Sarah’s Tent
D’var Torah for
Parashat Chayei Sarah
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
On the 51st
anniversary of my bar mitzvah
Chayei Sarah (“The
Life of Sarah,” Genesis 23:1—25:18) begins with Sarah’s death. She had lived 127 years and now has breathed
her last.
We don’t know the circumstances of her death. The Torah doesn’t tell us. Last we heard, she was presumably at Beer
Sheba, in the region of the Negev Desert, where the first Hebrew family finally
settled down. She may have seen Abraham
and Isaac off on that fateful morning when the two set out together on journey
that would change their lives forever.
And then she dies.
Isaac does not see her again, and the loss, especially at
this moment in his life, must have been devastating. He was already in a state of shock: An innocent lad did die on that
mountaintop—the boy he used to be, full of innocent faith and trust. Whoever Isaac would become from that moment
on would always carry deep within him a spiritual scar, the result of that
encounter between God, Abraham, a boy on the altar and a ram caught in the
thicket by his horns.
The funeral and burial of Sarah in the purchased Cave of
Machpeila must have been like a blurry vision to Isaac. He takes to wandering after that, preferring
the area where his half-brother, Ishmael, was banished. Isaac must come to terms with being bereft of
father, mother and brother, unable or unwilling to return to his family home,
now so empty and quiet.
Abraham sees and understands the turmoil in Isaac’s heart
and soul. He knows exactly the cure,
too: Isaac must have a wife.
Nothing grounds a boy better than having a family to take
care of.
But it isn’t just any girl who’ll fit the bill in this
case. This chosen young woman must be
able to fill Sarah’s tent.
Luckily, the one already exists. We hear about Rebekah’s birth at the end of
last week’s portion, immediately following the Akeida, the attempted sacrifice of Isaac. Now, in this week’s portion, we learn what
makes her qualified: She is courageous,
compassionate, and physically strong (having to draw water for 10 camels
following a long desert journey is no easy task). Rebekah displays the virtue of hospitality,
and despite her youth (if you follow Torah’s chronology, she is all of three
years old…) she is a force to reckon with at home. Even as her brother and mother agree to send
Rebekah off to marry Isaac, they must still ask for her own nod of approval.
It is at this moment that Rebekah proves herself perfect for
the match. Just as Abraham, her great
uncle, had once left his homeland so long ago, so she, too, chooses to undertake
this journey of faith and go to a strange land, there to marry a man she has
never laid eyes on.
What did she know at that moment? She was well aware of the greed and avarice
that characterized her family, yet it was
her family, whom she loved and was loved by in return. Did she see then already
that there was another way, another path, one characterized by honesty,
morality and faith? How could she know
that Abraham’s servant would guide her to that truthfully to that path now
calling out to her?
Yet without a moment’s hesitation, Rebekah assents to leave
her past behind her and journey toward a new beginning.
It’s a leap of faith Abraham was sure was bound to
happen. That’s why he sent his servant
there in the first place—to find this person.
He knew she was bound to appear and lend herself to the sacred task.
That it happens just so is a scene for the movies. It is towards evening time. The sun is setting in a blazing splash of
crimson, gold and orange. Isaac can be
seen in the distance, coming home from his daily meanderings. Yet, as he lifts his eyes, he can see in the
far distance the silhouette of a caravan of camels. He can’t see much more than that, but
Rebekah, riding one of those camels, can.
Told that the solitary man she could barely see in the distance was
Isaac, she modestly covers her face with her veil and slides off the
camel. It’s love at first sight (no
matter how sun- and God-blinded they both were at that moment).
Isaac finds comfort and love with Rebekah and is willing to
settle in the family tent with her as his wife.
It turns out that Chayei
Sarah—the Life of Sarah—never ends.
True, her body is interred in the burial cave Abraham had purchased, but
her soul—her energy, her life force—lives on through Rebekah. The family’s legacy will continue past the
generation of its forebears.
That is the true inheritance Sarah leaves behind her, a
legacy still ongoing to this very day.
© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman
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