Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayyei Sarah

Sarah died in Kiriath-arba-now Hebron-in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. . . (Bereshit 23:2)

At the beginning of this weeks’ parsha, Sarah, Avraham’s wife, dies near Hevron [Hebron] and Avraham goes to great lengths to purchase a burial site for her. This became known as the Cave of the Machpelah, or “doubled cave,” where according to the Torah all the Matriarchs and Patriarchs- except for Rachel- were buried.

Today, there is a building over those caves which house a mosque and a synagogue- parts of this shrine date from the medieval period, if not earlier. Surrounding the Machpelah is a city of about 120,000 people, mostly Arab, with a small Jewish settlement in the heart of the city. Just outside Hevron is a much larger Jewish town, Kiryat-Arba, mentioned in the verse above and now a busy community of thousands.

I was last in Hevron in 1998, and it was a confusing experience. I was thrilled to be in the places where Avraham walked, and being in the Machpelah helped me understand and truly feel the Jewish history embedded in that sacred place. On the other hand, Hevron is the center of much controversy: the Jewish enclave in the heart of the city was surrounded by barbed wire and guards and relations between the Jewish residents and their Arab neighbors was tense, at best, with violence a regular occurrence.

As far as I know, the basic dynamics in Hevron haven’t changed much in the past 12 years, and while there are, of course, widely differing narratives and claims on the city, my point today is a simple one: it’s easy when reading the Torah to imagine holy sites, connected to our ancestors, and feel that deep connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, our historic homeland. It’s much harder to remember that the holy sites of the Torah are today places where real people live complicated lives. There is the eternal Hevron, the site of Avraham’s purchase from Ephron the Hittite, and there is the earthly Hevron, where conflict between Avraham’s children is exacerbated by poor leadership and fiery extremism on both sides.

To make this distinction is not to give up any claim or belief; it is simply to acknowledge that history produces complex outcomes, and rights should sometimes be exercised with wisdom. I have my personal perspectives on the situation in Hevron, but I’d rather you found your own, and you might start at this page, put together by rabbinical students for the purpose of helping people understand  various aspects of the city. The site creators have their own leanings (everybody does), but you’ll find links to various Jewish and Arab websites and sources of information, along with divrei Torah and text resources here.

My prayer is that someday soon, all of Avraham’s children will celebrate in Hevron- and all across the world- in peace and joy.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Shalom Friends- when last we left our patriarch Avraham, he was sitting at the door of his tent, just waiting for strangers to pass by so he could perform acts of hesed/generous-compassion.

This week, we fast-forward some years and Avraham has just buried Sarah, his wife. Yet after the burial, we Avraham is described as both blessed, and yet lacking:

“Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. . . . .” (Bereshit/Genesis 24:1)

The Torah may describe Avraham as blessed bakol, or “with everything” [maybe "in everything," or "in all things," as above, the JPS translation] but Avraham apparently doesn’t feel that way, because in the very next verse he’s making his chief servant swear an oath to go get his son Yitzhak a wife from his home country. There are many, many interpretations of what bakol means; after all, if Avraham was blessed with everything possible, he wouldn’t have to ask his servant to go on a mission to help bring back a daughter-in-law. Our friend Rashi addresses this paradox by pointing out that bakol has the same numerical value as “son,” and thus reads the verse as saying that “since [Avraham] was blessed with a son, he had to get a wife for him.”

Rashi’s interpretation – that Avraham’s blessing of a son required him to help Yitzhak find a wife- is interesting because of how this phrase, bakol, is quoted in the Birkat Hamazon, or blessing after the meal. In a section in which we call God the “Merciful One,” we ask for blessing for ourselves and all who are gathered at the meal :

“Just as God blessed our ancestors Avraham Yitzhak and Yaakov, “in all things,” “by all things,” with “all things,” so may we all be blessed together with a complete blessing.”

[Note: Yitzhak and Yaakov also got their own blessings of kol or "everything;" cf. Bereshit 27:33 and 33:11. We'll deal with that another time, along with the version of the text which includes the matriarchs.]

