist in corporeality, which is in one's eating and drinking and so on, and all one's thoughts in the time of doing physical things are only to rise the holy sparks in them, and a righteous person such as this one does not need lovingkindness, meaning, free lovingkindness as explained above, giving the things needed in this world from the side of lovingkindness, because the Holy Blessed Name showers [the righteous] with their needs according to the deserved letter of the law because of their good deeds. And this is the explanation for "deeds of lovingkindness [roots g.m.l./kh.s.d.]": from the expression "the weaning [g.m.l.] of Yitzchak" (Genesis 21:8) - there is no need for the levels "lovingkindness" [kh.s.d.] just what is deserving to the righteous through the love of the Blessed God for the righteous, and through that the righteous connects him/herself above above to the eternal life, even while in this world the righteous attains the higher pleasure of the eternal life, and this is the explanation for the gemara "you will see your world in your lifetime" (Berakhot 17a), that through one's deeds and movements which are all done in holiness and purity and clinging to God and happiness and love and awe, from that one attains pleasures of the higher worlds in this world. And there is to say that this is also the intention of the verse "and y'all who cling to Hashem you God are all alive today" (Deuteronomy 4:4) . Meaning, through clinging that y'all cling to the Blessed Creator y'all will get eternal life, even "today", in this world, as explained above.

Genesis ‎25,19 “And these are the generations of Yitzchok, the son ‎of Avraham; Avraham begot Yitzchok.” (We have been told in ‎Genesis 21,12 ‎כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע‎, “for your seed (descendants) ‎will be known through Yitzchok.” G’d told Avraham already ‎before Yitzchok was born that although he had another son, ‎Yishmael, his descendants would always be associated with ‎Yitzchok. It was understood that this promise was contingent on ‎Yitzchok becoming a righteous person, a tzaddik, future ‎generations would not trace themselves back to their ancestor ‎Avraham but each generation would only trace itself back to their ‎immediate forbears, i.e. their fathers. In other words, the new ‎element provided by our verse above is that even Yitzchok’s ‎offspring would trace themselves back to their founding patriarch ‎Avraham. We learn from here also that it is up to the “son” to ‎demonstrate by his deeds that he was not only descended from ‎his father but could claim previous generations as his “roots.” ‎When we consider this, the word ‎תולדה‎ is no longer an adjective, ‎an attribute of a person which he came by naturally, without any ‎input of his own, but it is a tribute to the person so described, ‎meaning that he is a worthy descendant of his illustrious forbears.‎

Another way of looking at our verse is that of the ‎‎Ari’zal, who sees in the words ‎כי ביצחק‎ in Genesis 21,12 a ‎reference to the “feminine” side of Yitzchok in the diagram of the ‎‎10 emanations, i.e. the earthly element, seeing that the angel had ‎said to Avraham (Genesis 18,10) ‎והנה בן לשרה אשתך‎, “and here ‎your wife Sarah will have a son.” [The angel emphasized Sarah as ‎predominant in Yitzchok’s birth, not his father Avraham. Ed.] ‎However, subsequently he would receive a soul contributed by ‎Avraham, Avraham representing the masculine element of the ‎chart of the emanations. This point is made by the Torah here ‎repeating what otherwise would be assumed, that Avraham begot ‎Yitzchok. The Ari’zal’s comment also coincides with the ‎meaning of Bereshit Rabbah 58,5 in which the Midrash, ‎referring to Genesis 23,3 where Avraham is reported as “arriving” ‎in order to bury Sarah, asks: “where did Avraham arrive from? ‎Where had he been previously?” One of the answers given by the ‎Midrash is that Avraham came from Mount Moriah. The ‎‎Midrash adds that Sarah died as a result of the anguish she ‎experienced when told that Yitzchok had been slaughtered. She ‎had found this incompatible with G’d’s promise to Avraham that ‎ברך אברכך והרבה ארבה את זרעך‎, “I will continuously bless you and ‎greatly multiply your descendants” which G’d had said to ‎Avraham in Genesis 22,17.‎
At this point the author attributes to this Midrash a ‎third answer to the question whence Avraham came to arrange ‎Sarah’s funeral. I have not found this in any of my editions, ‎although this is the answer that would tie in with our verse ‎above. The Midrash supposedly views as Avraham “coming” ‎i.e. contributing the soul to Yitzchok as alluded to in the words ‎‎(Genesis 21,12) ‎כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע‎.‎

