Reflections at 49 Years

Reflections at 49 Years
D’var Torah on Parashat Chayei Sarah (Gen. 23:1—25:18)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman


49 years ago I stood on a bimah for the first time and chanted Chayei Sarah as a bar mitzvah.

I can’t believe, of course, that 49 years have gone by. I still seem to be the same me. I know I’m older, but the child of 13—small for his age, sheltered, naïve—who stood up that one Shabbat morning in Los Angeles to chant and preach to the congregation is still inside me.

Of course much has really transpired in the intervening years. Almost an entire lifetime, it seems.

Much of what I’ve done in that span of time consists of pretty much what most people’s lives contain: School, family, job, perhaps a career or other change in mid-life.

Yet what have I learned in those years? I think that might be more interesting than a detailed description of all the minutiae that make up life.

The best way I can think of—tonight at least—to measure what I’ve learned is not by any conventional yardstick. Since it is the 49th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, tonight I’d like to measure what I’ve learned by referring to my Torah portion—Chayei Sarah.

You see, when I first studied this portion in the book of Genesis, I found it pretty boring. There were a lot of business transactions going on—the purchase of a burial cave; the purchase of a bride for Isaac… As a budding artist, I had little interest in the business end of life, least of all in the mortuary real estate business. More than that, however, as a budding young man, I was mortified at the mere thought of a bride being purchased for me in some far-off Arabian market. I secretly swore I’d have nothing to do with this portion ever again.

Yet, later on, as I matured somewhat and fell in love with the woman I married, I saw in the story of The Life of Sarah a beautiful romance. To this day I love the image of Isaac and Rebeccah, each at his or her end of a wide movie screen, first lifting their eyes and seeing there (violin music swelling) across the vast crimson and deep blue desert evening, the woman and man of their respective destiny.

Yet another twenty, thirty years later, I understood the labor that Abraham and Sarah took upon themselves to sustain their dreams. Making a life on the outskirts of civilization, in the open space between town and wilderness, wasn’t easy. There were herds and flocks to water and feed; servants and house to take care of; two head-strong women, each with her own son, fiercely protective and territorial, to maintain a respectful distance away from one another; two growing children to keep a wary eye out on. Not to mention a demanding God who must be obeyed or argued with as the situation might call for.

I felt Abraham’s utter exhaustion and Sarah’s fierce determination to protect Isaac. I heard her voice just before she died, forcing God’s hand to stop Abraham from taking the life of their son. I sensed the desperation she must have felt at that moment.

Most of all, I have come to learn from this portion the importance of passing on to a new generation the tradition I received from my parents.

It is a compelling impulse. We want to set up our children so that they become independent, leading their own lives, starting their own families. Everything we can teach them, we do. And when it’s up to them to take the reins in their own hands, we pray that they apply what they had learned to their own lives. We want to see that moment.

The portion is called Chayei Sarah, words that appear in the first verse of this parasha. They mean “the life of Sarah,” even though in the very next verse the Torah tells us of her death. Serving as opposite bookend at the other end of the portion comes Abraham’s death. It is when their work here on earth is done that the story can move on and become Isaac’s story. This Torah portion is not about death, but rather about what one does to make sure that life goes on.

I am sure there are more lessons to this story yet. I’m not quite there yet. Tradition allows a person to have a second bar mitzvah at the age of 83 years. I’d be curious to know what lessons the next twenty years hold for me. To date however, what I have learned is that you do anything and everything you can for your children to see them steady on their feet. It’s true when they first learn to walk; when they first go off to school, go for their first solo drive, or off on to their first prom. It’s doubly true when they first become independent in life. The tension is always there, of course—how much help are you willing to offer; how much are they willing to accept. How much would be too much and how much, not enough. A common joke has it that no matter how much you love them, your children in the end will sue you—either for loving them too much, or not enough.

It was only after he saw Isaac marry and find comfort and love with Rebecca that Abraham could move on to the conclusion of his own life story. It’s a sweet ending that, as a child, I couldn’t begin to comprehend. As a young adult, it was still too far off. Now, however, almost half a century later, I can begin to look to that point and begin to understand it. But I am not there yet, thank God. There’s much work left to be done; “miles to go,” in the words of Robert Frost. My kids aren’t married yet; they are yet far from setting up their own tents.

But that’s where I am in the story of my life, at least as measured against Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion that marks off the point at which I became a man. Hopefully, with God’s help there will be more to come, and I’ll be here to tell.

Shabbat shalom.


©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman