The
fifth portion of the week – “Chay’ey Sarah” (literally, “the Life of Sarah”) –
continues, in some important ways, the string of the first four; yet in another
ways it signals a departure. It continues the first four in that it follows the
story of emerging Jewish lineage: Sarah and Avraham, the original Jewish
parents, will die of old age – well over a hundred and twenty years old (which
is, to be sure, still well short of the first lineage described in Genesis
where eight and nine hundred years of age were no exception). In their stead,
we find the new generation of Jewish Father and Mother: Itzhak, Avraham’s
beloved son, and Rivkah, his beautiful wife. [The concept of beautiful though
barren wives is pervasive among the original Jewish mothers, according to the
text].
Yet
it is the story at the heart of this portion – the story of finding a suitable
wife for Itzhak (who turns out to be Rivkah) – that signals somewhat of a
departure, at least in my mind, from the first four portions. In those
portions, God was at the epicenter of the story. As you may recall, i the first
portion of the week (Be’re’shit), God created everything; in the second
(No’ach), He nearly destroyed everything; in the third (Lech Le’cha), He
ordered Avraham to walk away from his homeland and become the first Jewish
person; and in the fourth (Va’yee’ra) he tested that same person by ordering
him to kill his own son.
This
week’s portion, in contrast, has very little to do with God. In fact, it is
almost “all too human” (to quote a great German philosopher). If you will, this week’s presents the first
biblical “soap opera” (or reality show, I guess, in today’s terms). At its
center is a father who wants his son to marry “right,” that is, not to blend
with the local women; a slave who travels far and wide to find such a wife, and
who constructs an ingenious test to conclude whether the woman he encounters is
“marriage worthy” (see Gen. 24:14 – [I will then arrive with all my camels to
the watering hole, where the daughters of the city’s men come to fetch water],
“and I shall ask that young lady to give me some of her own water, and if she
would answer to me ‘please drink, and I shall let your camels drink as well’ –
that is the [lady my master deserves].”); a beautiful young lady (Gen. 24:16
“And the young lady was extremely good looking, a maiden whom no man has ever
known”) who is destined to travel with the trustworthy slave back to meet her
new husband (and who passes the slave’s test with flying colors), without ever
seeing him before; her deceitful brother (Lavan, who we shall encounter again
later with Ya’akov); and then the final scene, where the couple finally meets –
the young lady literally falling off her (camel’s) seat (Gen. 24:64) and the
man finding her a proper substitute to his lost mother (Id. 24:67).
All
these otherwise mundane details are highlighted by the fact that God is
conspicuously missing from the picture. Not only that God is not at the
epicenter of the story, He seems to be almost irrelevant to its progress. And
while an argument could be made the God’s central role has been diminishing
throughout the first four portions, I think this portion marks an important
first, where God’s “crown of creation” – the persons created in the image of
God – is in charge of the story, rather than God Himself. From now on, it would
be interesting to see the intersection between God’s role and the people’s role
in the coming portions.
In
today’s columns I would like to make two short comments on this week’s portion:
the first is on the title – “The Life of Sarah”; the other on the emergence of
Jewish feminist tradition as reflected by the portion.
I.
The “Life of Sarah” – A Self-Defeating Title?
If
you may recall, 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 and heritage of the first righteous man; “Lech Lecha” (Go,
go away) told the story of 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 contrast, presents somewhat of a conundrum: The title of the portion is “The Life of
Sarah”; while the portion, in effect, begins with a report on her death: “And
the life of Sarah has been … (127 years)… And Sarah has died in Kiryat Arbah.”
Gen. 23:1-2. How can that be? How can
the title spells out the exact opposite of the portion’s actual content? The
answer is simpler than you may assume.
The title of each week’s portion is not being decided after a
careful examination of its content, nor following a review of the portion’s
main themes. Rather, the title is simply the first (meaningful) word or words
appearing in each portion. As you may
know, the division of the biblical text into into portions of the week was much
later to the authoring of the text itself. In fact, the Babylon Jews were the
first, some 400 years after the writing (or receiving) of the biblical text, to
divide the five books into section that, combined, may be read over a portion
of one (lunar) year. The actual naming of the portions may have appeared even
later. Thus, although in some cases – including all the instances we have
examined until now – there may exist a strong correlation between the title and
the content, this 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 in my mind that at least in two
very important ways, the portion is still very much about Sarah, or at least
about her legacy. But before we get to
that, a word about the age in which she dies, 127 years. This number may
provide us with an interesting reference appears again in the very first verse
of another story relating to a strong, beautiful, and very influential Jewish
woman, that of Queen Esther. I doubt this is a mere coincidence. [See Book of Esther, 1:1]
As
I have mentioned, despite Sarah’s death at the beginning of the portion one may
argue that this week’s portion is still aptly named. First, Sarah’s burial ceremony and the negotiation over her
burial grounds occupies a great deal of the portion, and rightly so. As you may recall, Avraham insisted on
burying his wife in Hebron, a part of the land of Israel, rather than somewhere
in the land from which he (and she) came from. He also insisted on buying that
tract of land, rather than merely accepting it as gift – a generous offer that
would grant him with no rights over that ground. Indeed, the great detail in
which the text describes every stage of this elaborate negotiation between
Avraham and the local real-estate moguls may suggest that such a negotiation –
between a resident-alien and the local citizens – in order to buy land
constituted an exception, rather than the rule. Indeed, a careful reading of the text may reveal the negotiation
tactics employed by each of the parties, which together turned this affair into
almost a legal tug-of-war. To recap,
Avraham knew well that despite his inferior status as “a resident alien” (Gen.
