A Timeless Bridge: Chayei Sarah

A Timeless Bridge

D’var Torah for Parashat Chayei Sarah

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

It’s interesting that in the first 24 chapters of the Book of Genesis, almost a full half of the book and spanning 21 generations, the term ahava, love, appears only once, and that only in the very last verse of chapter 24.

The subject of love in the Bible is way too huge to deal with in a short Shabbat sermon.  Suffice it to say that though the word used in many different contexts, it always indicates a deep and binding emotion.  Love comes from deep within you but doesn’t stay there; it’s an emotion that transcends personal boundaries, linking you to something or someone far beyond yourself.  Whether for a friend, spouse, teacher or for God, love is a compelling feeling that inextricably binds soul to soul and body to body.

How fascinating then, that in Abraham’s story, the word never appears once.  Loyalty, justice, faith, sacrifice—these are the passions we associate with Abraham.  But not love.  Yet Abraham must have felt love for his family—not only for his wife but also for his extended family.  It must have been with a heavy heart that he left his native land, his culture and his father’s home.  It was deep compassion that led him to take Lot, his deceased brother’s son, with him on that journey.  Surely it was love for Lot that motivated Abraham to chase after the armies that captured his nephew and to rescue him from captivity.

And what deep, searing love he must have felt for Isaac when he looked down on his son, bound up on the altar, about to become a sacrifice to a terrifying and inscrutable God.

Yet the word “love” never appears in Abraham’s story. 

And Sarah?  Her deep loyalty to her husband made her follow him unquestioningly.  Her desire to give him a son meant that she was willing to share her status and place in the household with her servant, Hagar.  But her protectiveness toward Isaac, once he was born, was fierce enough to demand that Hagar and Ishmael be cast out of the house.  Surely these are signs of a great love.

Yet even in Sarah’s story, neither the word nor the emotion behind it is ever mentioned.

It’s Rebecca who brings love into the story and into Isaac’s life. 

In this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah (“The Life of Sarah,” Genesis 23:1—25:18) we learn much about Rebecca.  We know from the moment we meet her, watering her flock at the village well, that she is beautiful, strong, smart, generous, courageous and faithful.

Isaac, however, knows none of this.  He has never met her.  Isaac first sees her in the distance as she arrives on camelback, part of a caravan making its way from the east.  Yet even from far away, he recognizes something special in her.  Maybe there was a certain aura about her; perhaps it’s Isaac’s own inner sense that tells him that this person was his “bashert,” his intended.  As Abraham’s servant tells Isaac how matters transpired to bring Rebecca here, Isaac is probably not even listening.  One could say that from the moment he was almost sacrificed, Isaac no longer saw or heard ordinary conversation and ordinary behavior.  Today we would say that he probably suffered from PTSD, but all the Torah tells us is that on that day, as he was wandering alone in the wilderness, he suddenly lifts up his eyes and sees the caravan that was bringing his future wife to his doorstep.  He couldn’t even see her face—in accordance with the laws of modesty, Rebecca had veiled herself.  She was a mystery to him.

Yet he loved her, וַיֶּאֱהָבֶהָ.

What was it that Isaac saw in Rebecca?  That’s the whole point of love, that it is blind.  When we love, we do it unconditionally.  It’s a spiritual bonding as much as physical.  It’s a connection that cannot be explained, that goes back generations and helps us identify elements in the other person that we had always known about ourselves yet had managed to forget.  It’s a homecoming that connects us with the past but which also leads us forward into the future.  Love is timeless.

How do we know real love?  This is a question that can only be asked by someone who has never truly loved.  Real love simply is, and you know it when it’s there.  You let it lead you without question, without hesitation, wherever it might take you.

Real love is all about equality. In real love, there is no disparity.  There’s neither the need to be self-deprecating, nor the desire to prove you’re better or stronger or wiser. 

A popular novel once made its point that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.”  But that’s not always true.  We all make mistakes, and saying “I’m sorry” is as important as “I love you.” 

Having left her family home, Rebecca comes to Isaac.  Isaac takes Rebecca to his home, to the tent he had left behind and thought that he would never see again.  In the new home that they create for themselves, they comfort one another. Isaac gives Rebecca the love that she needs; Rebecca cooks for Isaac the foods he loves, that taste and smell of the wild yet that also have a touch of home about them.  Maybe it’s the spices, or maybe it’s the date-honey.  Understanding their common roots, their common losses and their common fate, they will start a new family and create their own future.  Love is more than a chemical reaction.  For Isaac and Rebecca, love is a forceful bond that unites their hearts and lives, a bridge that reaches far into their past but also looks forward, with hope, to the future.

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman