Ultimately, it is not the intrinsic quality of the site that renders a person worthy of having his prayers accepted, but rather his personal merits.
We read in Parashat Vayera of the birth of Yitzchak and the tensions that arose between him and Yishmael, Avraham’s older son who had been born fourteen years earlier to Sara’s maidservant, Hagar. Sara urged Avraham to send Hagar and Yishmael away from the home, and God commanded Avraham to comply with Sara’s wishes. The Torah writes that after leaving Avraham’s home, Hagar and her son wandered “in the wilderness of Be’er Sheva” (21:14).
The Meshekh Chokhma comments that Hagar’s decision to go to the area outside the city of Be’er Sheva was not incidental. Later, in Parashat Vayeitzei, we read of the famous dream that Yaakov dreamt upon leaving Be’er Sheva to flee from his brother. The site of this dream, as Yaakov acknowledged upon awakening, was the “gate to the heavens” (28:17), a place uniquely suited for the acceptance of prayer. Indeed, the Gemara in Masekhet Chulin (91b) comments that Yaakov specifically went to that spot to pray, because it was the site where his fathers – Avraham and Yitzchak – prayed. And it appears from the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 69:7) that this site was outside the city of Be’er Sheva.
Accordingly, the Meshekh Chokhma speculates that Hagar went specifically to “the wilderness of Be’er Sheva” to pray at the site where Avraham regularly prayed. She understood the spiritual significance of that site and decided to go there and offer her prayers to God.
The Meshekh Chokhma adds that this theory may provide some insight into the angel’s comment to Hagar as her son dehydrated and came close to dying: “Do not fear, for the Lord has listened to the boy’s voice, at the place where he is” (21:17). As Rashi explains (based on the Gemara in Masekhet Rosh Hashanah 16), God accepted Yishmael’s prayers because of his personal merits, because of his current spiritual “place.” According to the Meshekh Chokhma, the angel sought to emphasize to Hagar that her son would be saved because of his personal merits, and not because of the intrinsic sanctity of the site. In the Meshekh Chokhma’s words, “It [the angel] thus said that He [God] heard the boy’s voice ‘at the place where he is’ – and not because of you, that you settled facing the gates of the heavens.” Certainly, praying at designated holy sites is significant and worthwhile. The Gemara in fact tells that after Yaakov had reached Charan, he decided to return to Be’er Sheva in order to pray at the site where his father and grandfather had prayed. Ultimately, however, it is not the intrinsic quality of the site that renders a person worthy of having his prayers accepted, but rather his personal merits. God’s angel thus emphasized to Hagar that Yishmael earned salvation through his own merits – and not due to the “magical” powers of the holy site where she prayed.