The Life that Continues Beyond Death: Chayei Sarah
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
November 6, 2026
By Maimonides’s standards, I fail the test of faith.
I have a problem with his ruling that I must believe—with perfect faith—that God resurrects the dead. I would definitely love to see my father and mother once again, to talk about things we never talked about, to consult about issues and problems we face today, to ask what it’s like beyond earthly time and space. However, my rational side just refuses to accept this as a real possibility.
Yet techiyat ha-meitim, resurrection of the dead, is an important pillar in Jewish faith; it’s the 13th in Maimonides’s list of the Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith, and the 2nd blessing in the all-important and most sacred Amida section of the prayer service. I admit that I prefer the Reform version of this prayer, which substitutes mechaye ha-kol (“Who gives life to all”) for the traditional mechaye ha-meitim (“Who resurrects the dead”).
As I recited this prayer at services last Shabbat, my thoughts strayed from its long-established words. I thought not about God’s power to revive the dead, but rather about the ongoing influence that our ancestors have had on our lives. It’s the memory that lives on, revived each time we think about them. And then, straying even further, I thought about how my own identity and beliefs were shaped by the life and teachings of my parents. This was no doubt occasioned by the fact that this week I observe the 64th anniversary of my bar mitzvah, my first (but not last) occasion to chant and share thoughts about this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah (“The Life of Sarah,” Genesis 23:1—25:18).
This lifecycle event, celebrated today by most Jewish children/young adults when they reach the age of 13, remains fixed in one’s memory forever. For some, it represents the end of their Jewish education. For me, however, it formed one step among many on a path that I came to recognize only many years later, a path prepared for me possibly even before I was born.
For many years now, it has been my special privilege and blessing to revisit this portion. Each “homecoming,” as today I understand this occasion, deepened my appreciation not only for what I learned from my father and mother, but also for the eternal messages taught by the scribes and rabbis long ago, throughout the millennia of Jewish life and belief.
The story of Chayei Sarah is actually quite straightforward. Yet, despite the title, only the first two verses of the portion refer to Sarah, summarizing the lifespan of the first Matriarch of the Jewish People (127 years), and the fact that she died and was mourned by Abraham in the city of Kiryat Arba (AKA Hebron). The rest is about Abraham’s purchase of a burial site, and his quest to find a proper wife for Isaac.
Isaac himself is barely mentioned in these chapters. As with the story of the Akeida (“The Binding”), Isaac isn’t asked for his thoughts on these matters. He virtually has little or nothing to say in these two events that shape the first half of his life (the third—being tricked by Rebecca and Jacob—will affect his remaining years). As told in Chayei Sarah, Isaac’s bride is chosen for him, bartered for by a servant sent by Abraham to “the old country,” to the old family homestead. We only learn of Isaac’s reaction when he first perceives Rebeccah at a distance, when we learn that he loved Rebecca and that she brought him comfort and consolation after the death of his mother, Sarah.
It was, after all, Sarah, who, with her own fierce love, protected him—and possibly saved his life when his father was prepared to offer him as a sacrifice to God. Years earlier, she had urged Abraham to send away Yishmael, Isaac’s half-brother, who had been mocking Isaac (or perhaps worse—the text implies some kind of abuse). And though we don’t know how Sarah dies, the ancient sages offer an explanation that carries a deep message.
As told in the Midrash (rabbinic exegesis of the Torah going back two thousand or more years), after Abraham and Isaac depart for the Akeida at Mount Moriah, Satan comes to visit Sarah. He taunts her: “Do you know where your husband and son are?” When she replies that she does not, he continues, “Even now Abraham is raising his knife to slaughter the boy.” Upon hearing this, Sarah cries out—and at that moment her soul leaves her and she dies.
It is possible that it was her cries that caused God to stop Abraham from carrying out the sacrifice. After all, Abraham said nothing; he simply obeyed, following the dictates of God and his faith. He could have prayed; he could have protested; he could have taken the initiative, as he did on previous occasions, to seek answers for mysteries too deep for him to understand or accept at face value.
The Akeida is understood as the tenth—and final—test of Abraham’s faith, a test he supposedly passed (but which some commentators see otherwise).
Yet his silence is mystifying.
In the Rabbis’ understanding, it is Sarah’s protest that saves Isaac’s life.
But was it only for her own son that she cries out?
Perhaps her anguish is for all children who at the time were offered as sacrifice to cruel gods—the gods of peace and of war, of hunger and harvest, of love, jealousy and hate.
Our hearts today feel the same horror and sorrow when we hear of children killed by terrorists or in war, or as victims of desperate acts carried out by their own parents or other relatives. The memory of Sarah’s cry for justice rises within our collective conscience, an aspect of our humanity that was not recognized in older times—and still isn’t in many places around the world.
In the end, this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, isn’t only about Sarah’s death. It is really about the legacy she leaves beyond her own lifespan—about the lesson in compassion that she demands that we, as well as God, follow.
Each time we re-read this story, Sarah comes alive again.
Perhaps this is why the portion is called what it is. Perhaps that is how we (or at least I) can rationalize the belief in a God who is not only the source of all life but also has the power to bring life to the dead.
Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheynu Melech ha-olam, mechayeh ha-meitim—Blessed our You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who brings renewed life to the dead.
Dedicated with love and honor to my father, Zev ben Aryeh v’Yonah, z”l, and my mother, Ruth bat Yehiel v’Peninah, z”l.
© 2026 by Boaz D. Heilman