Avraham, however, understood that God, “fills the whole world with His glory.” He removed the orlah,³⁹Orlah means “foreskin.” The author is stating that Avraham’s removal of concealment of G-d paralleled his own act of circumcision. This idea is found in the Zohar, and many Kabbalistic and hasidic writings. the force of concealment, which divided God’s light from man’s understanding. Thus we find after he was given the commandment of circumcision (milah) it is said (Bereshit, 21:33), “And he called in the name of Hashem, the God of the world.” This means that God’s existence became apparent in all aspects of the creation, as the Midrash Rabbah (Vayera, 48) states, on the verse (Iyov, 19:26), “‘From my flesh I shall see God’ – Were it not for the act of circumcision, how could God have been revealed to me?” That is, he saw God’s light in every detail of creation. When Avraham said, “I raise my hands to the Supernal God,” it was before the circumcision.⁴⁰See the Beit Yaakov in parshat Lech Lecha, 33. Similarly, we find that the Patriarchs taught the Torah to their sons. The Midrash⁴¹Midrash Tankhuma, Vayigash 11; Midrash Rabbah,Vayigash 95; Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 5. tells us that while Israel was in Egypt they possessed scrolls with which they would delight in each Shabbat.

All this is alluded to in the words: ‎אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדות‎. The ‎word ‎עדות‎ is a reference to the Torah and its commandments; the ‎word ‎פקד‎ means that a connection was established, a union, much ‎as when a husband joins his wife in the marital bed in order to ‎jointly produce a child which is the visible symbol of their union. ‎‎[We read in Genesis 21,1 that Hashem ‎פקד את שרה ‏‎, ‎as a result of which she became pregnant. In other words, the ‎union of Avraham and Sarah was finally completed when Sarah ‎conceived Yitzchok. Ed.]‎
If, G’d forbid, attributes such as love and awe, etc., instead of ‎being utilized in accordance with Torah principles are “wasted” ‎on unworthy objects or ideas, the Torah, or its representative the ‎Tabernacle, is perceived as not enjoying ‎מנוחה‎ a state of calm ‎satisfaction; similarly, if these attributes are abused by being ‎squandered on useless objects or alien concepts and their ‎representatives, G’d is in a state of restlessness, His mind not ‎being at ease.‎
There is still another aspect to this subject of the attributes of ‎G’d and our duty to emulate them. When the attributes of G’d are ‎constantly being emulated by His creatures, in this case by the ‎Jewish people, this results in this “union” influencing the ‎dispensation of G’d’s largesse due to the connection to our Divine ‎source being a constant, never interrupted for even a brief period. ‎Putting the various vessels of the Tabernacle to use on a daily ‎basis, seeing that each represented part of a Divine attribute, the ‎unbroken connection was assured. Only in the desert, or ‎subsequently in Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, was it possible ‎to ensure that unbroken contact with the Divine origin of these ‎attributes, which served as a reminder to G’d that His people were ‎serving Him by trying to emulate His attributes. The distinction ‎possessed by the city of Jerusalem in this regard, was also ‎accorded to Shiloh and other locations where the Tabernacle ‎stood before Solomon built the Temple, though only on an ad hoc ‎basis.‎
‎ The difference between the status of Shiloh and Jerusalem ‎was symbolised by the Tabernacle in Shiloh, which, though not ‎being a collapsible structure as the one in the desert, did not have ‎a permanent solid roof (although it functioned for more than 300 ‎years). (Compare Zevachim 112) The Torah had alluded to ‎this distinction when speaking of ‎מנוחה ‏‎ and ‎נחלה‎ as separate ‎concepts in Deuteronomy 12,9. The stage of ‎נחלה‎, ancestrally ‎owned territory, would not be reached until the erection of ‎Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. [The capital of Israel that ‎had been captured only during the latter part of David’s reign, ‎more than 450 years after Joshua crossed the Jordon with the ‎people. Ed.] The author sees an allusion to this already in ‎Exodus 25,15, where the Torah refers to the poles that were to be ‎used to carry the Holy Ark were to remain permanently in the ‎rings attached to the Ark for that purpose, and that they were ‎not to be removed even temporarily