Parashat
Hayyei Sarah 5769/ November 22, 2008
Lectures on
the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of
Hayyei Sarah – Sarah in Life
Menahem Mendel Bronfman
Lod
The
Hassidic literature of the
Not so,
Sarah. She represents the specifically Jewish aspect of monotheism in general
(as we shall see below).
[3]
The
argument between Abraham and Sarah regarding the fate of Ishmael and his mother
(Gen. 21) has deep inner meaning.
Abraham wanted to continue spreading the idea of monotheism to the
entire world, and hence Ishmael’s fate pained him, for he would have to become
a nomad and not receive the Truth and the tidings of monotheism. Sarah,
however, wished to focus her energy inwards, investing all her efforts into her
own home. She did not perceive her
destiny in the universal dissemination of the Jewish message.
Her principal challenge was to educate and
nurture the Jewish people properly, according to precise demands and
instruction, requiring her people to behave with the utmost sanctity.
Ishmael, who was not her son and was not
included in the Jewish people,
[4] was of
no concern to her.
This
Hassidic theory confirms what the midrash tells us about Sarah:
“But G-d said to Abraham, ‘Do not be
distressed … whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says’ – from this we learn
that Abraham was secondary to Sarah in prophetic capacity” (Midrash Tanhuma
[Warsaw ed.], Exodus, 1). Hassidic
interpretation explains that in certain respects
[5]
Sarah was actually on a higher level that Abraham, and therefore Abraham was
instructed to do as Sarah said. The gemara
(Tractate Bava Batra 58a) provides the following story:
Rabbi Bena’ah used to mark caves.
When he came to Abraham’s cave, Abraham’s servant was just arriving at the
gate. Rabbi Bena’ah asked him:
What is Abraham doing at the moment?
Eliezer answered him:
He is resting on Sarah’s shoulder, and she is
examining the [hairs] of his head.
The Hassidic explanation of this peculiar story is
based on its inner aspect. Examining the
hairs of his head is an allegory for picking out the waste (hair derives its
vitality from the body, but that vitality is of such small measure that one
feels no pain when a hair is removed).
In kabbalistic and hassidic literature hair represents the presence of
vitality and divine influence, but one could have a situation in which outside
elements draw on this force and a reduced vital influence is exerted on
negative elements. This vitality and
influence are not perfect because they can fall into the wrong hands.
Hence they must be rigorously examined and
sorted out, so that there will be no external element drawing on them.
According to this allegory, Sarah examined
Abraham’s hair, i.e., Sara was the one to make sure that Abraham’s influence
did not spread to those undesirable realms that it was not supposed to reach.
So it is deliberately Sarah who filtered Abraham’s
influence, making sure that no negative influence was drawn from him, feeding
outside elements. Her ability to assure
that Abraham’s influence and energies reached their destined target stemmed from
her being on a more elevated spiritual level than he.
This also explains the two statements above –
that Abraham was secondary to Sarah in prophetic capacity, and that Sarah
expressed Jewish uniqueness more than Abraham.
All comes from a single point: in
a certain respect, Sarah was on a higher spiritual plain – the singularity of
Based on this interpretation, the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Likutei
Sihot, Part 15, p. 145), gave a marvelous elucidation of an extremely
difficult question: For over a thousand
years the weekly readings have been named according to their current format,
more or less.
[6]
Generally, the weekly reading is named
according to the first few words of the portion, yet usually one can find a
connection between the name of the weekly reading and its content.
In any event, it would be strange and
surprising if the name of the reading were diametrically opposed to its
content, as with this week’s reading.
The words, hayyei Sarah (=The Life of Sarah) conjure up the image
of Sarah’s life, yet at the outset of this week’s portion we read about
Sarah’s death. But not everyone passes
from the world the same way. When, after
a person’s death, their spouse and offspring rigorously keep alive their memory,
when the dreams of the deceased and the things that they worked their entire
life to realize come to fruition, then the deceased is in a certain remains in
our presence. Parashat Hayyei Sarah
seems, on the face of it, to be a final interment of our matriarch Sarah.
Three important elements weave through this week’s
reading, and all in plain words express a single point, that Sarah is no
more. The reading tells about (1) the
efforts surrounding Sarah’s burial, (2) the marriage of Isaac to Rebekkah and
his finding comfort in his wife after his mother’s death (Gen. 24:67 and Rashi,
loc. sit.), and (3) Abraham seemingly putting aside the memory of his
wife and remarrying (Gen. 25:1).
[7]
The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains this as follows:
the true test of whether a person indeed
lives on, of whether the deceased person is still present, is whether the
memory of the person remains alive. Does
the person’s heritage still have the breath of life, develop and grow, even
after the person’s death. According to
this way of elucidating the text, the Torah seeks to tell us in Parashat
Hayyei Sarah that even though Sarah died physically, upon deeper
examination we see precisely in this week’s reading that in actual fact she
remained alive. Sarah’s influence was
still present. Her heritage continued to
develop, and her life’s work continued to be present and develop.
This can be seen in the three elements mentioned.
1)
The weekly portion
begins with an account of purchasing the
2)
Isaac’s marriage brings
up another point emphasizing the special quality of the Jewish people. Abraham
would not have even the daughter of his steward Eliezer, who according to
legend “drew up and gave others to drink of the instruction of his Teacher”
(Rashi, Gen. 15:2; a play on the name Dammesek), taken as a wife for Isaac.
Despite all the steward’s virtues, according
to legend Abraham said to him, “My son is blessed and you are subject to a
curse. One who is under a curse cannot unite with one who is blessed” (Rashi on
Gen. 24:39).
3) Abraham’s later marriages do not express the end of Sarah’s heritage within Abraham’s family. Quite the contrary, they bring out the fact that Sarah was still present in full force, that her heritage was alive and well in Abraham’s inner world: “all he owned he gave to Isaac,” the Torah tells us, “but to Abraham’s sons by concubines (the children of the wives he took after Sarah’s death) … Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and he sent them away from his son Isaac eastward.” Thus we see that Abraham safeguarded Sarah’s heritage, her message to the world and her destiny – preservation of Jewish uniqueness.
[1] All that
follows is drawn from the teaching of Chabad rabbis, even when we use the
general term “hassidism.”
[2] See Sotah
10a: “And invoked there the name of
the Lord, the Everlasting G-d – this indicates that he proclaimed the name
of the Lord to all passersby.”
[3] For what
follows, see Or ha-Torah (of Baal ha-Tzemah-Tzedek), Hayyei Sarah,
s.v. Rabbi Bena’ah, p. 120a.
Be’ur ha-Zohar (Rabbi Dov Ber, ha-Admor ha-Emtza’i), Hayyei
Sarah 13.2. Likutei Sihot
(Lubavitcher Rebbe), Part 5, p. 339.
[4] Note
that only Esau, Sarah’s grandson, is said to have left the Israelite faith (Kiddushin
18a), and not Ishmael, presumably because he was not her offspring.
[5] Of
course one cannot ignore the fact that in most respects Abraham was plainly
superior to Sarah; he stood up to ten trials, himself acknowledged his Maker,
and had all the other good traits that we know of him. Nevertheless, in a
certain respect Sarah was singled out as superior to Abraham.
[6] The
names of the parashot appear in the prayerbook of Rabbi Saadia Gaon and
in Maimonides’ Seder Tefilah. Cf.
Maimonides, Hilkhot Tefilah, ch. 13.
[7] We have
chosen not to deal with one other element, the history of Ishmael, who was
expelled by Sarah and who returns to the story after her death, because it
exceeds the bounds of this article.