Chayye Sara: Mourning to Bring Peace
Chayye Sara: Mourning to Bring Peace
…and Abraham expired and died at a good old age…. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah …and Isaac settled near Beer-la’chai Roi (Genesis 25:8-11)
I write under the waning moon of the month of Cheshvan, the only month in the Hebrew calendar that does not contain a holiday or other day of observance. It is said that the month is mityabesch-ashamed of this lack, that it yearns for its holiday. Because of this unhappiness the month is often called Marcheshvan (Bitter Cheshvan). The opportunity presented in the current political situation offers Cheshvan the possibility of a great nechemta-consolation to the month and to our peoples as our communities take cautious, courageous steps to allow the country the chance to fulfill the promises of inclusion in its founding document. Within this week’s Torah portion, Chayye Sara, we find clues from the Torah to help us remove the mar-bitterness from the name of the month and honor the meaning of Cheshvan’s name as we settle an ancient cheshbon –-account – -while granting the month its longed-for holiday.
In this parasha, Isaac and Ishmael come together to bury their father, Abraham. Two brothers, both scarred with trauma inflicted by their father, stand at his grave. For years, I have looked with yearning at this Biblical image. This picture of the sons, shoulder-to-shoulder to bury their father, is my icon to heal the compounding legacy of Jewish and Muslim trauma, which is as much a part of the Abrahamic tradition, as the forefather himself.
In last week’s stories, in Parshat Vayera, the cycle of violence began. Abraham exiled Ishmael and bound Isaac to an altar as an intended sacrifice. The pain inflicted has ricocheted through the generations in an unending succession of blame and retribution which continues in the horrors we have witnessed in the last years.
I see this ancient war as the perpetual reenactment of incompletely mourned grief and join others, such as that of the Parents’ Circle-Families Forum, to call us back to the grave of our Father Abraham to stand together amidst the rubble of history to find shared words of mourning so that we can bequeath to our children both of our traditions’ teachings of ethics, justice, healing, and peace. In this and future blog entries, I hope to add my voice to those who engage grief as a path to peace.
If we use grief as our teacher, it offers us an opportunity to search our heart and align with the deepest aspirations of being human. A saying, attributed to Khalil Gibran, “Grief is the knife that carves the space for the heart,” resonates with the final paragraph of the Kaddish, which is a plea for peace. But it takes time to find the compassionate heart of peace when we are torn by the turbulent emotions in the wake of the losses that come with war. This time is often short-changed when we urgently act out our emotions, without taking the time to sit with our grief.
In Judaism, we sit shiva, a seven-day period that follows a burial, where we sit, surrounded and sustained by a community that is charged to provide, in the words of the Mourners’ Blessing, “HaMakom Y’nechem,” “a Holy Place of Comfort.” That Makom (Place, a name of God) “in the midst of those who mourn Zion and Jerusalem,” encourages us to look for consolation amid others who have known grief and carved hearts of compassion — hearts that have learned the Kaddish’s ultimate lesson: Seek peace.
But it doesn’t happen. More often than not, the adrenaline of trauma demands urgent action. We don’t take the time to be taught by the fact of our shared mortality or to listen to the words of the Kaddish. The consequence: We find no place for refining the heart. No space is created for tears to melt our trauma and soften our hearts. Our hearts harden. We remain frozen, and our unprocessed trauma, pain, tears and anger play out through the generations, acted out as defensiveness, depression, abuse and war.
We don’t seek peace. We seek revenge. The consequence: more death.
Oh, that Isaac and Ishmael had remained at the Cave of Machpelah to grieve as brothers! They might have reviewed their lives and come to terms with the pain inflicted by their father. Mourning together they might have listened curiously as they shared their experiences of childhood trauma, challenged their obstacles to intimate brotherly connection and embraced their differences to emerge as brothers and not as enemies.
In this political moment, we have the chance to stand with those who commit to share their tears and build the coalitions that would allow us to mourn our past, redeem the mistakes of our history, and heal our future.
At the end of Abraham’s funeral, Isaac settles in Beer-la-chai Roi, the same place he is found following his near sacrifice by the hands of his father. (Gen. 24) Beer-la-chai-Roi is also where the Bible places Hagar and Ishmael after the trauma of their banishment by Abraham and Sarah. It is at Beer-la-chai Roi that Hagar is given the unique honor of naming God as El Roi –– “The God who Sees Me.” (Gen: 16:13).
Hebrew translates Beer-la-chai-Roi, as “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” In Arabic, as I understand it, the name is “Beer Elhai Alledhi Yarani” – “the Well of the One Who Cares For (or Looks After) Me.” Marrying these translations, recalls another of God’s names, common to both traditions: In Hebrew HaRahachaman,” The Compassionate One,” in Arabic “ar-Racḥmān or ar-Rachmin,” “God as the Merciful and Compassionate One.” In both languages, the words are rooted in the word “Rechem/Womb.” I pause here to imagine God as an “All-Seeing, Caring Womb, The One Who Sees and Cares for Me.”
. رحمة רחמים Rahma. Rachamim Compassion
Heeding the Kaddish’s imperative that the Great Name be manifest throughout the world, I wonder if the above name might provide the lens through which we view each other- as we work for our common good to gaze through life-giving, womb-like, clear, compassionate and holy eyes. I imagine our peoples return to the holy waters of Beer-la-chai-Roi, to heal the abuses of our histories. I see us immersing ourselves in those waters to wash away the centuries of dust that adhere to the lenses through which we have seen each other, so that we can emulate the gaze of a caring, all-seeing God and see the Holiness in each other.