under any circumstances. ‎The reader will ask himself why the Torah added this restrictive ‎clause as applicable only to the poles used to carry the Ark, and ‎not to the poles used to carry the Table, for instance? Our author ‎suggests as an answer to this question that we remember that he ‎had described the very trek of the Israelites through the desert as ‎a spiritual ascent, i.e. return of the “sparks” that had fallen from ‎the Shechinah in disgrace on a previous occasion, and that it ‎had been the act of dismantling the Tabernacle that had enabled ‎these “sparks” to grasp an opportunity to rehabilitate ‎themselves. (compare pages 533-534). Clearly, the process of the ‎fallen sparks could not continue indefinitely, for how long would ‎G’d rebuke the same evildoers to return in penitence without ‎finally giving up and subjecting them to their deserved ‎punishment? On the other hand, it is perfectly plausible to hold ‎up a reminder to sinners, that there is a method through which ‎they could rehabilitate themselves.‎
The Holy Ark’s function is to serve as a reminder to man that ‎at all times he must strive to repent and rehabilitate himself in ‎the eyes of the Lord. The regulation that the poles that serve to ‎carry the Holy Ark in the desert, [although once it had ‎been positioned in the Temple, the Ark was never to be removed ‎from there so that its poles became strictly symbolic in nature, ‎Ed.] served as this reminder. The “sparks” themselves, are ‎not only to be viewed as parts of the Shechinah which had ‎somehow gone astray, but they symbolize parts of the human ‎personality which had gone astray and were in need of ‎rehabilitation. Man (and in the first instance the Jewish man) is ‎supposed to be the “carrier” of the throne of G’d, in a sense ‎similar to the poles of the Holy Ark on top of which were the ‎cherubs between whose outstretched wings the Shechinah is ‎presumed to reside while the Ark is within the Temple. ‎‎[Some of these words are my own, but I am confident that ‎they supplement the exegesis of our author. Ed.] It did ‎not matter that the Ark, physically, once it had come to a place ‎of ‎מנוחה ונחלה‎ as stated in Deuteronomy 12,9 would no longer be ‎in motion. It is enough that we keep before our mind’s eye the ‎picture of the Holy Ark to remind us of the need to constantly ‎strive to rehabilitate any weakness in our personality that ‎manifested itself through our not emulating one of G’d’s ‎attributes by transgressing one of His commandments. ‎
It is this thought that prompted our sages in Keritut 6 ‎to state that whenever we pray we must always include the ‎habitual sinners in our prayers, i.e. express the wish that they too ‎turn to G’d for forgiveness of their sins by changing their ‎lifestyles. This is our contribution to “repatriating” holy sparks ‎that had gone astray.‎

[The Burgher's Son and the Pauper's Daughter; the Match; Rise of the Pauper]
The burgher, because he had done such a thing, and in addition had withstood trial (passed the test) with her (that is, he had the fear of God and did not touch her), therefore he was "remembered" (that is, "thought about" by Hashem Yithbarakh) [nifkad; see Gen. 21:1 etc.] and that year he had a son.

A different approach to understanding the verse ‎וה' פקד את ‏שרה כאשר אמר, ויעש ה' לשרה כאשר דבר‎, “G’d remembered ‎Sarah as He had said, and He did for her as he had stated.” ‎Why is it necessary for the Torah to state twice that G’d kept His ‎promise? Who had doubted it? The Talmud Taanit 20 states ‎that when G’d goes out of His way to perform a miracle for an ‎individual, this is used to deduct from the merits that individual ‎had accumulated up to that point. If G’d had performed a miracle ‎for Sarah and made her become pregnant and bear a son, this ‎would have been held against her accumulated merits. In order to ‎avoid this, G’d announced to Sarah and Avraham beforehand that ‎they would have a son, etc., so that when the time came for Sarah ‎to give birth, this was first and foremost not a miracle, but G’d ‎was simply fulfilling a duty, a promise He had made previously. ‎This is why the story of Yitzchok’s birth is prefaced by the verse ‎above in which the Torah reminds us of the promises G’d had ‎made concerning that subject. The line commencing with ‎ויעש ‏ה'‏‎, “G’d carried out, etc.” is a reminder that what follows is ‎merely the fulfillment of something that had been promised ‎much earlier.‎

