Parashat Hayyei Sarah, Genesis 23:1–25:18
This week's commentary was written by Rabbi Marc Wolf, Vice Chancellor and Director of Community Engagement, JTS.
The Torah does not prepare us for Sarah's death. We come face-to-face with it shortly after recounting the length of her life in the first verse of the parashah: "Sarah's lifetime—the span of Sarah's life—came to 127 years. Sarah died in Kiriath Arbah . . . " (Gen. 23:1–2a). Abraham and Ishmael also die in this week's parashah, prefaced by a similar recounting of the length of their lives. All three scenes are relatively formulaic; however, it is Abraham's last days that fill the balance of the parashah. Where Sarah and Ishmael seem to fade from the scene, Abraham actively prepares for his death. The details of the burial of Sarah and finding a wife for Isaac that occupy the parashah rest in stark contrast to the death narratives of both Abraham's wife and firstborn son.
Nahum Sarna, in his JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, recognizes that these two stories play an important role in Abraham's life. After the climax of the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah, Sarna notes:
For all intents and purposes, [Abraham's] biography is complete. But two important issues remain: the concern with mortality and the preoccupation with posterity. The former finds expression in the acquisition of a hereditary burial site, the latter through the selection of a wife for Isaac so that the succession of the line may be secured. (156)
In Abraham's life, we recognize the importance of these moments; however, there is a larger context within which we must read the narrative of Abraham. Beyond the action on the page, our collective narrative is unfolding as well—and textual keys are our clue to take note.
Words are important to the Torah. Not only is meaning the fodder for every commentary from the pre-rabbinic period through today, but the actual currency of words spent by telling a story in the Torah is key. The Torah has roughly 80,000 words (Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities has 137,000; let's be happy we don't have to read it in shul); Parashat Hayyei Sarah has two episodes that are particularly word heavy. After Sarah's death, we read of the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah (23:1–20) and then the betrothal of Isaac (24:1–67). Each has elements that force us to pay attention: with the Machpelah story, it is the deeply legal nature of the narrative; with the betrothal of Isaac, it is the sheer length (there is no story in the Abraham narratives that exceeds it). We find ourselves asking, what position do these seemingly ordinary tasks (burying a loved one and finding a mate for one's progeny) have in the overall plot? What are we—the inheritors of the Torah—to learn from the emphasis the Torah places on these stories?
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