2013 Sermon Hayyei Sarah

We are dealing this week with the life of Sarah.  The Parasha states she died, and then goes into great detail on the purchase of her burial ground. I’d like to begin with a look on her life, on her status from both the pshat, what we see in the text and can infer simply from it, and the Drash which has been provided by our Sages.

Sarah's life from the Pshat:

1.    A commodity to be provided to the highest power for protection and reward. 

 A few days ago, on NPR, we learned that Syrian refugees in Jordanian camps are selling their daughters to Saudi potentates.  The girls are legally married (polygamy is permitted) then used for a few weeks, then divorced and sent back to their parents.  This happens repeatedly until the girls are no longer sellable.

After what happens, the girls are no longer marriage material and will probably end up in one of the oldest professions known to man.

 What is different and worse in Sarah’s case, is that she was not a free woman, but a married one, Abraham did not divorce her, he just "loaned her" to pharaoh and to Abimelech.  In both cases she remained untouched, a fact that strains credulity because the Quid got paid, and the quo never is (officially), in these kind of transactions, our experience indicates that the quo is never very far from the Quid.

 I know that when I buy a new computer, unpacking and using it for the first time takes place very soon after I leave the store. I doubt the experience of Pharaoh or Abimelech would have been dramatically different.  Also, Abraham was paid in cattle and gold, and allowed to keep it.  These were indeed generous people that rewarded someone who cheated them, if he did!

2.    A nasty wife who lorded it over her handmaid Hagar, mistreated her, and got her husband to throw her and her whelp out as soon as Sarah had a boy of her own to inherit Abraham's fortune. 

3.    A loving mother who died of heartbreak when she heard her husband was willing to and nearly did murder her son for religious reasons similar to those espoused by her neighbors.

Admittedly, this point is taken from a lack of information since Sarah never has any interaction with Abraham after the Akeda, and they seemed to be living in separate locations, she in Kiriat Arba, and he in Beer Sheba (according to Midrash Raba)

Sarah's life form the Drash:

ויהיו חיי שרה מאה שנה ועשרים שנה ושבע שנים: לכך נכתב שנה בכל כלל וכלל, לומר לך שכל אחד נדרש לעצמו, בת מאה כבת עשרים לחטא, מה בת עשרים לא חטאה, שהרי אינה בת עונשין, אף בת מאה בלא חטא, ובת עשרים כבת שבע ליופי:  Gen. Raba 58:1.

1.    And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; [these were] the years of the life of Sarah.

Why is years written after every digit, and why is it then written once more as a conclusion?  Because each digit needs to be explained separately.  She was as sinless at one hundred as she had been at 20, and she was as beautiful at 20 as she was at 7.

שני חיי שרה: כלן שוין לטובה: All of her years were equally good.

In the Midrash, R. Yochanan says the years of the Tzadik are loved (חביב) to God, hence the repetition of years. 

So, in the pshat, Sarah's life is rather questionable, but in the Midrash it is beyond reproach.

Conclusion 

We come from a dysfunctional family, with internal and external pressures which guided our growth, and with a striving for morality and righteousness best expressed by Abraham in questioning God’s decision on Sodom and Gomorrah in last week’s Sidra.  Sarah imeinu (our mother) was not a saint, but in her environment she was not a bad person either. 

It is a pity that the biblical redactor did not leave us with Abrahams eulogy so that we could have an indication of what was considered important to our ancestors at that time.

Let’s leave this recollection and now look at what happens with her burial place:

The burial:

Here the Pshat and the Drash here seem to agree.

This is the Pshat.

1.    Speiser, in his commentary after his translation of Genesis, puts it concisely:

"The living could get by as sojourners; but the dead required a permanent resting ground"

Our forefathers could not be buried on alien soil, the title had to be theirs beyond any possibility of dispute.

