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Engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1851).
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In my last post, I introduced the idea that infertility is of cultural and religious importance within Judaism. I asked folks to read the story of Hannah, perhaps one of the most prominent stories of infertility in the Torah as Hannah’s emotions are depicted with such heartbreak and longing. I asked folks to reflect on her story, as so many parts of it speak to our own infertility journeys thousands of years later.
Like many of us, she is devastated after years and years of trying to produce a child with her husband Elkinah, but to no avail. She is bereft with grief and depression: “…she wept and would not eat (Samuel I 1:7).” Weeping and not eating? Sounds like classic signs of depression to me, don’t you think?
Reader Gail agrees:
Hannah is depicted as a strong woman who is depressed. She cries and is “bitter in spirit” and she is haunted by her rival, her husband’s other wife, who has been able to have children and makes her feel bad. In that way, I can totally relate (expect that my husband does not have 2 wives – only me). I see other women with babies and am jealous and angry and depressed.
Judaism has taught me that there’s more than one side to any given story and that we must question all sides. Cue: the Talmud. In a nutshell, the Talmud is a body of complementary interpretation of the Torah. It’s kind of like an ancient VH1 Behind the Music but written by ancient scholars and sages. Male scholars and sages, obviously – but this is important, especially when writing and commenting about prominent female figures in the Torah.
In the Torah, the basic story is this: Hannah’s super sad she can’t have children, she prays like a fiend, BAM! miracle baby – a nice, neat Bible story package with a little bow on it. The Talmud, however, drills down pretty deeply into Hannah’s story and I’m amazed that ancient (male) sages spoke so acutely of Hannah’s resourcefulness.
So in Samuel I 1:15, Eli the temple priest confronts her in her sorrowful prayer and calls her a drunk, telling her to leave the temple. She pleads with him saying that she is not drunk, but so consumed with prayer for her heart’s greatest desire – she never mentions what that desire is. The Talmud explores this much further, and draws on some nifty, lesser known Jewish mysticism in the process. The Talmud asserts that she doesn’t just plead with Eli, but lashes out at him and questions the very authority of his priesthood.
The Vilna Gaon, an ancient rabbinic scholar, asserts that Eli didn’t properly read his Urim V’Turim, whereas Hannah correctly interpreted it. What’s this Urim V’Turim thingie? This is where it gets… mystical. Eli wore a breastplate of 12 jewel stones, each representing a tribe of Israel. To communicate with G-d, Eli would ask his question and G-d would answer by lighting up the stones to form Hebrew characters, spelling out the answer. (Think of the Urim V’Turim like a Divine Lite-Brite.)
Still with me? Good. I know it got weird for a minute there.
When Eli asks G-d, “Hey, Adonai? Who’s this crazy lady here praying silently but whose lips are moving?” his breastplate lights up and spells out four characters: shin (ש), resh (ר), kaf (כ), hei (ה). Spelled thusly, they spell out shikorah – meaning drunken woman.
Hannah saw Eli’s breastplate light up and recognized the characters for what they truly spelled, when arranged in the following order – כשרה. Read in this order, they spell out k’Sarah: Hebrew for “like Sarah.”
Sarah, the original Barren Mother. Chills, right?
Hannah decries Eli’s priesthood by saying, “Look putz, I’m prayin’ my heart out to G-d over here, and you can’t even read the messages G-d is sending you right now! How dare you cast me out of my temple as a drunkard! It is my right to be here and to pray for my heart’s deepest desire!”*
*I’m paraphrasing from the Talmud here.
Another example of Hannah’s resourcefulness and wisdom: the Talmud asserts that she tried to force G-d’s hand that in her silent prayers, she told G-d that she would make G-d answer her prayers. She threatened to go into a private room with a man who was not her husband and confess this act to her husband, Elkinah. Now, Hannah didn’t plan on actually doing anything with this man, but the implication as she tells her husband is that she’s slept with another man. Elkinah would then take her to the temple so she must drink sotah waters as her punishment/confession of her “sin” (remember, she doesn’t actually sleep with the dude, but since they were in a private room together, there’s no way to Elkinah to know for sure.)
