Stranger or Resident? Just Keep Your Mouth Shut

Abraham comes home from Moriah to find his wife Sarah dead. She collapsed after hearing that her son Issac had been nearly slaughtered on the mountain. Now, the patriarch wants to bury his wife in Hebron, next to the secret grave of Adam and Eve.

Abraham arrives in Hebron from Beersheba and wants to buy the tract that includes the cave where Adam and Eve are buried. Then, he will bury Sarah. Money, he tells the ruling Het family, is no object.

“I am a foreigner and resident among you.” [Genesis 23:4]

The commentators do not agree on what Abraham means. Shlomo Ben Yitzhaki, or Rashi, asserts that Abraham set down an ultimatum: I am going to get this property one way or the other: You can either let me pay for it, as I am merely a stranger. Or I will seize it because this is my divine right.  As Don Corleone would put it, “I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

Rashi’s colleagues disagree. They see Abraham as a supplicant. Moses Ben Nachman, or the Ramban, quotes Abraham as acknowledging to Het that he has no ancestral rights in Hebron. That’s why he moved to the city — to become both a resident and investor.

The sons of Het are stunned by Abraham’s modesty. He had fought for their freedom from Nimrod. He brought hope to an occupied land filled with idolatry and corruption. They owed him everything.

“Listen to us, my lord. You are a prince of G-d in our midst; honor us, therefore, and bury your dead in the choicest of our burial sites. No one among us will deny you his burial site to bury your dead.” [Genesis 23:6]

But Abraham insists. He asks Het for an introduction to Ephron, a man the elderly Jew believes he can do business with. Actually, Ephron is in the crowd, enticed by what clearly is a visitor with lots of cash. The people then turn around and elect Ephron mayor, simply because Abraham wants to deal with him.

There are numerous questions, but the most important is decrypting what Abraham told Het. Can a man be both a foreigner and a resident in the same community?

There is a huge difference between a foreigner and a citizen. The foreigner has no privileges and very few if any rights. There are laws meant to protect the ordinary man, but they do not necessarily pertain to him. Then, there is the citizen, who, on paper, has a load of rights, and usually they are recognized by the judicial system.

Finally, there is the citizen who really is a foreigner. He is treated with the most contempt because he screams that he has rights like everybody else and doesn’t.

Peter and Zechariah Mehler fall into the last category. Father and son are patriotic Americans who live in Milwaukee and believe in the Bill of Rights. They are also Jews. In September, the two passed a house that featured a mural with a Star of David intertwined with a swastika. Father and son agreed that this constituted hate, meant to incite people to attack Jews. Using axes, they tore down the offensive message and left, aware that there were cameras recording their action.

Soon, the Mehlers were arrested and charged with “felony criminal damage,” facing three years in prison. The mural had been put up by Ihsan Atta who charged that his right to free speech and expression had been violated. The message, Atta said, was not antisemitic, rather meant to highlight what he termed Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the city had never taken it down.

Whatever side they’re on, the people of Milwaukee can be sure of one thing: Had the mural preached hate against blacks, Asians, gays, transsexuals or Muslims, Atta would have been in serious trouble. But his target was Jews. That’s a different story.

Abraham knew this more than 3,000 years ago in Hebron. Sure, he was a hero for defeating the coalition of four kings. Yes, he brought blessings throughout Canaan. But that would be forgotten once he was gone when his descendants attempt to exercise their rights. No, what Abraham wanted was a deed to Machpela, later to be called the Cave of the Patriarchs. That piece of paper would be harder to deny. And having the first Jewess buried with Adam and Eve would bind world history to Jewish history forever.

The old man was shrewd. He offered Ephron full price for the Machpela but left out one thing: That Adam and Eve were buried somewhere on the property. Abraham already foresaw the tragedy of King Hezekiah, who after the divine rescue of a besieged Jerusalem took the visiting king of Babylonia on a tour of his treasure vault, only to have everything taken away by those regarded as friends, Abraham knew that critical detail would change everything, and Ephron would never agree to sell the burial ground of the first couple. Such a sale would have undermined the claim over the next thousands of years by everybody from Ephron, Het, Canaan, Persia, Greece, Rome, Arabs and America that they actually owned the land — everybody but the Jews.

So, an unwitting Ephron smiled and asked for 400 silver coins for what was essentially a rocky and arid tract in the valley. Today, the Better Business Bureau and the “Price Is Right” television show would have launched an investigation.

“What’s 400 silver shekels’ worth of land between you and me? Go bury your dead.” [Genesis 23:15]

Abraham, whether as foreigner or resident, didn’t say a word — and got the greatest bargain in history.