Genesis ‎21,6. “G’d has made laughter for me.” Sarah realized that if ‎G’d had granted her children in her old age instead of during her ‎child-bearing years, He had multiplied the joy she experienced by ‎this birth. Had she given birth in her younger years the ‎pregnancy and subsequent birth would have been periods of ‎discomfort and pain for her. Now, that she had not become ‎pregnant until she was close to 90 years old, every day of that ‎pregnancy had been filled with joyful expectation, and even the ‎birth itself was not felt by her as an excruciatingly painful ‎experience. Instead of thanking G’d in His capacity as ‎‎Hashem, as we might have expected, she thanked Him in ‎His capacity as ‎אלוקים‎, the attribute of Justice, realizing that ‎during all the years she had felt deprived of the joys of ‎motherhood, the attribute of Justice seemingly being applied to ‎her, had enabled her to exult in joy at this time.‎
This feeling of Sarah is reflected in psalms 118,21:‎אודך כי עניתני ‏ותהי לי לישועה‎, “I wish to thank You, for You have afflicted ‎me/answered me. For through my affliction my salvation has ‎come.” The same thought is repeated in a different nuance, when ‎David continues (verse 22) ‎אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פנה‎, “the ‎stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” ‎David adds, that it has become clear to him that all of this had ‎been planned by G’d in advance, i.e. (verse 23) ‎מאת ה' היתה זאת היא ‏נפלאת בעינינו‎, “this is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our ‎eyes.” David too, is aware that it is far more rewarding to ‎experience these blessings from G’d in one’s mature years than in ‎one’s early youth. When a youth experiences all these blessings, ‎he does not even recognize them as blessing bestowed by G’d, but ‎credits them to chance or other circumstances. Having ‎experienced G’d’s salvation at a relatively late stage in one’s life ‎makes one doubly grateful to Hashem, i.e. ‎זה היום עשה ה' ‏נגילה ונשמחה בו‎, “this is the day that the Lord has made, let us ‎exult and rejoice on it.”‎
When examining the manner in which G’d shares out His ‎largesse, we must distinguish between two categories of ‎recipients. One category enjoys the material benefits provided by ‎‎Hashem for what they are worth, i.e. they consider the ‎material part as the essential part, not considering them as a ‎means to an end. The second category of recipients are the sages ‎and the pious people who perceive these “gifts” as proof of the ‎caring supervision exercised by G’d over all of His creatures, and ‎they see in it an encouragement to never forget that there is a ‎benevolent King Who rules over us. This is what David referred to ‎when he said in the above-quoted hymn:‎זה היום עשה ה' נגילה ‏ונשמחה בו‎, “this is the day that the Lord has made let us rejoice ‎and be happy in Him.” They see in the word ‎בו‎ at the end of this ‎verse a reference to G’d, not to the day.‎

Genesis 29,31. “When G’d saw that Leah was hated, He ‎opened her womb.” There is a somewhat enigmatic ‎comment on this verse in Aggadat Bereshit 48 according to ‎which some of Leah’s descendants would be enemies of G’d, and ‎that this is why she is called here ‎שנואה‎, in reference to the ‎wicked deeds of some of her offspring. (The angels protested ‎Leah’s having children as they foresaw that on account of Zimri ‎from the tribe of Shimon 24000 Israelites would lose their lives ‎and not enter the land of Israel) Our verse would explain that just ‎as Yishmael at the time (Genesis 21,17) was not allowed to die ‎from thirst as at the time he was free from sin, so Leah, who had ‎prayed not to become the wife of the wicked Esau, could not be ‎denied children now on account of something over which she ‎could have no control. She had demonstrated that she hated ‎wickedness so what more could she have done? [I have ‎rephrased this a little, as the whole idea of when G’d interferes ‎with natural developments in order to forestall wicked deeds and ‎when not is exceedingly complex. Ed.] Our verse makes ‎clear that other considerations notwithstanding, Leah’s prayer to ‎bear children was answered positively.‎