The sotah waters were a heinous concoction of ashes and water (and who knows what else) that suspected adulterous women were forced to drink. The ashes were from a sheet of paper wherein the accused woman writes her confession and is then burned and mixed into the water. If a woman strayed, the sotah waters would make her violently ill or even kill her; thus, her adultery was proven. The deck is not exactly stacked in the woman’s favor here. However, if she was virtuous, then the sotah waters would not make her sick…
The woman would conceive instead.
It’s almost like a modern anecdote: a woman can’t conceive naturally on her own, so she forces G-d’s hand by using another of G-d’s creations to aid in her conception. What a resourceful woman she was, that Hannah! It’s almost like the idea of using modern science to assist our own reproductive efforts. When we can’t make a miracle, we turn to science. But if you believe in the ever-present creative power of G-d, then you have to admit that G-d made that science possible too.
Still, we circle back to the key overaching theme of Hannah’s story: if you pray hard enough, a baby will come. Some of you took issue with this as well.
Justine writes:
But the story also sort of raises false hope; “the Lord had shut up her womb,” and yet she goes on to conceive? What of the women who can’t, who don’t ever? Do they simply not pray hard enough?
Elana expands on this with this interpretation:
I used to think that my prayers weren’t being listened to, even though I was praying with my whole heart. Now I know that G-d was answering me but saying “Not yet” rather than “No.”
For me, I found the most powerful comment to again come from Gail:
Last night, we had our organizational planning meeting and I found out that the last night of VBS is centered on the story of Hannah. And, the moral of the story that the kids are supposed to learn is that “God gives you what you ask for.” I just don’t know how I’m going to teach this to a bunch of kids when I don’t believe it myself.
There is no easy answer or explanation for this. We’re working with ancient texts and in a simpler time, simpler answers sufficed. No baby? Pray to G-d. Tada! Baby. Another simpler explanation in that simpler time would also have been, “Well, if there’s no baby, then you’re being punished.”
This is a modern myth that many women still struggle with in their own faith. It was the first time I’d ever truly experienced a crisis of faith when I was diagnosed. I asked myself – and G-d – “Why am I being punished? What have I done?” while simultaneously praying: “And what must I do to regain Your Favor?”
So this is what I would say to Gail – teach whatever your curriculum imposes you must teach your VBS kids. But in your heart, it’s okay to know that sometimes G-d doesn’t answer our prayers. We have been given the free will to decide how we live our lives in the wake of unanswered prayers.
Look, I know it’s not that simple of an answer, and I’m trying to boil down vast amounts of theological philosophy into a conveniently bite-sized blog post. It’s this thought, however, that pulled me out of my own crisis of faith. If G-d doesn’t answer my prayers, that doesn’t mean that G-d isn’t in my life; I pray for the strength to make the best decisions to live the best life I know how.
These posts always get so heavy! But they give me a chance to really think about the ways in which my spiritual path has been affected by my infertility.
I would love to hear how these two areas meet for you too. How has infertility affected your relationship with G-d? How do you reconcile the two? Remember, looking for all perspectives, not just Judeo-Christian. I’d also love to hear from the areligious too. Sound off in the comments!
I used to straight up tell God that I hated him when I got a BFN. I thought that since He has control over everything that He was the one keeping me from becoming pregnant. I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe that God wants any of us to suffer. But the world we live in is imperfect, and bad things happen in it. I do think that God can grow us through the hard times, but I don’t believe that He causes them. They are simply the result of our human world. God does not always give us what we ask for. It sucks, but it’s true. That doesn’t mean that He isn’t here for us in our suffering though.
