Sarah’s Love
D’var
Torah for Parashat Chayei Sarah
By
Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
In honor of the 50th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, with
thanks to God, to my mother and father with love and gratitude to my family and
friends
We know precious little about the life of Sarah, our first
Matriarch. Once before, we hear her
laughing when she overhears an angel announcing to Abraham the imminent arrival
of Isaac. Caught in the act, she fibs
and denies laughing. But the fact
remains that she did, indeed, laugh, in disbelief and perhaps even with a momentary
lapse of faith and belief.
We hear her suggesting that Abraham father a child with her
handmaiden, Hagar, to be raised as Abraham and Sarah’s own. She is silent at the indignities that she
suffers as Hagar’s haughty demeanor toward her increases and intensifies. But she spares no words or actions when she
sees Ishmael—Hagar and Abraham’s son—playing with (and possibly abusing) Isaac—Abraham
and Sarah’s own, longed-for and promised son, their progeny, child of their old
age, bearer of their future destiny.
But those aside, we can only imagine the rest of Sarah’s
life: Traveling; meandering from land to
land, from place to place; taken captive by Pharaoh in Egypt—whom does she
speak with? How does she interact with
the people she meets on a daily basis?
We’re told nothing about any of this, so as this week’s
Torah portion begins—Eileh chayei Sarah,
“This is the life of Sarah” (Gen. 23:1-24:18)—we hope to learn more. But instead, we hear of Sarah’s death. As though nothing!—a girl grows, loves a man,
raises a child, nurtures hope—and it’s over! A life lived, and it’s done! With nary so much as a thank you.
And yet, the ancient Rabbis taught that Sarah was more
righteous than Abraham.
How could they know that?
What is there in the text—or perhaps purposely left out of the text—to indicate
her righteousness? After all, wasn’t it Abraham whose faith was unflappable;
Abraham who interacted with God, who interceded with God and advocated mercy
for Sodom and Gomorrah; Abraham who spoke with God, who built altars to God’s
name, who almost sacrificed his only beloved son, Isaac to his God?
And maybe there’s the clue to our mystery. It was easy for Abraham to be a righteous
man. His faith was unshakeable.
Not so Sarah’s.
Between the two of them, she was the more realistic, the one who, in the
middle of the night, was more often troubled by doubt. Abraham may have gone off on any number of
spiritual journeys at the call and behest of God. But it was Sarah who stayed at home; Sarah
who arranged the furniture and bought the food for that night’s dinner; Sarah
who haggled with merchants when they tried to overcharge her because they knew
she was rich; Sarah who had to deal with the servants, with the bills when they
came due, with the children as they bickered and quarreled all day long.
And she did all that with hardly a complaint.
Of course it wasn’t Sarah that God commanded to bring Isaac
as sacrifice. God knew better than that. With Abraham, a curious God kept testing his
faith to see just how far he could stretch it.
With Sarah, God knew exactly where God stood.
Don’t mess with Isaac.
Abraham didn’t tell Sarah what he was planning to do. But when he came home after the incident on
the mountain and saw her dead, in his heart of hearts he knew that she died of
a broken heart—out of longing and love for the child he had taken from her.
That’s when Abraham realized what he needed to do next. He had to pick up where his wife had left off—to
find a wife for their son, Isaac.
When your children get married, you know you’re no longer young
yourself. There’s a new generation in
the forming, and one sacred task left to do:
To transfer the legacy. It
becomes a matter of greater and greater urgency, pushing aside any other
business and dealings.
Abraham knows where to find a girl fit to become Isaac’s
wife. He sends his trusted servant to merely
take care of the details. And even
though the story of the rest of this portion is about the servant doing just so,
we are left to wonder what Abraham must be pondering all this while back in his
tent. Is he writing a living will for
his son and future daughter-in-law? What
instruction could he leave for Isaac that he had not yet given him? Certainly not the fear of God. That was made plainly clear for Isaac up on
the top of the mountain, bound on the altar with the firewood laid beneath him.
During the weeks of his servant’s absence, waiting for his
return, Abraham must have mulled over the nature of the legacy he would hand
over to Isaac. Then, bit by bit he
comes to understand that he has actually known the answer all the time—since yet
before Isaac was born and all the way to that awful moment on top of the
mountain. The lesson wouldn’t be about
God or God’s harsh demands. It would be
about love. The love of a father for his
child, of a mother for her child. The
love of a man for a woman, for a beloved partner in life and life’s journeys.
The lesson was love.
Sarah was deemed more righteous than Abraham not because she
never lost faith; which, as we know, she did, perhaps even more than once. Rather, it was because her love never wavered. Despite the harsh travails, the daily
dealings with people whose morals and customs were often strange and anathema
to her, despite the struggles in her own domicile, her love only grew and intensified. It wasn’t Abraham’s hard-fought struggles
with God, but rather Sarah’s undying love which would be Isaac’s inheritance
and legacy.
And that’s why this portion is called Chayei Sarah, “the Life of Sarah.”
©2012
by Boaz D. Heilman
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