The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.
Chayei Sarah
Genesis 23:1-25:18
The name of this week’s parashah, Chayei Sara, means “Life of Sarah” — but it actually opens with her death.
Up to this point, Sarah has been a strong, determined woman and the wife of Abraham. She has acted in very human ways, displaying love and commitment, but also anger and jealousy.
In death, Sarah’s power and influence grow even greater than they were during her lifetime.
Following Sarah’s passing, the grieving Abraham decides to purchase a family tomb, the cave of Machpelah, the place in which all future patriarchs and matriarchs will, by tradition, be buried. It is in modern-day Hebron, in the West Bank.
With that purchase, the Jewish people now possess something they never had prior to Sarah’s death: a piece of actual property, a foothold of real estate in the Land of Canaan, the land to which they will return many years later after their period of slavery in Egypt.
Other very significant events occur in this parashah. After the purchase of the cave in Hebron, an aged Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to the land of Haran, the patriarch’s birthplace and ancestral homeland, so that Eliezer might find a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac, from among his relatives, and keep the Jewish family line intact.
At a local well, Eliezer starts to scout marital prospects and asks God for a sign. When young women come to the well, Eliezer decides he will ask them for some water to drink. The woman who will offer water for his camels to drink as well — demonstrating her moral character and compassion — will be the one destined to be the wife of Isaac.
Rebecca, the daughter of one of Abraham’s nephews, appears at the well and passes Eliezer’s test. The servant is invited to their home, where he recounts the story of the day’s events. Rebecca then returns with Eliezer from Haran to the land of Canaan.
There, they encounter Isaac walking alone in a field, and Eliezer tells him all that has transpired. Isaac then takes Rebecca into the tent of his mother, and she becomes his wife. The parashah says that “Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.” (Gen. 24:67)
A final important event occurs at the end of the Torah portion. Abraham takes another wife, Keturah, who bears him additional sons. But only Isaac is designated by Abraham as his heir, the person who will not only inherit his wealth but also perpetuate the lineage of the Jewish people.
Abraham dies at the age of 175 at the end of Chayei Sarah. He was “old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin.” He is buried next to Sarah. (Gen. 25:8)
To me, the individuals and events in this week’s parashah serve as metaphors for the Jewish people, symbols of affirmation, hope and renewal.
Although both Sarah and Abraham die in it, this Torah portion brims with expressions of new life: the continuity and promise brought about by the purchase of the cave of Machpelah; the marriage between Isaac and Rebecca, who become the next links in the chain of Jewish history; the transmission not just of property but of the brit, the covenantal relationship with God, from father to son.
The Jewish people have followed this model, where death ultimately leads to renewal and rebirth, since time immemorial.
Following a long period of slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel, led by Moses, return to the Promised Land; after being conquered by and exiled to Babylon, they return and rebuild Israel; in the aftermath of a rebellion against their Syrian-Greek occupiers, the Jews once again achieve sovereignty over the Holy Land.
And after the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish people again returned to Israel, fighting for and creating a modern Jewish state.
Most of us are well aware, particularly since the Oct. 7 massacre two years ago and the subsequent war in Gaza, that there are, and have always been, other, non-Jewish people in the land of Canaan. And many of them, too, lay claim to the land as their own.
The challenge of the State of Israel, and of Zionists like me throughout the world, is to find a balance between exercising our historic birthright to settle and support the land while also advocating and embodying the Jewish principles of justice and peace.
I don’t think that anyone has been able to figure out that equation yet. But I hope it will happen soon, and in our own day.