So many thoughts… first, I think that the idea that "God gives us what we ask for" is a very western idea. It is focused on us, what we want, not on God. And it sets people up for a crisis of faith when they ask for something that they do not get.
So no, I don't think God gives us whatever we ask for. That doesn't mean I don't ask for it, but I recognize that God wont give me whatever I want just because I ask for it.
Interestingly, my infertility pushed me for deeper faith. I grew up in the Lutheran church, and found that basically all protestant churches I went to were rather shallow in their theology and preaching, they talked about trying to be nice people and that Jesus was my best friend. But when I knew from studying theology for four years was that Christianity had so much more to offer than that. Anyway, like I said I was looking for more, for a richness. Long story short, I found the Orthodox church, and really haven't looked back. Sure, I still struggle, I still have moments of despair and depression, but I find myself in a situation with so much more support then I have had in many years, and those moments of darkness are shorter and further between.
I love that you reference those extra sources, it brings a richness to the text and to understanding it. The Orthodox is similar in that we still have many ancient documents and make regular reference to them. I think it helps 🙂 I really love these posts and I hope you continue them!
I've been planning a post about how recurrent loss affected my faith for as long as I've been blogging, but I haven't been able to bring myself to write it yet. My husband and I spend a lot of time debating about whether God caused this to happen, let it happen, or isn't involved at that level of detail. I think one of the first two and he thinks the third. I would currently define my belief as: I know that God has a plan for me, but for right now, I'm angry that He chose THIS for ME.
When we were going through our struggles, I wasn't all that involved with the church but I still had a relationship with God and prayed, day after day, night after night, for an answer. Not for him to answer my prayers per se (I didn't expect a miracle, let's face it) but I did seek an ANSWER to my problem. If I was meant to have children, then guide me down the path. If I was not, then show me that I was not and let me accept that and try to move on or be happy.
The day that I had my checkup before I started stims… they found a cyst. And usually that means the cycle will be cancelled. I was supposed to go to work; instead I cried all the way home and took the day off to grieve, figuring that this was God's way of telling me that it wasn't meant to be.
I cursed. I swore. Tears streamed down. I threw things. I collapsed on my bed, bereft and with little hope or faith left. I confess: I cursed God up and down that day. I'll never forget it.
And then… about 2 hours later, a phone call.
Our clinic would aspirate the cyst (because my E2 levels were normal) and we would proceed with the cycle.
Some answers came to me. God recognized that I was truly at my limit and I could not handle it anymore. I was emotionally "done" with the whole thing and I was just going through the motions.
And God showed me the way to get through it all. And I did. We did. And we got extremely lucky. We were blessed.
The Infertility road is fraught with turmoil and danger. But with God's help, we got through it. I still believe that God shows us signs. It's just how we choose to interpret them that affects our lives and the outcome. Everyone is different, and our roads are different too. Sort of like God's plans and answers, in my view.
Thanks for your insight and suggestions in response to my previous comments. I still haven't decided what to do about teaching the story of Hannah in VBS (vacation bible school). Part of me wants to hand it over to someone else to teach and skip out on that night. While, the other part of me doesn't want to run away from it but to confront it head-on. At least I still have a month to decide.
Firstly, how crap must it have been when your husband's other wife god pregnant and you didn't? It must have been much much worse than all the things we go through with in laws, sisters and coworkers. Ugh.
I did used to go to church occasionally but don't go at all now. Although part of that was down to my deeply religious parents going on about how I should pray in the run up to my first IVF because 'prayer works' and then afterwards when I miscarried, they started on at me about praying again. I just wished they'd shut it.