Perhaps we could turn to Jerusalem, sacred to both communities, and imagine ourselves as birds, not a flock, not birds of a feather, but birds of different species – just as we are people of different tribes. Let us fly together to circle the mountain holy to us both.. Let us look down upon what is known as Har ha-Bayit/The Temple Mount by Jews and Haram al-Sharif/The Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, the place to which both traditions turn in prayer.
As birds we might soar above the sacred city, above the discord, above the accusations, above the back and forth of different truths that will never be reconciled, and above the trauma that passes from generation to generation. We would see the land not as pieces of territory carved up and separated by lines imposed on a map, but see the land as whole, and recognize that as tribes connected to this land, we are in this together, and, in the words of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z” l) “the only way we can get it together, is together.”
Perhaps it is not only we who might view the land from above. Perhaps our ancestors could join us. Perhaps, we can imagine them having been thrown back and forth in the Kaf ha Kela, where Jewish mystics say that departed souls are thrown by angels from one edge of the universe to another to be cleansed of the dust that blinds vision during earthly existence. Our ancestors might then return from the World of Souls to urge us to fulfill Reb Zalman’s prophecy. Or having passed through the veil and having heard the sound of the Trumpet that follows the interrogations in Barzakh, where Muslim souls are said to await final judgement, those ancestors would remind us that we are both peoples that say hello and say goodbye by saying “peace.” The Jewish ancestors would remind us that the last paragraph of the Kaddish, our prayer that remembers the dead, is a prayer for peace. The Muslim souls might return to instruct us, as the Koran repeatedly states: “Take not life, which God hath made sacred,” (Koran:6:151).
עוֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם בִּמְרוֹמָיו הוּא יַעֲשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם עָלֵינו. Oseh shalom bimromav Hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu
May the one who makes peace on high bring peace upon us
وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ Wa la taqtulu an-nafsa allati harrama Allahu illa bil-haqq.
Take not life, which God hath made sacred.
Another common word: “chagag/haj,” describes a round dance, performed in sacred procession. In Hebrew it is the word for “pilgrimage,” and for “holiday,” rooted in the times pilgrims journeyed to the sacred Jerusalem mountain on holy days throughout the year. Muslims are to make haj to the Kabba in Mecca, at least once in their lives. The connection of these words with circular movement invokes a spiral of healing and suggests the need to circle around over time as we visit our broken places and view them from different perspectives, as we are imbued with the fresh insights of the new life lessons of each orbit. Perhaps as we circle around to view our wounds with eyes, cleansed by our tears, we might see possibilities for healing and peace that we were not able to see in the past. Could this free us from our current political quagmire? Perhaps, we can heed the words found in both of our traditions attributed to David, to “turn our mourning into dancing.”
Perhaps this is the intention of the biblical directive that those who encounter death, on the battlefield, should remain outside the camp for seven days (Numbers 31:19). This gave them a makom, a place, to nurture their wounds, explore the moral injuries of war, and be protected from acting precipitously after a trauma. It protected them from acting out their pain and perpetuating the cycle of violence. After loss, we need to sit.
To combat the futility of continuing to lob our different but painful histories at each other, we need to find a common language to heal our contracted hearts. The descendants of Isaac and Ishmael may never come to a shared truth, but we can turn to what we do share: the profound and universal experience of grief.
It is my goal to use this place provided by The Times of Israel to create a Makom Y’nechem A Place of Comfort in which we can find that shared language of grief. In the next months, I will discuss my conviction that when grief is given proper attention it creates a wormhole to the unimaginable. I extend an invitation to both Jewish and Muslim readers to help me find the common language that can transform our generations of pain and rage into peace. Let’s join those who mourn together, to embrace what we share and acknowledge our different experiences. We can bury the past, as the brothers buried Abraham, and mourn together so that we can heal our familial rift and reclaim our traditions for ethics, justice, healing and peace
سلام שָׁלוֹם salaam shalom
In both traditions, our words for peace are built upon three-letter roots that mean something much deeper than simply “hello” and “goodbye.” In Hebrew the word “Shalom” denotes “completeness,” “wholeness,” “soundness,” and “welfare” It is related to words that mean “debts paid,” and “perfect.” It indicates senses of balance, harmony and inclusion that that follow when both partners to a contract fulfill their obligations. It is not a passive word. Peace needs tending All voices must be heard to complete the circle..
As I understand it, “Peace” is in the very name, “Islam.”. “Salam” stems from the root found in words associated with “peace,” “safety,” and “wholeness,” as in Hebrew. While the word “Islam” also means surrender, I understand that not as forced surrender, as we might hear it in English, but as alignment with the values that God represents, very similar to the Jewish concept of devekut, often translated as cleaving to God, the ultimate goal of the Jewish mystic: a constant consciousness of and intimate connection with God.
Isn’t Peace the bedrock to which we should cleave in both Judaism and Islam? I want to return to the roots of our traditions and boldly say: “This is what it means to be a Jew. This is what it means to be a Muslim. “We can reclaim our traditions for their foundational values and live up to the values that appear in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
I return to the brothers, our ancestors Ishmael and Isaac, as they lay their father to rest and remember another burial that took place in the month of Cheshvan: that of Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin also yearned to bring the descendants of the brothers together again in peace. Might we mark his yahrzeit, on the 12th of Cheshvan with a shared mourning ceremony. Let’s come together at the grave of our shared patriarch and march under the banner of Democracy and Healing to Rabin’s grave. Let’s put to rest the generations of family dissension and name the day “Yom HaShalom/Saalam, a Day of Peace,” and reward the month of Cheshvan with its long-sought holiday, to remember the sacrifices of so many of the children of Abraham and to seal the promise of Beer-la’chai Roi/ “Beer Elhai Alledhi Yarani” — the Life-giving Vision.
