The comic relief, if you will, lies in the fact the God is almost completely missing from this week’s Portion. After being at the epicenter of each of the first four portions, the fifth portion offers us something much more mundane, though equally fascinating: the story of human life. Indeed, this week’s potion is all about people – the soap-opera version of the bible, if you will – without much God involved. No flood, no burning of a city, no punishments, but also no creation of the Universe, no moral lessons, no intervention. Instead, we find the cycle of life and death, family values, falling in love, wooing rituals, a bit of Freudian psychology, and marriage. This is what this portion has to offer, and in that sense, it is a very welcome comic relief (or respite) from the previous four. No divine drama; only human drama.
To sum up the human story in a nutshell: Sarah dies (I will immediately explain why a portion entitled “the life of Sarah” opens with her death); Abraham successfully negotiates the purchase of a burial ground for her within the land of Israel; He is preoccupied, as any father who almost sacrificed his son, with finding a suitable bride to his beloved son Isaac; he dispatches his loyal slave to go out and find Rebecca; Rebecca and Isaac get married (actually, the whole idea of marriage is quite complicated at the time, but, for simplicity sake, let us assume they in fact got married); Abraham dies; both his sons – Isaac and Ishmael – burry him. End of story. End of an era.
As suggested by the title of this week’s portion, my three comments today would be dedicated to Sarah and her legacy.
I. "The Life of Sarah" – An Ironic Title?
The first four portions bore strong resemblance to their titles: “Be’re’shit” (in the beginning) dealt with the creation of the Universe; “Noah” celebrated the life of the first righteous man; “Lech Lecha” (Go, go away) began a journey to the Promised Land; and “Va’yeera” (“And God was seen to him”) asked some difficult questions about the relation between a man of true faith and his God.
The fifth portion, in contrasts, presents somewhat of a conundrum: The title of the portion is “the Life of Sarah,” but the portion actually begins with her death. (“And the life of Sarah has been … (127 years)… And Sarah died.” Gen. 23:1-2). How can that be? How can the title spells out the exact opposite of the content? The answer is simpler than one might assume. The title of each week’s portion is not selected after careful examination of its content, or a review of the portion’s main theme. Rather, the title is simply the first (meaningful) word or words appearing in each portion. Recall that the division to verses and portions, and the actual naming of the portions, is a much later ritual than the (divine?) writing of the text itself. Thus, although in some cases – and all the cases we had until now – there may exist a strong correlation between the title and the content, it is not always – or even not mostly – the case.
The portion thus opens with the announcement of Sarah’s death, at the age of 127 years. Now comes the question: is the title truly a complete coincidence, which has nothing to do with Sarah’s life, or does the text offer a bit more nuanced an explanation? The answer is that in two very important ways, the portion is, in fact, about Sarah. But before we get to that, a word about the age in which she dies, 127 years, which may provide us with an interesting reference: That same number – 127 – appears again in the very first verse of a story about another very influential Jewish woman in the Mikra, Queen Esther. I doubt this is a coincidence. [See Book of Esther, 1:1]
II. Sarah’s Death and Burial Ceremony
Despite Sarah’s death right at the beginning of the portion, one may argue that this week’s portion could not be more aptly named. First, Sarah’s burial ceremony, and the negotiation over her burial grounds, occupies a great deal of the portion – and rightly so. Abraham insists to bury his wife in Hebron, within the land of Israel, and not in the land in which he came from. The great detail in which the text describes every stage of the elaborate negotiation between Abraham and the local real-estate moguls may suggest that such a negotiation – between a foreigner and the locals – was an exception. Indeed, a careful reading of the text shows how the negotiation tactics employed by each of the parties turned this affair into an almost legal tug-of-war. In short, Abraham knew that despite his inferior status as “a foreign resident” (or a “resident alien,” as nicely translated by JTS, Gen. 23:4), the only way to buy and own land in the new country – and therefore to become a land-owner with rights to the country as a whole – would be through buying a land for his wife’s burial ground. Who would refuse – then and now – to sell a parcel of land for several times its value only to bury the wife of an extremely wealthy and powerful foreigner?