I am not religious and nor do I have a relationship with God. I've watched people suffering from infertility and pregnancy/baby loss really struggle with their relationship with God. I can't really imagine believing in a God that could actually change things for the better but choses not to because of a plan or because it's his will. I can understand finding comfort in a God that was all-loving and all-accepting, like a mother, but unable to change things (also like a mother). A mother is always there for her children, always forgives them and always supports them, no matter what they do. That kind of God makes some sense to me, one that loves unconditionally but has not power to change things. But the God that allows horrible things to happen, or that allows us to suffer with only the promise that some day we might understand? I don't really understand that. And I couldn't find comfort in that God, I don't think. Maybe I don't understand how people know God or their relationship with Him. Maybe I'm missing the point.
After my loss and during my TTC struggles I did start searching for some form of spirituality in my life. I found that in the teachings of Buddhism, in it's messages of loving-kindness, mindfulness and acceptance. I now strive to send love out to everyone, to be mindful of the present moment and to accept it in a non-judgmental way. Of course I don't always achieve these things but there is value in even the attempt. I hope to some day have more time to commit to Buddhism because I know it's teachings would bring peace and joy to my life. I want my daughter to grow up with some form of spirituality and I hope we can find that together.
I feel like my lack of a relationship with God makes it difficult to participate in this discussion. I don't know what it means to pray to God or how difficult it would be to navigate a relationship with him while struggling with IF. All I know is that acceptance, mindfulness and loving-kindess helped me through my suffering and grief and I trust it could give me strength again, should I need it.
I'm UU. I don't think infertility affected my relationship with God any because I don't define my spirituality that way … but I do think that it led me to seek a more mindful existence, through the practices of yoga and meditation. I was less looking for answers or for a "favor," and more trying to figure out how to live with what I had, and to love who I was, whoever that was going to be. And though I've gotten to the other side, so to speak, I continue to search … which is a good thing, in my book, because I think I am living more deeply as a result. It's like what you said about "living the best life you know how" … I really like that.
Thanks for such a thought-provoking post. How has it affected my relationship with G-d? Well, how HASN'T it is more like it. LOL
I started my blog in large part to work out my faith and express how it has affected my walk with Jesus (which had become a slippery slope). I could go on and on about how He as led me tenderly, slowly, through this abyss of misery until I have emerged with an even stronger faith, far more wisdom than I thought possible, and a deep humility and joy that comes with knowing that ultimately my relationship with G-d is what will bring me true happiness in this life – not my someday baby (and believe me, I want that pretty badly).
I have discovered one overarching truth: G-d wants to change our hearts before He chooses to change our circumstances. He promises peace within the fire if we just say "okay, I'm yours."
Whew, deep stuff!
I had been thinking about writing an article summarizing the women of the Torah and how they dealt with their infertility.
Hannah is the one that has the most details. So what can we learn?
Well here's what i learned with my study partner.
1) Women are very connected to/with prayer.
2) Prayer never guarantees the request. It isn't a simple as and yee shall receive. G-d doesn't work that way. Sometimes we don't like the answer to our prayers, but somestimes it isnt a "no" its a not yet. and its hard to recognize when it's one or the other. What prayer does do is change the spiritual energy that's around us. That is why there are prayer groups in many cultures including Judaism. Sometimes we are somewhat "destined" for a certain outcome for whatever reason we cannot understand. (for lack of a better way to put it). With prayer and say with many people praying on our behalf, we are saying "G-d check it out. You said it had to be a certain way but look, the conditions have changed. We're praying as a community now." The energy has changed so therefore G-d may be inclined to change His decree (again, for lack of a way of putting it).
Next – we don't know WHY things are the way we are. I hate when i hear people talk of meritting a child (or a good job or whatever). We don't know why things are the way they are, and implying that merit, that we are deserving or not, implies we know what G-d is thinking (or the universe if you prefer) which we can't know.
So what do you learned from Chana?
The title of your post – resourcefulness. Chana used prayer as well as what she had available to her, the power of the Sotah. If she had IVF options i'm sure she would have used that too. This is called Hishtaldus – to do everything in our power to get to where we want – so that means yes use prayer, but also use the technologies available to us – IVF, chlomid, therapy and of course being intimate. We don't know which combination will work.