A few months ago, during a conversation with HHM, he told me a priceless Vort on this weeks פרשה that speaks to the struggle. I think that it’s a מצוה to share so here goes.

The פסוק in this weeks פרשה says when אברהם and שרה traveled to מצרים, he told her הנה נא ידעתי כי אשה יפת מראה את. Rashi is bothered, why does it say הנה נא which implies that he only realized that she was pretty now. רש"י gives 3 answers. The first one  is, עד עכשיו לא הכיר בה מתוך צניעות שבשניהם, ועכשיו הכיר בה ע"י מעשה .

רבינו בחיי explains that from here we see that אברהם never looked at שרה up until that point. Astounding!

Some אחרונים ask on רבינו בחיי, isn’t there a הלכה that אסור לאדם לישא אשה עד שיראנה? Various answers are given in the אחרונים. Some say that if the whole problem is that she won’t be pleasing to the husband, then אברהם knew that for him it wouldn’t make a difference. Others say that he really did know what she looked like, it’s just that he never gazed at her, hence the לשון of לא הכיר בה. Others say that until now he only saw her face, but now he saw her thigh.

זאגט HHM in the name of someone I forgot, that the מדרש תנחומא relates, that as they approached the gates of מצרים, they passed by a body of water, and אברהם saw שרה’s reflection shining like the sun, he saw her beauty and he realized that he had a problem on his hands. Of course אברהם knew what she looked like, perhaps he even gazed at her (this wouldn’t fit with רבינו בחיי). But until that moment when he looked at her, he saw “HER” - her essence, the radiance of her נשמה which shone forth so brightly it eclipsed any physicality one could possibly attribute to her. However, when he saw her reflection in the water, all he saw was her image, because he wasn’t looking at שרה herself. Suddenly, he realized that it might be possible for lowly people to see her through a lens of desire for the physical beauty, that when he realized the problem. The lesson is self evident. Good Shabbos!