So here’s one way to look at it: just as Avraham’s blessing of a son evoked an obligation towards that son, so too, when we ask to be blessed like Avraham, bakol, we might think about how our the blessings we have can be oriented towards others. Rather than simply be thankful- no small task!- we might try to remember that Avraham’s greatness was not only that he was blessed “in all things,” but that he wanted to share that blessing with others.

That, in turn, is what it means to have a bracha shelemah- a “complete” or “whole” blessing, for how can we have everything if we don’t have the opportunity to practice generosity and compassion? We are whole when we give, and our blessing is complete when it is extended beyond ourselves.

Shabbat shalom,

RNJL

P.S.- Here is a drasha I wrote some years ago on the same verse, and here is a third interpretation (but referencing some of the same texts.)

If you want the text of the entire parsha, you’ll find it on hebcal, and if you want the entire text of the blessing after the meals with translation and transliteration, there’s a great download here.

.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

This week we read the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, which deals with the
death of Sarah and Avraham’s subsequent efforts to find a wife for his
son Yitzhak. In the haftarah, another patriarch, King David, also has
to make arrangements for the orderly transition of generations- but he
does so in reaction to a palace plot by one of his sons to take the
kingship from another.

You can read the details of how the plot is foiled in the second link,
below, but what is interesting to me is the prologue to the whole
story- which is actually the prologue to the entire Book of Kings,
since our haftarah starts with chapter 1, verse 1. In this prologue to
the palace intrigue, the elderly King David is cold and weak, and his
advisers call for a young girl to lay with him to warm him:

“King David was now old, advanced in years; and though they covered
him with bedclothes, he never felt warm. His courtiers said to him,
‘Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, to wait upon Your
Majesty and be his attendant; and let her lie in your bosom, and my
lord the king will be warm.’ So they looked for a beautiful girl
throughout the territory of Israel. They found Abishag the Shunammite
and brought her to the king. The girl was exceedingly beautiful. She
became the king’s attendant and waited upon him; but the king was not
intimate with her.” (1 Kings 1:1-4)

What strikes me is not so much the contrast between this image of
David and early stories of his military and physical powers, but the
contrast between one’s expectations regarding how a family might care
for an elderly patriarch and the lonely man portrayed in these opening
verses. King David had wives, children, and grandchildren- surely one
of them could have stayed by his side to keep him warm? Where is
David’s family when the stranger is called in to lie down with him?
The scene recalls David’s taking of Bathsheva, in that a beautiful
woman is regarded as little more than an object for the King’s
service, yet in this case, it’s not about sex- it’s about an intimate
act of caregiving, now given to strangers.

I read this short passage as emotional background for what follows: a
family divided over power, legacy, and privilege. Perhaps the prologue
shows us that a man who has lived his life exercising power over
others has little hope of being cared for by his loved ones when his
efficacy wanes. David’s power was in his body, his courage, his
cunning, his charisma, his daring, and his strength. Yet when power
fades, love remains, but only if it is planted by countless small acts
over a lifetime.

It seems to me that David’s family, squabbling over the succession,
is doing what their father taught them to do by his example, rather
than doing what he most needs at the end of his life. Thus our
haftarah poses not only a contrast with Avraham, but a challenge to
the rest of us: how shall we live such that peace follows our passing?

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Greetings from the Mid-Hudson Valley, where your humble correspondent
and only a select few other people are celebrating the valorous Red
Sox. . . . .but I digress, and we haven’t even started yet. Baseball
is on hiatus till next spring, but Torah study is a year-round
endeavor. This week’s portion is Chayei Sarah, which begins with the
death of Sarah and ends, more or less, with the death of Avraham.
After Avraham’s death, his son, Yitzhak, is blessed by God:

“After the death of Avraham, God blessed his son Yitzhak. And Yitzhak
settled near Beer-lahai-roi.” (Bereshit/Genesis 25:11)

Now, perhaps the simple meaning of this verse is to show that Yitzhak
is inheriting the blessing of his father’s covenant, but many
commentators (including our friend Rashi and our Conservative Etz
Hayim commentary) see God’s “blessing” of Yitzhak as directly
connected to his status as a mourner for his father. That is, the
“blessing” was really the comforting and consolation extended toward a
mourner. The Talmud (Sotah 14a) links God’s “comforting” of Yitzhak
with the example of visiting the sick that we discussed last week,
deriving both from a verse in D’varim/Deuteronomy:

“You shall go in the ways of the Lord your God, and revere the Holy
One and the Holy One’s commandments. . . (D’varim 13:5, my translation.)