23:4), one of the best ways to become a land-owner in the new country – a key
status back then (and today) – would be through the “innocent” purchase of a
burial grounds for his wife.
The
local real estate owners, in contrast, were well aware of the “first step”
strategy that may first allow the wealthy alien to buy one lot, and then, step
by step, to purchase their entire land. Accordingly, while pretending to be
kind, they insist on offering the land as a gift – a clear signal of a
favor bestowed upon the lesser class from the ruling one.
But
Avraham knows all this. He continues to insist that he wants to buy the land,
rather than receiving it as a gift, despite the generous offer. To be sure,
Avraham is offering to purchase the land “for the full price.” (Gen. 23:9)
Indeed, Avraham was willing to pay handsomely in order to enter the elite club
of land-owners in Israel. But the
locals land owners, again, are far from ignorant in the tactics of negotiation.
By the time the discussion reaches the actual designated place of burial – Me’arat
Ha’machpella in Hebron (a place that today, as then, causes a great source of
tension between Jews and Arabs) – they turn the negotiation into a public
display of “us versus them.” Statements are made more to the ears of the
assembled audience than directly to those of Avraham. 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 Avraham insists again, Efron
retorts with the unforgettable response, whereby he asked for an unreasonable,
almost unfathomable, amount of money for the land, yet makes it seem like a
symbolic gesture: “My lord and 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). As some commentators suggest, this amount was so high that
most people in the crowd have never heard of it before, let alone seen it in
person. Yet Efron casually drops that number, as if it is nothing, a mere
friendly gesture “between me and
you.”
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 Avraham to either
receive the parcel of land for free (with no rights attached), or to buy it for
the modern equivalent of some $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?
Avraham says nothing in return. Rather, 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, probably speaking of this amazing sum of money
that they have never seen before. End
of Act I of the portion.
And
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 the Land
of Israel. Not conquerors, but legal owners. 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)
II.
Sarah’s True Legacy
Another
reason for justifying this week portion’s title – the Life of Sarah – may be
found in the fact that her spirit as a strong, independent woman dominates over
this week’s portion as well. Indeed, the entire story of the selection of
Rivkah as Itzhak’s wife is a true story of (what is known today as) “women’s
power,” or true feminism. To begin
with, prior to his death Avraham understands that he would probably never be
able to amend the relationships with his beloved son, the same son he was
willing to sacrifice to his God.
Still,
Avraham wants the best for his son, and that includes, of course, a proper
bride. We have earlier mentioned the sending of the slave to select such a
bride. What neither the slave nor we expected to find, in addition to the bride
herself, is her deceitful brother, Lavan. Just like many years later, when the
same Lavan would try to deny Ya’akov of his beloved wife Rachel, here Lavan
gives us a taste of his famous delaying tactics. After promising the slave that
Rivkah would gladly return with him to Israel (and after receiving a handsome
payment for her), Lavan comes up with this surprising statement: “let the girl
sit with us some days, or ten, and then she would come back 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 Lavan was saying: “My dear slave; if you want to take
my my sister now, you would have to pay more. The term “now” has never appeared
in the terms of our contract.” This is, no doubt, the very same Lavan that
surprised Ya’akov many years later by giving him Le’ah, the older sister whom
Jacob never wanted, after promising him Rachel; Jacob had to wait no less than fourteen
years for Rachel…. In this case, however, the slave insists. He wants to leave
now (before his master, Avraham, would die).
Lavan, pressured, comes up with a creative solution. “There is no chance,” he thinks, “that
Rivkah (who with all likelihood never left her home town until now) would agree
to leave with a complete stranger, a slave at that, to marry someone she never
even met in her life in a far, and remote country.” “Here is the solution,”
thinks Lavan, “let’s make her say she doesn’t want to go, and that would
buy me all the time I need. “
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 the entire text, Lavan: “Why won’t we call the
girl herself 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 was not even there when all this was taking place – and
asked her “would you go with that man?” (think of today’s marriage vows for
comparison). Her beautiful answer, only one word in Hebrew, without any
hesitation is “I will.” And this is the
true meaning of Sarah’s heritage. A strong, independent, and opinionated woman
would always be in charge of their own destiny. And this is why this portion,
more than any other, is aptly named “ the Life of Sarah.”
Shabbat
Shalom,
Doron
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