Living Life to the Full

Parshas Chayei Sarah

“Sarah lived to be 127 years old; these were the years of Sarah’s life” (Bereishis 23:1).

It seems that the second part of this sentence is superfluous.

What the Torah is telling us is that Sarah enjoyed her life to the end. She never lost her joie de vivre, even if things didn’t always go her way, even if she was barren for the first 90 years of her life. Unlike Rivka who grew despondent when her twins were fighting within her and cried out, “Why is this happening to me?” (25:22) or who became disgusted with life when she thought Yaakov might marry a Hittite woman and complained that there was no point to life, Sarah was happy with her lot, whatever it might be. She was able to smile and say, “This must be for the best.” Sarah lived the words of Eichah (3:39): “Why do you complain? You are alive!” The gift of life is all we need to be happy. We will cope with the rest.

“Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her” (23:2).

Usually when someone dies, the first reaction is to cry. After drying one’s tears, one collects one’s thoughts and eulogizes the deceased. In the case of Sarah, however, we are told that the tears came after the eulogy. Well, Sarah was 127 years old and so here death could not have come as a shock. What does one expect from a person that old? It is only after the eulogy, when one is made aware of the person’s virtues and accomplishments and how the good deeds of the deceased protected the living, that one feels the loss.

It is told that when the students of the great Talmudic sage Rav were traveling back home from his funeral and paused on the road to break bread, they did not know whether they were required to say grace after meals with a mezuman in the temporary place they found themselves. “Let’s ask Rav” was their gut reaction. It was only then that it hit them that Rav was gone forever and was no longer around to ask. It is the eulogy that reminds us of what we took for granted in the lifetime of the deceased and what has vanished with their departure that causes one to cry, even over a person who had a long life.

We are told that Sarah died “in Chevron in the land of Canaan.” We all know where Chevron is, so why are we told that it is in the land of Canaan, the land that would become the land of Israel?

The point is that despite G-d’s promise to Avraham that he would inherit the land of Canaan and that it would belong to him, he still had to pay for a tiny piece of the land in which to bury his wife. This was because the land did not belong to him yet. He would have to wait another 400 years for that promise to materialize. Unlike Lot, who tried to justify his sheep grazing in other peoples’ fields based on the promise that the entire country would belong to Avraham (Rashi 13:7), Avraham himself accepted that meanwhile, during his own lifetime, the facts on the ground were otherwise. The land still belonged to the Canaanites, and he would have to pay for the privilege of burying his wife in their land. According to Rabeinu Yonah (Avos 5:3), this was the eleventh and hardest test that Avraham was put through. Yet he did not complain and did what he had to do with joy.

“Avraham was oldUsually when someone dies, the first reaction is to cry. After drying one’s tears, one collects one’s thoughts and eulogizes the deceased. In the case of Sarah, however, we are told that the tears came after the eulogy., counting his days and G-d had blessed him with everything” (24:1). Suddenly, with the death of his wife, Avraham felt vulnerable. He lost his closest counselor and began to walk like an old man (Sanhedrin 22a). He had been blessed with a son, Yitzchak. But Yitzchak was now 37 years old and Avraham, thinking he had all the time in the world when Sarah was still alive, suddenly realized that time was running out. If he did not get to work now and fulfil a father’s duty to find a wife for his son, G-d’s promise that Yitzchak would be the progenitor of the Jewish people would never come to pass.

But where to look? The daughters of Canaan were not trained in the ways of kindness and charity. That was a family trait that could only be found in Avraham’s old hometown, where his brother Nachor still lived.

In asking G-d for help to find a wife for Yitzchak, Eliezer beseeches G-d, “Make it happen for me today” (24:12). The word the Torah uses for make it happen is “hakrei.” Hakrei can be spelled with the letter hei like it is spelled here, or it can be spelled with an alef which is the way it is usually spelled. When spelled with a hei, it means that something will happen in a natural way. When it is spelled with an alef it means that it will happen in a miraculous way. Eliezer does not want Avraham to be charged with the cost of a miracle. So, he asks G-d to crown his own human efforts with success.