Again, as we discussed last week, the idea of “walking in God’s ways”
means to emulate or manifest in our lives the compassionate ways of
being that we understand as holy. The mitzvah of “nichum avelim,” or
comforting the mourners, is not a separate mitzvah in itself but is
part of the general command to be compassionate and generous as we
believe God to be- which is to say, to the extent that we are
compassionate, generous and caring, we are true to the Image of God
within each of us.

However, although the mitzvah to “go in God’s ways” is a general one,
there are practical guidelines for the specific ways we practice it.
In the case of nichum avelim, this would include the way we greet
mourners (or, more precisely, allow them to greet us), the way we
conduct ourselves in their presence, what we bring if it’s a visit at
home, how we address their pain, and so on.

An excellent set of guidelines on how to comfort mourners can be found
below, but if I had to sum up Jewish wisdom on the topic in just a few
words, I might say: when it comes to offering consolations, less can
be more. That is, one’s presence is usually the greatest consolation;
many words or big piles of food or gifts are sometimes incongruous
with the mourner’s more stark and introspective state. To paraphrase
Woody Allen, perhaps 80% of the mitzvah is just showing up.

After the death of Avraham, God blessed Yitzhak- it is, in fact, a
blessing to be consoled by friends and community when life brings
loss, as it inevitably will. Judaism doesn’t pretend that life never
hurts; rather, Judaism gives us the mitzvah to bring the blessing of
love and companionship where there is pain and grief. The Holy One
blessed Yitzhak; it’s up to us to bless each other.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Greetings on a blustery Thursday! As the fall winds pick up, the book
of Bereshit continues its history of the first family of the Jewish
people: Sarah dies, Avraham sends his servant out to find a wife for
Yitzhak, Rivka comes back with the servant to marry Yitzhak, and even
Avraham marries again and has more children.

In what is probably the verse with the most Freudian implications of
any in the Torah, Yitzhak’s relationship with Rivka is described as
bringing him comfort after the death of his mother:

“Yitzhak then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he
took Rivka as his wife. Yitzhak loved her, and thus found comfort
after his mother’s death.” (Bereshit/Genesis 24:67)

Lest you think that the Oedipal overtones of describing the marital
home as “his mother’s tent” was lost on the ancient commentators,
here’s how Rashi brings an older midrash [imaginative interpretation]
on this verse:

“To the tent of Sarah his mother. . . . He brought her to the tent,
and behold, she was Sarah his mother. That is, she became the likeness
of Sarah his mother, for as long as Sarah was alive, a candle burned
from one erev Shabbat to the next, there was a blessing in the dough,
and a cloud was attached to the tent. When she died, [these things]
ceased, and when Rivka arrived, they resumed.”

At this point it would be almost too easy to analyze Yitzhak’s love
for Rivka as unresolved longing for his mother, but when we return to
the midrash and read it a bit more closely, I think the message is
much more about the journey of grief and healing than about sexuality
and its discontents. My reading of Rashi’s comment is based on the
three “miracles” which blessed the home when Sarah was alive: light
from Shabbat to Shabbat, “blessing in the dough,” and a cloud over or
attached to the tent.

The light from Shabbat to Shabbat seems to represent joy- a Shabbat
candle itself is about bringing beauty and honor to the day, as eating
the Shabbat meal in darkness (as our ancestors did before electricity,
if they didn’t light a candle) was not a happy, uplifting experience.
“Blessing in the dough” represents enjoying life’s simple pleasures,
like good food on the table, whereas the last item on our list, the
“cloud,” seems to be a reference to the “clouds of glory” which filled
the Mishkan [portable Sanctuary] and were a visual metaphor for the
Divine Presence. [Cf. Exodus 40:34]

Now let’s re-read Rashi; I think what he’s getting at is that after
Sarah died, Yitzhak went through a period where he could no longer
experience joy, pleasure, or spirituality- which are exactly what many
people go through in a period of grief, loss, or sadness. Things that
used to be fun can seem meaningless, one’s food doesn’t taste as good,
and prayer is hard when life is painful and God seems cruel. After a
loss- not just death, but loss- life can seem empty of meaning and
just no fun. Rashi’s midrash represents the emotional and spiritual
experience of grief in almost palpaple terms: darkness, bread which is
stale in one’s mouth, even the sense of disconnecting from one’s soul.

To me, this is why traditional Jewish practices in the period of
mourning both release one from parties and entertainment (because such
things are out of sync with one’s emotional reality) but forces the
mourner to both eat (when people bring food to the shivah) and pray in
community (one needs a minyan, a quorum of ten, to say the mourner’s
kaddish). It would be so easy not to do either, and yet both caring
for our health and the continued connection with others are part of
what bring us back into light (picking up on the image of Sarah’s
candle) after sojourning in the darkness of grief.

Thus, my take on Rashi’s commentary is not that Yitzhak loved Rivka
out of a need to find comfort after his mother’s death, but the
reverse: he was able to love Rivka because his journey of grief had
reached the stage where he was now open to light, joy, and gladness.
Perhaps Yitzhak himself was surprised at his renewed capacity for love
and pleasure, or perhaps he simply wasn’t able to take a wife into
“his mother’s tent” – that is, into his heart, which had been full of
grief, with no room for other emotions- until enough time had passed
such that he was once again able to feel at home in the world and
experience its blessings, the greatest of which is the renewed
capacity for love, in all its forms and expressions.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

PS- before we go to our customary links, here’s a very different
interpretation of Rashi on this verse:

http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/archives/5761/hayyeisarah.shtml

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Good morning!

Well, here’s hoping everybody goes to the gym, or gets their favorite form of
exercise, on
the day between the big American feast (Thanksgiving) and our weekly Shabbat
treats
(even if you’re just beginning a Shabbat practice, go get some Shabbat treats
for yourself-
you deserve it, every week!)

Our parsha this week is Chayyeh Sarah, the “life of Sarah,” which famously
begins with her
death and burial in Hebron. Avraham sends his helper, Eliezer, to find a wife
for Yitzhak;
he finds Rivka by noticing how kindly she treats him and his animals. Avraham
marries
again, and there are genealogies of the various families. Avraham dies, and is
buried with
Sarah in Hebron by his two sons, Yitzhak and Yismael.

Well, after a few weeks of heavy-duty emails from me, I think it’s time to be a
bit lighter in
our choice of topics, so our subject for Torah study will be. . . . .camels.
Well, more
precisely, how one dresses one’s camel when going out on the town- a topic which
I’m
sure is very relevant to most of you reading this.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, camels are a key player in this week’s
parsha; when
Avraham sends Eliezer off to find a wife for Yitzhak, Eliezer loads the camels
for the trip,
and it’s when Rivka gives water to the camels that he knows she’s a person of
kindness
and generosity. (In other words, how one treats animals is a clear sign of one’s
character.)

Rashi notices something interesting about these camels, so let’s look at the
verse:

” And the servant took ten camels of his master’s camels, and he went, and all
the best of
his master was in his hand; and he arose, and he went to Aram naharaim, to the
city of
Nahor. . . . ” (Bereshit/ Genesis 24:10)

Here is Rashi’s comment- see if you can figure out what his question is from his
commentary:

Rashi:

“of his master’s camels. . .

` They were distinguishable from other camels by the fact that they would go out
muzzled
to prevent robbery, that they should not graze in strangers’ fields.’ “

Got it? Rashi’s problem is the extra detail: “his master’s camels.” Why does the
Torah need
to say that the servant loaded up “his master’s camel?” Would those camels have
belonged
to anybody else?

Now you understand why he provides an answer from earlier midrashic texts: the
Torah is
hinting that Avraham’s camels were indeed different- or treated differently-
than other
people’s animals. Avraham muzzled his camels so that they would not graze in
other
people’s fields; not only is this good manners, but Rashi says that to do
otherwise would
be “robbery,” which is just the action of taking anything that belongs to
someone else.