This is the Drash

2.    א"ר יודן בר סימון זה אחד משלשה מקומות שאין אומות העולם יכולין להונות את ישראל לומר גזולים הן בידכם ואלו הן, מערת המכפלה, ובית המקדש, וקבורתו של יוסף, מערת המכפלה, דכתיב (בראשית כג) וישמע אברהם אל עפרון וישקול אברהם לעפרון,

בית המקדש, דכתיב (ד"ה =דברי הימים= א כא) ויתן דוד לארנן במקום וגו', וקבורתו של יוסף (בראשית לג) ויקן את חלקת השדה

Said Rav Yudan bar Simon, this is one of the three places regarding which the nations of the world cannot slander Israel and say 'You stole them!'

The places are: the Cave of Machpela, the Temple, and the Tomb of Joseph.

For of the Cave of Machpela it is written - 'And Abraham deferred to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out the silver...;'

of the Temple it is written 'And David gave to Arnan...;' (Chronicles 21 - buying the threshing floor of Ornan so that God would not destroy Jerusalem. He paid for the threshing floor and the burnt offerings 600 shekels of gold by weight.)

and as for the Tomb of Joseph - 'And he bought the field.'  (Joshua 24:

³² And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver^[d] from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants)

So midrashically, and the very pshat of our text say the same thing.  The cave and the surrounding area were bought legally and used to inter our patriarchs.

I believe that Speiser, while correct in his conclusion that the dead need a permanent resting ground, but why in Canaan? In chapter 24 Abraham sends Eliezer (never identified in this chapter) to find a wife for Isaac. Abraham adjures him:

   ג. וְאַשְׁבִּיעֲךָ בַּיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם וֵאלֹהֵי הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר לֹא תִקַּח אִשָּׁה לִבְנִי מִבְּנוֹת הַכְּנַעֲנִי אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי יוֹשֵׁב

בְּקִרְבּוֹ:

The Midrash Hagadol goes into this in detail and explains that while his family were all idol worshippers, they were still family, and therefore had preference, or that the sins in Canaan where both physical and spiritual, and would therefore transfer to future generations, while the sins of Abraham's family were only spiritual and would dissipate in the right circumstances.  In modern terms we could say that the Canaanites had defective DNA, while Abraham’s family was defective in their upbringing.

 So why go back home for a bride, but not to bury your dead there?  The Midrash above gives the answer.  Abraham wanted permanency in the land, and a burial place provided it. He believed in the prophecy that the land would eventually be his, and wanted to establish a foothold by means of his purchase.

That is why the bible spends so much time describing this unique event.  Machpelah is proof that we belong in the land, that we are there legitimately and in a way recognized by the people of the land.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

How has this purchase faired?  Let's take a quick tour through the history of Machpelah, Hebron, and its Jewish population

I got the Hebrew dates from a fascinating book by a Russian Rejectionist (Eliezer Shulman) who does all the arithmetic to establish the dates in the Tanach. But then I could not convert these to common year with HebCal.com because it starts at around 3000 and is not accurate before the establishment of the Gregorian calendar.  So the dates are approximate but the events, hopefully, accurate.

The history of Hebron/Machpelah from Sarah's death to the present:

