Shabbos Parashas Vayeira - 5780

Shabbos Parashas Vayeira - 5780

Rabbi Hal Miller

God was with the youth and he grew up and he dwelt in the wilderness and he was

a shooter, an archer. [Bereishis 21:20]

In English, the end of this verse sounds funny. In Hebrew, it says, vayehi roveh

kashat -- and he was a roveh kashat. What does that mean?

The word keshet means bow, as in the bow of an archer, a rainbow, etc. Kashat

can be one who makes a bow, or one who uses a bow, such as an archer.

The word roveh, depending on how it is vowelized, could mean to increase or make

great, one who increases, a lad, a rifle, or an archer. The Torah, of course, does not

give us vowels, although we have a tradition going back thousands of years as to

what those vowels should be. The word for archer should be spelled reish-vov-beit-

hey, but here we have reish-beit-hey, which is more indicative of the words around

the concept of increasing or making great.

Radak chooses lad for roveh and one who uses a bow for kashat, thus Yishmael was

a young archer. Rabbeinu Chananel says that the lad became a master of archery.

Ramban uses archer for roveh, and one who holds the profession of teaching archery

for kashat, thus Yishmael was one who taught archery to other bowmen. Rashi holds

that roveh means a shooter, and kashat describes what kind, namely a shooter of an

archery bow. Rav Soloveitchik chooses increase for roveh, and says that Yishmael

sharpened his skills as a master archer. Rashbam defines kashat as one who pulls,

as in pulling the string of a bow, thus Yishmael was a lad who got interested in

archery, whether he became a master or not.

Rav Hirsch derives roveh from revu, as in the commandment to increase and

multiply. He says that in this action of multiplying, the key is educating, thus roveh

means to teach. Thus Yishmael was not necessarily a master of the bow, but he

became a professional teacher of archery.

The derivation as is commonly written of "a shooter, an archer" seems stilted, but

there is not much agreement on exactly what would be better. Certainly Yishmael

took up the bow, but whether he mastered it, taught it, or just used it, we do not

know and can only guess. Perhaps the Torah is saying all of those.