Torah Thoughts
Genesis 23:1- 25:18 Ha-yay Sarah
November 22, 2008 25 Heshvan 5769
This week’s Torah portion begins with the sadness of the death of our matriarch Sarah. Following almost immediately the story of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, one has to feel for Abraham’s pain in losing his beloved wife, especially after the near-tragedy of sacrificing his son. He was so alone, and so sad. The Torah says he wept and mourned for his wife. Isaac is not around, for reasons that are not all that clear. Abraham focuses on doing what he can, burying his dead. He spends a lot of time negotiating the purchase of the first piece of land associated with the Jewish people and the land of Israel, the Cave of the Mahpelah, which is in Hebron.
Abraham goes from mourning to the purchase of real estate, to making sure that Isaac is married to an appropriate woman from the “old country”. The text digresses from Abraham’s life to that of the arranged marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, a wedding we are not sure Abraham attended. (After the Akedah, Isaac and Abraham never had another conversation recorded in the Bible.) We know Abraham is involved in Isaac’s life, but we don’t get to see their interaction.
Abraham seems so old in this Torah portion. It even says so in Gen 24:1 “Abraham was now old, advanced in years”. When he purchased the Cave of the Mahpelah, surely he expected to be buried rather soon next to the woman whom he loved who has predeceased him, but not by much! Sarah died at 127 years of age. Abraham was 137 years old when she died. In arranging for his son’s marriage, Abraham seems to have taken care of all the essentials of his own life, getting his house in order, and seems ready to die.
Then there’s an incredible notation in the story. Abraham remarried! He had five additional children with his new wife, Keturah. Abraham lived another 38 years after Sarah’s death. Even though Isaac inherited his entire estate, the sons of Abraham’s “concubines” inherited gifts, and were sent to the east, to be away from Isaac. My question: What concubines? Keturah was a wife, not a concubine, so that means that Abraham was involved with even more women! (It’s plural!) At his age!!!
No one challenges the idea that Sarah was the love of Abraham’s life; that they were “b’shert” (fated) to be together. But after she died, Abraham somehow managed to go on, to rebuild his life, to prosper, to even find happiness after Sarah was no longer alive. The Torah says that when Abraham died, he died at “a good old age, old and satisfied”. And all too often we miss this important message in the Torah: even in loss, we go on, we rebuild, we continue, we grow.
All of us suffer all kinds of loss throughout our lives. Loss is inevitable. We lose people we love, jobs and homes, friends and pets, fortunes and challenges. But we can’t stay frozen in our losses. Life goes on, and we have to adjust to living without the person or people we love, without the homes we grew up in or where our children grew, without the companions with whom we shared our lives. It’s hard for all of us. Loss happens.
It was not easy for Abraham either. But it is the only thing we can do in our loss – to move forward, to remember, to keep the memory alive even as we live beyond the experiences we shared. The Torah demands that we “choose life”. That’s what Abraham does in this Torah portion – he continues to live as fully as he can, as long as he can, experiencing both the sorrows and joys of his life, dying in fullness of years and fullness of life.
We learn from our losses. These are the hardest lessons of life – not a schooling any of us welcomes. But our losses teach us that we can endure, that we really are strong, that there is meaning and even hope in learning to adjust to loss. Loss teaches us to cherish what we have all the more, as long as we have it, and as long as we can remember what we no longer can touch.
As we struggle with our own personal losses, may we also be inspired by the hope and courage affirmed by Abraham in this week’s Torah portion. May the Source of Strength, who helped Abraham through his sadness, also help us to find the better times, the good, the fullness, the blessings, in our own lives.