OK, so what do we do with this, especially if we don’t have camels parked in the
driveway?
To me, the lesson is: even the busiest or most important person- is not exempt
from the
obligations of community, which include always thinking about the needs and
boundaries
of the people around you. You might recall that in the previous parshiot,
Avraham had
some clashes with neighboring kings- perhaps he’s learned the lesson that living
in peace
means being truly thoughtful in one’s “neighborliness.”

Do we let our camels graze on our neighbors fields? Well, no, but I’m guessing
there isn’t
a person reading this who would not benefit from some reflection on how we
respect the
time, feelings, honor, property, and well-being of the people we meet on a daily
basis.
The rabbis saw in a simple act of animal husbandry a whole philosophy of living
in
community- it’s not about the camels, per se- it’s about loving your neighbor as
yourself.
In other words, the most practical action can (should!) reflect our deepest
spiritual ideals-
and that, in a few words, is what Judaism is all about.

Shabbat Shalom,

rnjl

PS- As usual, you can find the Torah and haftarah in translation here, along
long with a
commentary by my dear friend and teacher R. Larry Troster- it’s a good read:

http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/index.shtml

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

The Torah portion Chayyei Sarah, meaning “The Life of Sarah,”
actually begins with the story of her death and burial. Sarah dies
in Kiryat Arbah- what we would now call Hebron – and the
narrative seems relatively straightforward: we are told that Sarah
dies, Avraham comes back from his travels to mourn her and to
weep for her, and then he purchases some land to make a
family burial ground.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve given three eulogies this week, but I
saw something this week that I never noticed before: the Torah
says that Avraham “came,” he “mourned,” and he “cried,” in that
order. (Genesis 23:2) Maybe I’m leaning too hard on a simple
declarative sentence, but it seems to me that first one would cry,
upon hearing the news of a death, and then one would “mourn,”
in the sense of taking on the rituals and internal orientation of
someone in grief. So why does the Torah tell us that Avraham
“mourned” before he cried?

The word usually translated as “mourned,” [l'spod] has the same
root as the Hebrew word for “eulogy,” [hesped], and thus
perhaps we could understand that “mourning” in this context
means reflecting on the meaning and goodness of the life that
has ended. A eulogy is not a biography or a resume, but a
reflection on a person’s unique, irreplacable character traits and
their lived values – the “why” of a life. So maybe Avraham cried
after he “mourned” because it was only after a period of
reflection that he was able to comprehend – and thus feel more
deeply- his loss.

This makes sense to me, both as a rabbi and as a mourner
myself. Grief can be terrible at first, but sometimes the shock of a
death is so great that it’s hard to deeply reflect on how somebody
else’s life has affected one’s own. For me, such a moment came
on Tuesday, when I walked into a voting booth for the first time in
my life without having discussed the election with my mother, z’l.

The election caused me to mourn for my mother- in this sense of
reflection- because it helped me to remember and be inspired
by her passion for civic affairs and strong belief in the democratic
process. (I have to confess- for the first 4 or 5 elections after I
was eligible to vote, I used an absentee ballot and filled it out
with my mother on the phone, because she had well-informed
opinions of everything on the ballot from President down to the
local city school board and municipal bond issues.)

So perhaps “mourning” comes before “crying” because it takes
time to think about the meaning of a life well lived. Loss isn’t
something that happens all at once, but something that unfolds
over months and years, bringing with it both tears and -
hopefully- inspiration. In Hebrew, we say we say of the
dead:”zichrono l’vracha,” [may his memory be a blessing], and I
think this captures the same idea: grief brings tears, but we can
redeem the tears into a blessing by seeking inspiration in the
greatest acts of those we love.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5761 and can be found in its archives.

Chayei Sarah (Gen. 23:1-25:18)

OVERVIEW

The portion Chayei Sarah- the “life of Sarah”- serves as a bridge between the story of Avraham and Sarah and the next generations. Sarah dies, and Avraham buys the cave of Machpelah in which to bury her. Avraham then sends his servant to find a wife for his son Yitzhak. The servant finds Rivkah, and then goes to meet her family, including her brother Lavan. Lavan will later figure prominently in the story of Yaakov, Rachel, and Leah. At the end of the portion, Avraham dies, and is buried by his two sons, Yitzhak and Yishmael.