Well, the local residents were very clever about their negotiation tactics. At first, understanding full well that buying the land would constitute an irreversible first step on the way to future ownership of (perhaps) much more land, they “kindly” offer Abraham to take the land for free – a symbolic gesture, that would not grant him any ownership title or status, but only “a right of passage” to use the land for burial and visit his loved wife’s grave. “Not so fast,” insists Abraham, I want to buy it “for the full price.” (Gen. 23:9) Indeed, Abraham is willing to pay a lot – in both sense of the term – to enter the elite club of land-owners in Israel. Well, again – the locals are far from naive. By the time the negotiation reaches the point where the actual designated place of burial is discussed – Me’arat Ha’machpella in Hebron, a place that today, as then, was a great source of tension between Jews and Arabs – they turn the negotiation into a public display. Statements are made for the ears of the audience, who watches “the best show in town.” The drama intensifies. Efron, the local real-estate mogul, insists again – “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give the cave that is in it; I give it to you before the eyes of my people; bury your dead.” (Gen. 23:11). When Abraham insists, Efron retorts with the unforgettable statement, downplaying a huge amount of money into a symbolic gesture: “My lord, the land would listen to me: four hundred shekels of silver – what are they between me and you? [pay me and] bury your dead.” (Gen. 23:15). Now, it is important to understand that this was a fantastic, truly fantastic sum (think of $400 million). According to several interpreters (of which I most like Meir Shalev, in his “Tanach Achshav”), this amount was so high that most people in the crowd have never heard about so much money, let alone seen it in person. And Efron casually drops that number, as if it nothing “between you and me.”
Now imagine the staging for a minute: A great crowd – all locals – is gathered, standing between the two people; the local landowner, and the foreigner who wants to become one. The local landowner consults with his advisors, and then publicly dares Abraham (the foreigner) to either receive the parcel of land for free (with no rights), or to buy it for the equivalent of $400 million. The old foreigner, on the other hand, is aided by no one (other than by his God, of course). What should he do?
Abraham says nothing. He quietly turns to his slaves, and within short order “weighs” each of the four hundred silver coins to Efron, the landowner. The crowd disperses, speaking of this amazing sum of money that they have never seen before. End of Act I.
The moral of the story? It was in her death that Sarah enabled her husband – and, as a result, the entire Jewish People – to become land owners in Israel. Not conquerors, but legal buyers. This is a huge legal achievement, that was made possible only through – and at the time of – Sarah’s death. Indeed, Abraham himself would be buried there in short order, too. (Gen. 25:8-10)
III. Sarah’s Legacy
Sarah’s spirit dominates this week’s portion in another, very important way as well. The entire story of the selection of Rebecca as Isaac’s wife is a true story of (what is known today as) “women’s power,” or true feminism. To begin with, Abraham understands, before he dies, that while he would not be able to amend his relationships with the son he already tied to the woods, he needs to find him a proper wife; he sees it as his most important last task. Second, the slave that Abraham sends for this mission encounters an “extremely good looking virgin,” who, to eliminate any doubt, “no man has ever known,” (Gen. 24:16). The slave then meets her brother, Laban. As you may recall, Laban is about to cause a whole lot of problems to our Third Father, Jacob. But even now, at this very early stage, we get a glimpse of his conniving ways. Thus, right after noticing the jewelry and gold that his younger sister received from the slave, Laban suddenly becomes extremely friendly to the foreign, uninvited slave, who then describes his master’s wealth in great details. Laban happily agrees that his sister would wed into this rich family (indeed, not much has changed since), but when the time to leave arrives, he (Laban) suddenly comes up with what later becomes his trademark – a nasty delay tactic: “let the girl sit with us some days, or ten, and then she would come with you.” [Importantly, the “ten” may also be interpreted as a decade.] (Gen. 24:55) This, of course, is presumably done to raise her price – as if Laban was saying: “if you want her now, pay more. Nobody said anything about now.” [Recall that the same Laban surprised Jacob with giving him Le’ah, the older sister whom Jacob never wanted, after promising him Rachel; Jacob had to wait fourteen years for Rachel…]. In this case, however, the slave insists. He wants to leave now (before his master, Abraham, dies). Laban, pressured, thinks of a creative solution. There’s no chance, he thinks, that Rebecca – until now completely devoid from the process – would like to leave with a complete stranger, a slave at that, to marry someone she never even met in a foreign country. “Here is the solution,” thinks Laban, “let’s make her say she doesn’t want to go, and this would be over.”
And thus comes one of the most famous – and surprising – feminist statements in all the bible, from none other than one of the most conniving, hypocrite, and (very likely) chauvinistic persons in all the bible, Laban; and so he says: “Why won’t we call the girl and see what she wants?” [or, more traditionally translated: “Let us call the girl and ask for her reply.” Gen. 24:57] So, the text continues in great detail, they did go over and called Rebecca – in other words, the young lady wasn’t even there when all this was taking place – and asked her “would you go with that man?” (marriage ceremony, anyone?). Her beautiful answer, only one word in Hebrew, without any hesitation is “I will.” And this is the true meaning of Sarah’s heritage. This is why this portion, more than any other, is aptly named “ the life of Sarah.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Doron
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