Hebrew Dates Eliezer Shulman	Events	Date
2085	Sarah Dies and is buried by her husband in Machpelah	1863 BCE
2123	Abraham dies and is buried by his sons in Machpelah	1821 BCE
2259	Jacob dies and instructs his children to bury him  in Machpelah	1689 BCE
2309	Joseph dies and requests that when the Jews leave Egypt they should take his bones and bury them at Machpelah	1635 BCE
2488?	Joshua buries Joseph's bones in Machpelah -- It is not clear when Hebron was conquered, but 2488 is when the conquest of Israel by Joshua began.  It was also before 2516, when Joshua died.	~1300 BCE
2600	David is crowned king of Israel in Hebron ( Sam: 2:1-4)	1055 BCE
2700	Rehoboam fortified it (2 Chron. 11:10)	930 BCE
3640	Judah Macabee sets the town and its towers to fire	160BCE
3650	John Hyrcanus  re-incorporates Hebron into Judah	140BCE
3700	King Herod builds a large edifice atop Machpla	10BCE
3830	Simeon Bar Giora retakes Hebron from the Romans (Jos. Wars, 4:555)	~68CE
3960?	A Christian church is erected over Machpelah, Jews were dealt harshly by the Byzantine Christians.	~200CE
4398	Hebron falls to the Arabs under Omar- Jews were treated well	638++C3
4400	Under Omar the church became a Mosque, a Jewish cemetery and synagogue were permitted nearby.	~640C3
4860	Geniza fragments provide evidence of 6 generations of Jewish families in charge of Machpela and a synagogue close by in Hebron.	1100CE
4860	Crusaders capture the city, turn Mosque and adjoining Synagogue into a Church/monastery and expel the Jews.	1100CE
4970	Probably no Jewish settlements before this, a small community seems to exist there again.	1210CE
5020	Hebron is made the capital of the Mamluks for that district. Jewish presence increases.	1260CE
5026	A decree is made that Jews cannot enter Machpelah, and this was strictly kept until the 20th century.  There is a mention of a small window being placed in a wall at the entrance of the cave where Jews could look through and where they could pray.	1266CE
5278	The Jews in Hebron are looted by Murad Bey, the Mameluke ruler of Jerusalem.	1518CE
5300	Malkiel Ashkenazi settles in Hebron, buys the courtyards where Jews lived, adds a synagogue	1540CE
5600	Habad Hasidim headed by R. Simon Menahem Haikin moved there from Safed.	1840CE
5678-80	Jewish population of Hebron rises to 16,000 under British rule.	1918-22CE
5689	Arab rioters killed 67 and wounded 60, the British watched.	1929CE
5696	On April 23, the entire Jewish population of Hebron was evacuated, only one Jewish inhabitant remained there until 1947	1936CE
5708	Hebron was incorporated into Jordan, no Jews allowed in the hills of Judea.	1948CE
5727	Israel captures Hebron Goren visits the Cave of the Patriarchs on 8 June 1967 (apocryphal?)	1967CE
5728	Settlers move from a military occupied area of Judea into Hebron. Arrangements are made to accommodate Jewish Services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 7 Aug  -- The first wedding in Machpelah October 9 A grenade is thrown into the stairway wounding 47 Israelis, 8 seriously.	1968CE
5736	October 3, several Torah scrolls and prayer books at the tomb were burnt.	1976CE
5740	May  6 dead and 17 wounded Jews returning from prayers at the tomb	1980CE
5754	February - 29 Muslims were killed and scores injured by Baruch Goldstein. The riots that followed killed another 35 Muslims	1994 CE
5756	The Wye River Accords included a temporary status agreement in which the WAQF controls 81% of the building so Jews cannot visit the tomb (Cenotaphs) of Isaac or Rebecca except for 10 days of the year, this Sabbath being one of the.	1996 CE

 The table above shows that we Jews were integrated into Hebron's life for the past 4,000 years, and that Machpelah was one center of our interest from the time of its purchase by Abraham. It also shows that even when we control the area militarily, we are restricted in our access to the burial place of our forefathers, but when we are not in control, we are at the mercy of others who do not respect our religion, kill us and exile us at will, and have kept us for hundreds of years from visiting our sacred burial place.

 I come away from our Parasha with mixed feelings.  How do we achieve peace in the presence of the history of Hebron?  We cannot forsake or forget where our journey to peoplehood, and to statehood hood began. I have often said that we could have territorial compromise on Tel Aviv.  I find it difficult to see how we can have such a compromise on Jerusalem or Hebron.

 I pray we learn to live together with our cousins, so that we don't need walls of separation or areas of expulsion, and so that we both can, as in the time of Abraham, intermingle freely and with only limited strife. 

Shabbat Shalom