IN FOCUS

“Avraham was old, advanced in age, and God had blessed Avraham in everything.” (Genesis 24:1)

PSHAT

After burying Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, Avraham turns his attention to finding a partner for Yitzhak, so that the family covenant may be continued. (One might say that worries about Jewish continuity are nothing new!) In between settling the last details of the burial and Avraham’s instructions to his servant, the Torah tells us that Avraham was blessed with “everything,” bakol.

DRASH

An obvious difficulty with our passage is that it seems out of place. Why is Avraham described as blessed with “everything” before he sends his servant out to find a partner for Yitzhak? Wouldn’t it make more sense after the servant comes back and Yitzhak has children? In fact, Rashi, among others, notices this problem and therefore links this passage to Avraham’s desire to find a wife for Yitzhak- this would make the blessing truly complete.

On the other hand, some classic midrashic sources offer very different interpretations of Avraham’s blessing in “everything.” Midrash Rabbah is a compilation of midrashim dating back to the era of the Talmud; it records diverse opinions about this verse:

. .and God had blessed Avraham in everything. R. Yehudah said: It means that God gave him a female. R. Nehemiah replied: [You mean] she was the centre of the king’s household [i.e., Avraham's] household, but there is no record of a blessing about her!

Maybe and God had blessed Avraham in everything doesn’t mean God gave him a daughter? R. Levi gave three [interpretations.] “Everything”- he ruled over his desires. “Everything”- that Yishmael achieved reconciliation in his [Avraham's] lifetime. “Everything”- that his storehouse never lacked for anything. R. Levi said in the name of R. Hama : It means that God did not test him again.

(Genesis Rabbah 59:7, translation mine, based on notes in the Mirkin edition.)

R. Yehudah says that Avraham’s blessing was complete because he had a daughter. What I like about his midrash is that it softens the patriarchy of the Biblical narrative, which is so focussed on sons. R. Yehudah points out that the blessing of “everything” comes from both sons and daughters together. While I appreciate R. Yehudah’s effort to restore balance to the text, R. Nehemiah also has a good argument against this reading of it: we have no mention in the Torah of God making Avraham blessed with a daughter, and lots of mentions of the blessing of a son.

R. Levi offers three reasons why Avraham’s blessing was described as “everything.” One, Avraham achieved spiritual discipline and self-knowledge, controlling his passions and desires. Two, that Yishmael and Yitzhak were reconciled in their father’s lifetime. This interpretation is based the traditional rabbinic understanding of Yishmael as destructively jealous of Yitzhak, yet coming together with his brother to bury their father, in verse 25:9. The rabbis say that Yishmael’s reconciliation with Yitzhak happened before Avraham died; there is scant textual evidence for this, but it’s a lovely midrash. Finally, R. Levi says that Avraham was blessed with sufficient sustenance.

R. Levi then offers one last theory of Avraham’s extraordinary blessing: that his tests were concluded with the near-sacrifice of Yitzhak, in ch. 22. There is a strong midrashic tradition that Avraham had 10 tests, beginning with the call to leave his homeland, and ending with the Binding of Yitzhak- R. Levi points out that having calm and peaceful time, without a new crisis every day, is a complete blessing in and of itself!

Turning R. Levi’s words around, we might point out that calling something a “blessing” is to name it as a spiritual value or goal- we don’t feel “blessed” by things we don’t really value. R. Levi is then setting out a vision of the ideal life, a life that encompasses emotional, material, and spiritual goals. Avraham, he says, had deep self-knowledge and discipline; was able to experience harmony in his family; had enough material possessions so that he never suffered want; and came through life’s challenges with a sense of peace, a sense that the “tests” were not so dramatic anymore.

“Everything,” in R. Levi’s interpretation, means all aspects of life, both the inner world and outward reality. It seems to imply a harmony between one’s spirituality and one’s situation, which we might note Avraham is not described as having till he was “advanced in years.” Thus R. Levi teaches us not only about our sacred texts, but what might become our sacred values.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5760 and can be found in its archives.

