Parshat Chayei Sarah: Walkthrough
Posted by Jack Kustanowitz on October 25, 2010 | Tags: Chayei Sarah
Loyalty to the literal text, with a modern voice (All editorializing in parenthesis).
As we lay the groundwork for Isaac’s future wife at the end of last week’s parsha, we being this week with the death of his mother, Sarah, at 127 years old. She died in Hebron, and we are told that Avraham “arrived” to mourn her (making us wonder where he had been, and what might have transpired between husband and wife in the aftermath of the traumatic akeidah last week.)
Avraham approaches the local Hittities, asking them for a burial plot. He ends up talking to Efron, and asks for a cave called Machpelah. “It’s yours!” Efron says. Avraham insists on paying for it, (reminiscent of when he refused to take any payment from the king of Sodom earlier – this is a man who does not want to owe favors to anyone). Efron is persuaded to take 400 shekels of international currency in exchange for the caves, in a formal transaction establishing Avraham as the owner of the new Jewish cemetary in Hebron.
Now Avraham was old, and God had blessed him with everything he needed. He brings in his loyal servant and makes him swear that he will not let Isaac marry a local girl, but instead will try to find him a wife from within the family (as he himself had done). “What if I find the right girl and she doesn’t want to come with me?” asks the servant. “Can I let Isaac return there?” (In other words, which is more important: location or family?) Avraham makes it clear that location is everything, and if she won’t come, his servant is off the hook.
The servant travels heavy, with camels and all kinds of riches from his master Avraham. He parks the camels by the local watering hole, in the evening as the girls were coming out to get water. He speaks to God (this is after all, Avraham’s servant), and throws out the following idea: If one of the girls offers water not just for him but for his camels as well, that will be God’s sign that she’s The One.
No sooner had he finished setting this up, then Rivka (Avraham’s brother’s granddaughter) comes out with a jug of water, and by golly, she gives him a drink and gives his camels as well. At this point the servant is dying to know if it could be this easy – she passed the test, but she needs to be family for him to declare victory. He gives her a ring and two expensive bracelets, and asks her about her family. “I am Betuel’s daughter”, she tells him, confirming that things were indeed as he had hoped. She offers him a place to crash for the night and he bows in thanks to God.
Rivka ran home to tell her family about this new development. She had a brother named Lavan, and he came running out to the well (everyone is running in this story). When he saw his sister’s new jewelry, and when he heard the story, he reiterates the invitation and brings Avraham’s servant home.
When the group gets home, the servant refuses to eat anything until he tells the story, which he does in some detail, including Isaac’s miraculous birth to the aging Avraham and Sarah, and ending with the incredible timing of Rivka’s arrival at the well. “So is this gonna work?” he asks. “Or should I just leave now?” “No, it’s clear that this is bashert”, Rivka’s brother Lavan and father Betuel replied. “Far be it from us to even comment. (hardly a ringing endorsement) Go ahead, take Rivka and go.”
The next morning, the servant is ready to leave. But Rivka’s brother and mother protested, “Why not stay with us a day or 10, then you can go?” Said the servant: “No, I really have to get going.” But that was not good enough. “Let’s ask her,” they suggested. They got Rivka and asked her “Do you wanna go with this guy?” “Yes”, she replied – and they sent her along with her nursemaid along with Avraham’s servant. After a short blessing, they sent them on their way (back down south to Canaan).
Now Isaac was coming back from Be’er Lahai Roi (where the story of Hagar and Ishmael happened earlier), he was living in the Negev at this time. He had gone out into the fields early in the evening, and he looked up to see camels coming. Then she looked up (same phrase) and saw him, and she fell off the camel. “Who IS that guy coming our way?” she asked the servant. “That’s my master,” he replied, at which point she covered herself up. Then the servant told his story to Isaac.
Isaac took her home and made her his wife, and he was (finally) consoled after his mother’s death. Avraham remarried and had more children, including one named Midyan (who we’ll hear about later). He left everything he had to Isaac, and gave the other children presents but sent them away.
At the age of 175, Avraham too passes, well aged and happy. Isaac and Ishmael come back together to bury him together in the Machpela cave, together with his wife Sarah. And now that Avraham is gone, God blesses Isaac, who settles back at Beer Lachai Roi.
Also in the meantime, Ishmael has also had a family with 12 tribes. Ishmael lives to be 137 years old, and his family settles all the way from down in Egypt up to Assyira.
(And so the parsha that starts with the death of a matriarch and her burial ends with the death of a patriarch and his burial, making this parsha a particularly well told and self-contained story. Although for a promise that Avraham’s children will inherit the land, this is one painful process. Childless until his 90’s, Avraham is then asked to sacrifice his heir on an altar, and then he has to personally intervene to get him married to the one girl who is both family and willing to follow Avraham’s journey from Haran at the beginning of parshat Lech Lecha. Next week we will find out that now that Isaac finally got married, he too will have trouble having children. No one said being a patriarch was easy.)
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Jack KustanowitzJoined: July 15, 2007 Jack is an Internet professional living in Silver Spring, MD. He is a proud alum of the Frisch School in Paramus, NJ as well as Boston University, where he was active at BU Hillel. Divrei Torah (32) |
