In our parasha we find laughter, two kinds of laughter. One, Chazal saw as a positive laughter; the other, as a negative laughter. And when you read the parasha, where is the hint to that? Let me explain.
Yitzchak was named Yitzchak because everybody was laughing, either because Sarah laughed when she received the news that she would have a child at such an old age, or because everybody was laughing and happy when he was born. Right after his birth the pasuk says, וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרָה צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹהִים כָּל הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִצְחַק לִי (Bereishit 21:6): everybody will be happy for me. And a few pesukim later, somebody else is laughing. Who? Yishmael, the son of Hagar: וַתֵּרֶא שָׂרָה אֶת בֶּן הָגָר הַמִּצְרִית אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה לְאַבְרָהָם מְצַחֵק (21:9). And there Chazal say a very negative thing: he was laughing a bad laughter, a laughter of avodah zarah, of gilui arayot, of murder. The pasuk must have hinted at this somewhere, for Chazal to dig it out. So what is wrong with this laughing? Why is this laughter worse than the laughter we saw a moment before, so that Chazal decided it is negative, and Yishmael is a negative person?
Tzochek and Metzachek
When you look at the pasuk and you are medayek, precise, you have another question. Why does it say that the son of Hagar was metzachek? It should have said tzochek. The correct grammar for “laughing” is tzochek, not metzachek.
And that is the answer. There are two kinds of laughter. When somebody does something wrong and you laugh at him, that is one kind of laughter. When somebody does something very good and you laugh with him, you are encouraging him; you are happy for him. Picture two kids in a class, both laughing. One is laughing at his friend for something he did wrong, for a failure. The other is laughing with his friend, for his friend: he did well on the test and his friend is happy together with him. These are the two laughters Chazal saw here.
By Yitzchak it says כָּל הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִצְחַק לִי, everyone who hears will be happy for me; that is why he was named Yitzchak. Rashi explains: יִשְׂמַח עָלַי, they will rejoice over me, and רֹב שְׂחוֹק הָיָה בָעוֹלָם, there was much laughter and happiness in the world. That is a laughter of kedushah, a positive laughter.
But by Yishmael it does not say tzochek, he was laughing. It says metzachek: he was laughing at others, using others for his own benefit, for his own needs. And that is exactly how Rashi explains it: לְשׁוֹן עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה… לְשׁוֹן גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת… לְשׁוֹן רְצִיחָה (Rashi, Bereishit 21:9). Look at how precise Rashi’s sources are. For gilui arayot he brings the pasuk לְצַחֶק בִּי (Bereishit 39:17), “to laugh at me,” to use someone else for your own pleasure. For murder he brings יָקוּמוּ נָא הַנְּעָרִים וִישַׂחֲקוּ לְפָנֵינוּ (Shmuel II 2:14): let the young men get up and “play,” killing each other in front of us for our entertainment.
Whenever you do something for another person, if it is a positive act, that is an act of kedushah; that is what tzochek symbolizes. Yishmael symbolizes putting my own interests above other people and using other people for my pleasure. That is metzachek, laughing at others, a very, very negative laughter. Chazal picked up on it right away: Yishmael was a negative person.
Based on Rabbi Shay Tahan’s class “Negative & Positive Laughter. Parasha Pearls. Vayeira” (Parashat Vayera): watch the class.