OVERVIEW
The portion Chayei Sarah- the “life of Sarah”- serves as a bridge between the story of Avraham and Sarah and the next generations. Sara dies, and Avraham buys the cave of Machpelah in which to bury her. Avraham then sends his servant to find a wife for his son Yitzhak; the servant finds Rivkah, and we meet her family, including her brother Lavan, who will figure prominently in the story of Yaakov, Rachel, and Leah. At the end of the portion, Avraham dies, and is buried by his two sons, Yitzhak and Yishmael.

IN FOCUS
“Avraham rose up from the from the presence of his dead, and spoke to the tribe of Het, saying: I am a stranger and a resident among you. Grant me an inheritance of a burial site, that I may bury my dead from before me.” (Genesis 23:3-4)

PSHAT
Up until this point, Avraham and Sarah have wandered all over the map, from what is now Iraq all the way down to Egypt and various places in the land of Canaan. Now, however, he needs a permanent place in which to bury his wife, and which will become a burial place for his descendants as well. Even today, the Cave of Machpelah, in Hebron, is revered as the burial place of Avraham, Sarah, Yitzhak, Rivkah, Yaakov, and Leah- Rachel died on a journey, and is buried (according to an ancient tradition) near Bethlehem.

DRASH
In a sermon based on this verse, Rabbi Morris Adler points out a contradiction when Avraham calls himself a “stranger and a resident among you” [Ger v'Toshav]. A stranger, or alien, is someone who is just passing through, or here temporarily, someone without attachements or committments. A resident is more like a citizen or a permanent dweller in the community- someone who has settled somewhere, made a dwelling, chosen a home.

How can Avraham be both a temporary passer-through and permanent resident? Rabbi Adler suggests that this is not so much about one’s citizenship status, as it were, but a description of a religious attitude towards life itself. Life in this world is temporary and unpredictable- when it comes to life, we’re all “just passing through.” Like travellers, we should burden ourselves with only the necessities: love, good deeds, reverence, true connections to family and friends. We might try to cheat death by building up a huge store of wealth or an impressive career, or we might adopt an attitude of “party hard, because life is short,” but these things too are only temporary, gone before we know it. A mature person recognizes the reality of death, and thus lives with greater urgency and purpose.

Yet in another sense, this world is what we have; we are “residents” here, and must be committed to the improvement and betterment of our homes, communities, and societies. We can’t just say, “oh, I’m just passing through, it’s not my problem, I don’t care, and what’s the use?” No, insists Adler:

“He who gives himself to justice and peace, he who recognizes that life is too short for men to be little, he who honors life as the medium for that which is abiding and permanent, will not fritter it away on that which is shallow and petty. . . This is the balanced attitude: Not to try to escape life or to underestimate it; not to see it only as an insignificant moment between birth and death, but also, in recognizing its brevity, to cherish the opportunity it gives us for producing that which is eternal.”

Adler extends the metaphor to include our attitude towards love, teaching that the balance is to regard our relations with those we love as temporary, yet permanent at the same time. Thus, we must love people as best we can every moment, for we never know what accidents of fate or twists of life may remove us from our cherished ones. Yet we must also be “residents,” fully present, in our relationships, and not flit from love to love in fickle and unreliable ways. If we think of ourselves as “permanent residents” with those we love, we risk taking them for granted; if we think of ourselves as only “passing through,” we can never become deeply rooted in true relationships. Adler calls this “loving with intensity but seeing with clarity.”

Returning to our verse, the paradoxical wording of Avraham’s plea to the tribe of Het makes more sense: having just lost his wife of so many years, we could understand how Avraham feels lost in the world, unattached and lonely, even “alienated:” “I am a stranger among you.” Yet precisely at that moment he needed to attach himself to something permanent, to make himself a home in the world, represented by the establishment of a family burial plot, where one person’s life story is bound up with the other generations: “I am a resident among you.” Ger v’Toshav: seeing with clarity, but living with intensity.

* Historical note: Rabbi Morris Adler was a Conservative rabbi in the 50′s and 60′s, serving a congregation in Detroit but also also achieving some measure of national and communal prominence. After his passing many of his sermons and teachings were transcribed from recordings and notes, and published in the collection The Voice Still Speaks, long out of print but possibly available in libraries.