CHAYE’I SARAH_GENESIS XXIII – XXV,18
Our weekly reading, Chaye’i Sarah, which is the life of Sarah, the name of Avraham’s wife, begins with the account of his passing. In this way, it is pointed out that there are people whose significance persists even after their physical disappearance. The influence of his strong personality is also felt after his death. Sarah dies at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven. The Bible informs us of this fact with some deliberate slowness: “one hundred years, twenty years and seven years, the years of Sarah’s life.” Our Chachamim, attentive to any changes in the usual language, question the reason for the repetition of the word “years” in the enumeration of the age of Sarah. Alternatives are suggested, such as that, at the age of one hundred, Sarah was as free from sins as at the age of twenty; and that at twenty she was as beautiful as at seven; and so on.
Personally, I find an additional message. The Torah points out the different stages in life, childhood, that of the young adult, that of old age, where each of these ages has its characteristics and charms. So, Sarah, at twenty, had the characteristics of a woman of this age, and at the age of one century, she was like someone of a hundred years. This assumes wisdom and a soul that had evolved to be grateful for the blessings of every stage of life.
It is all too common in our society for the fourteen-year-old to wish to be eighteen to have the right to drive a car or to have the perks that mark the age of the majority. And don’t we find nowadays the twelve-year-old girl who wishes she were sixteen so that she could be courted by some young man? Moreover, those of us in our sixties who would like to appear forty-some are even willing to undergo aesthetic surgical interventions for such purposes.
Of course, we are facing a complex problem, with obvious emotional consequences that affect the health of the person. At first glance, we are abusing our bodies somewhat by demanding a different age than the chronological one. Each age, obviously, has its own modalities and opportunities, and wisdom is required to know how to appreciate, take advantage and live in all its dimensions, the here and now of a person’s life.
According to our sages, Sarah dies upon hearing that her son Yitzchak is almost sacrificed. Avraham acquires property, in perpetuity, to bury his wife. This place, “Me’arat Hamachpelah”, becomes the burial place for the patriarchs and their wives, except for our matriarch Rachel. The location of the burial is in Chevron, a place of obligatory pilgrimage for believers.
Avraham’s great concern, a restlessness that is almost an obsession, is to ensure the continuity of his teachings. His conception of the covenant between God and humanity, which is that of a God who responds and reacts to man’s moral conduct, had to be passed on to future generations. In the idolatrous lands of Cana’an it was not possible to get a young woman who could be a mother and educator of those who will have to transmit the knowledge and fervor of these new teachings. Avraham then imposes an oath on his servant Eli’ezer to look for a suitable wife for his son and heir Yitzchak, a wife who comes from his ancestral home.
Arriving on the outskirts of Haran, Elie’zer decides to be guided by the following test: the chosen one will be the first young woman to offer him water, for him and his camels. It seems, then, that for Eli’ezer the essential quality in a future wife is goodness. The beautiful Rivkah is the girl selected for her kindness and after an exchange of gifts with the maiden’s family, the journey back to Avraham’s home begins. Before leaving, the relatives bid farewell to Rivkah with the blessing “Achotenu at hayí lealfei revavah”, “our sister may you become thousands of ten thousand”, that is, may numerous descendants emanate from you.
These same words are used today, to bless every bride a few minutes before the wedding ceremony, the Chupah. Approaching Avraham’s home, Rivkah notices a young man strolling in the countryside. Informed that it is her fiancé (perhaps due to the emotion of the encounter) she falls off the camel and then covers her face with a veil. To recall this event that occurred with the first young bride mentioned in the Torah, every future bride will cover her face at the time of the wedding ceremony, as a sign of modesty. The union between Yitschak and Rivkah is the first to be described in the abundance of detail and therefore serves as a model for future times.
The Talmud gives an additional interpretation to the fact that, for the wedding, the bride covers her face with a veil. It is to point out to the groom, says the Talmud, not to look only at the superficial beauty, but at the inner splendor, at the spiritual magnificence of his future spouse.
Our account continues with the description of the moment when Yitschak takes Rivkah as his wife, “Vayikach et Rivka vatehi lo le’ishah vaye’ehaveha”, which means: “and he took Rivkah and she was his wife and loved her. When the verb Lakoach is used with reference to a woman, our Chachamim give it the meaning of marriage. This is clear from several verses of the Torah, among which are some that correspond to this week’s reading that illustrates the way and means to perform the marriage ceremony.
It is interesting to note, according to our last quote, “and she was his wife and loved her,” that marriage precedes love in our text. In our culture, on the other hand, it is conceived that love must be prior to marriage. The biblical conception serves, perhaps, to emphasize that the deepest love develops after marriage. Love is strengthened and fortified by sharing, living together, and with common purposes and goals in conjugal life. Love is most authentic and lasting when husband and wife face life’s vicissitudes and challenges together, as well as when they share in its goodness and blessings.
The last lines of our chapters relate that Avraham marries one more wife and that he dies at the age of one hundred and seventy-five. Yitschak and Yishmael meet and share in the pain of their father’s death and bury him in the same Me’arat Hamachpelah where Sarah’s remains lie. Suffering and tragedy are shown as factors of union and rapprochement. The brothers who had chosen very different and antagonistic paths are reunited in deep grief over the death of their father. Death erases, at least momentarily, the marked differences between Yitschak and Yishmael who together lead the patriarch to his grave. The end of the period of mourning signals, again, their different choice of paths symbolizing the discrepancy between their life spiritual optics.
