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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Chaya Sarah Genesis 23:1-25:18
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel – Why does the Torah devote an entire
chapter — no less than 20 verses — to the burial of Sarah in this week’s
portion? Why does the sacred Biblical text discuss with such detail
Abraham’s procurement of a proper burial place?
After all, until this point no one’s death has evoked this much concern.
Biblical characters are born, they live and they die. Even Noah receives
no special eulogy; it’s flat and perfunctory: “All of Noah’s days
were 950 years and he died” (Gen. 9:29). That’s it.
So all the devotion, bargaining and patience that Abraham expresses in
making sure that Sarah rests properly in eternal peace seem all the more
worthy of our scrutiny. A clue to the answer can be found in the oxymoron
of a phrase Abraham uses to describe himself to the children of Heth: Ger
v’toshavav, alien and resident (23:4), two opposite descriptions!
Why does Abraham describe himself in such am¬bivalent, almost paradoxical
terms? From one perspective, the phrase exquisitely captures Abraham in
exile, with one foot here and one foot elsewhere, on the one hand, tax
paying citizens mastering the legal system, cul¬ture and language down to
its subtlest nuances, but at the same time ready to leave on a moment’s
notice when the host country decides that we Jews are aliens after all. As
Tevye wryly remarks when he and his co-religionists are forced to leave
Anatevka “that’s why we Jews always wear a hat; we must be ready to
get out at a moment’s notice.” And remember that when Abraham was
negotiating with the Hittites, they were in control of Canaan!
But even more profoundly, the phrase alien-resident expresses the
realization that every human being’s connection to the world is
temporary, his existence tempered by the experiences that remind him of
mortality. Every one of us lives in this transient world as a
resident-alien. As we shall see in the Book of Leviticus, we read G-d’s
command that once every 50 years — the Jubilee year— all purchased
lands must return to the original owners. The Bible explains, “And the
land shall not be sold into in perpetuity, for the land is Mine; you are
strangers and settlers with Me” (Lev 25:23). Nothing in this world
really belongs to us, is really permanent, not even “real eastate.”
Perhaps it is because Abraham is aware of the resident stranger condition
of humanity, that he seeks a permanent burial site for Sarah and is
ultimately willing to pay so much money for it. Indeed, the chapter ends
with the declaration that the cave became the “uncontested property”
of Abraham. This may very well be the source for the principle expressed
in the Ethics of the Fathers: “This world may be compared to a foyer
before the world to come; prepare yourself in the foyer so that you may
properly enter the living room” (4:21).
Abraham understands death differently than anyone who ever lived before
him, and therefore sees the grave-site as an “eternal” monument, which
stands for an existence beyond the body’s expiration. After all, the
corollary to the fact that every person is created “in the Divine image,”
infused with ‘a portion of the Divine from Above; is that we are endowed
with a piece of eternity a soul, which lives beyond our physical
existence. Hence, the Jewish customs of death, the significance of kever
yisrael — a Jewish burial —is derived from this week’s portion.
Why do we light a yahrtzeit candle? Why is cremation a major sin in
Judaism? Why yizkor and kaddish? Why do we gather together when the burial
monument (matzeva) is unveiled? All of these customs are based on the idea
that there is an eternity, a reality based on the beyond of this reality,
a life of the spirit which, if properly nurtured in this world — the
temporary world for the eternal world —is much more significant than the
day a soul leaves its eternity for its temporary sojourn down below.
To be sure, the kind of life a person lives in this world determines his
portion in the eternal world, and the bettering of the world here and now
is a most legitimate Jewish goal. Nevertheless, once a person accepts the
limitations of this world and the limitless nature of the next one,
everything he does takes on a different cast.
Maimonides, the arch-rationalist, usually stresses that Judaism’s
purpose for life is to improve this world. Nevertheless, the major thrust
in his Laws of Repentance deals with the world to come and the eternity of
the soul. Indeed, for Maimonides, the most significant human endeavor in
this world is in establishing an abiding relationship with one’s spirit,
with one’s God, with one’s eternity; that is what brings eternal life.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (1707-1747), in his work “Paths of the
Righteous,” asks: “Why were we put in this world in the first place?”
He answers that “we are put in this world to enjoy it.” Yet but what
brings true enjoyment? Only spiritual achievement. What is physi¬cal
will, after all, eventually disappear or dissolve… that is why, he
argues, too much of anything physical will make you retch. Only the
spiritual and eternal ultimately pro¬vides real pleasure.
Ernest Becker, in his masterful work Denial of Death, queries why a
physical act as pleasurable and wondrous as the sexual union has
linguistically become the source for words of destruction and curses, “dirty”
jokes, locker room hu¬mor. He theorizes that anything that is physical
cannot give a person consummate joy because it only re¬minds him that one
day he, too, will disappear. Indeed, the British poets use the word “death”
to describe the sexual orgasm.
Hence, the human response to the sexual act is ambivalent. It’s pleasure
has a bitter undertaste since it reminds the individual of his eventual
mortality. Becker likewise concludes that the most crucial human
enterprise is the search for immortality, the connection with that aspect
of our essence which lives beyond death.
Abraham establishes a “Jewish” burial plot, for which he pays an
enormous amount of money, in order to teach that there is a life of the
spirit that defies and tran¬scends death.
Perhaps this is why the portion is called Chayei Sarah --the life of Sarah
— because even after her death, Sarah lives. The righteous, according to
the Talmud (Brakhot 18a), are alive even after their deaths, while the
wicked are dead even when they’re alive. Only connection with the
eternal spirit brings eternal life.
Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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