Chayei Sarah
Genesis 23:1-25:18
I Kings 1:1-1:31
Our Torah portion explains that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, lived to be 127 years old. The wording is strange — “100 years and 20 years and seven years.” The Rabbis understood this to mean that at age 100 she had the beauty of a 20-year-old and the innocence and energy of a 7-year-old. This is quite a remarkable statement about her life.
This portion is called Chayei Sarah, meaning the life, or lifetime, of Sarah. Yet it speaks about her death. Does this suggest to us that only with death can we determine if someone lived up to their potential in life? Is it only at the end that we look back and say, this was a successful life?
In this case, Sarah’s death became a celebration of her life.
When a baby is born, they are mere potential. They have not been defined yet.
The baby will grow up, start down a path, and decide — to use a baseball metaphor, since the World Series has just ended — will their life be a ball or a strike?
Will they miss the plate, fall short of the mark, not live up to their potential? Or will they hit the mark, find the plate, live the life of realizing their potential? Will the baby be a source of nachas, of pride and joy, or a source of tsuris, of trouble and travail, for their parents?
At birth we do not know. A baby is mere potential.
Rabbi Michael Gold teaches that this idea comes across in an ancient rabbinic passage.
There are two ships, one leaving the harbor on a long voyage, and one coming into the harbor at the end of a long voyage. For the one leaving the harbor, people are nervous — they do not know whether the ship will successfully reach its destination. For the one coming into the harbor, people feel a great comfort, because the journey is over and it has been successful.
The rabbis mention that in real life it is the other way around. A baby is born and we feel such joy. A person dies and we feel such great sadness. Nonetheless, if the person has lived a successful life, we ought to feel a great comfort. When a baby is born, we don’t know who they will become.
Only as life proceeds can we ascertain whether the life was successful, whether the person fulfilled their destiny.
This is reflected in an interesting fact about Jewish life.
Over the centuries Jews did not celebrate birthdays. Do you know which birthday is the only one mentioned in the Bible? It was Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh, whose whole life was set out for him in advance, who never seems to have the will to do the right thing — he is the only one who celebrates a birthday. In Judaism, when we commemorate a person, we remember their yahrzeit, the day they died, not their birthday, the day they were born.
In America, we honor Martin Luther King Jr. by celebrating his birthday. In Israel, they honor Yitzhak Rabin on his yahrzeit, the day he was assassinated.
In America, we celebrate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. For the greatest biblical hero, Moses, we do not have any knowledge of his birthday — rather, we remember his yahrzeit. For those of us whose parents have died it is often the case that we remember the yahrzeits more often then the birthdays.
On the day we are born we are potential. We do not know if we will live up to the reason why we were created.
As we live our lives, and when we can look back upon our lives over time, then we can have a clearer picture of whether we have lived up to our potential.
Sarah lived up to her potential. My hope is that each of us will as well.
Rabbi Larry Raphael is the senior rabbi of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco.