The Life of Sarah

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Two of the parshiot in Sefer Bereshit have the word life (chai) in their titles, and both are concerned with death. This week’s parsha, Chayei Sarah, opens with the death and burial of the matriarch Sarah. Vayechi, the last parsha in Genesis, records the final acts of Yaakov Avinu. Yet the Torah uses the word for “life” rather than death to introduce the narratives about the manner in which their lives ended.

Unlike just about everyone else, who observe and celebrate the birthdays of leaders, scholars, and relatives, Jews observe the anniversaries of their deaths. We know George Washington’s birthday and our parents’ yahrzeit. Is it because we, who are specifically commanded by God to choose life, are so focused on death? No.  Precisely the opposite. For us, every life that commences is a source of infinite potential, that may or may not be realized. Every life that ends represents, and is commemorated as, a synthesis of the achievement, and character, and values of the departed. We celebrate their lived lives. And, as in the cases of Sarah and Yaakov, their stories do not end with their deaths.

To a great extent, that is when their stories begin.

Just look at the remainder of these two parshiot that record death but bear such optimistic, life-affirming titles. They proceed to relate how the Jewish family dynasty and future nation for which Sarah and Yaakov lived and died is established and launched on its way to destiny. Chayei Sarah heralds the manner in which Sarah’s service to God and Avraham, her prophetic power that exceeded that of Avraham, and her unyielding commitment to the primacy and welfare of Yitzchak, lead inexorably to a second generation, in which the wife of Yitzchak will dwell in Sarah’s tent and, solely because of Sarah’s determination, only the progeny of Yitzchak will be the beneficiaries of God’s promise to Avraham. Vayechi encapsulates the climactic denouement of the fraternal conflicts that had beset the often dysfunctional family: breaking generations of precedent, all of Yaakov’s children will inherit the covenant to possess the land of Israel, not just one or some among them.

Yitzchak, not Yishmael. That is Sarah’s legacy. Because of Rivkah, who assumed Sarah’s mantle, Yaakov, not Eisav. And because of Yaakov, all, and not only some, of Yaakov’s children. That is the legacy of Sarah and Yaakov–the “chai” that survives them forever.

Sarah never saw her grandchildren. Yaakov lived to bless his grandchildren. When we bless our children in the traditional formula, if they are girls, we invoke Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, and Leah, but if they are boys, we skip straight to the grandchildren of the Patriarch: ישימך אלקים כאפרים וכמנשה. May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe (the sons of Yoseif).

We know almost nothing of Ephraim and Menashe. They show up to be blessed and then they disappear. And yet we are instructed by Yaakov himself that they should be the foundation and models for all future blessings of Jewish male children.

Why? Perhaps because they are the first individuals to have a recorded relationship with their grandparents. (They are also the first Biblical brothers who do not compete with–or try to kill–one another.)

It may be self-serving for a proud grandfather and newly minted great grandfather to suggest this explanation, but it is undeniable that Ephraim and Menashe were the first people that the Torah explicitly describes as having associated and connected to their grandfathers. Yaakov and Eisav were 15 when Avraham died–indeed, the medrash relates that the meal that Yaakov used to acquire the rights of the first-born from Eisav was a meal he was preparing for his father, who was mourning the death of Avraham. Yoseif was 29 when Yitzchak died. The Torah does not record a single word that passed between Avraham and his grandchildren or between Yitzchak and his grandchildren. Avraham and Yitzchak are our fathers. Yaakov is our father and our grandfather.

And thus begins our journey as a masoretic, dynastic, family-oriented people. The Torah tells us that Yoseif himself lived to see his great grandchildren:

וירא יוסף לאפרים בני שלשים, גם בני מכיר בן-מנשה ילדו על-ברכי יעקב.

According to Rabbi Soloveitchik, this is why we are known as b’nei yisrael, the Children of Israel, to the exclusion of the other Patriarchs; until it was determined that all of Yaakov’s grandchildren were entitled to be part of the Jewish nation, we were nothing more than a family, or a clan. We had the promise that we would one day be a nation. We had the potential to become a nation. But we were not yet a nation.

Only when three generations could stand in a room, together, and contemplate a shared destiny, as in the case of Yaakov, Yoseif, and Ephraim and Menashe, did we become a people.

And it all began with the vision and tenacity of Sarah, who never met her grandchildren, but was the architect of their destiny. God Himself acknowledges her preeminence, changing her name from Sarai to Sarah, because she will be accorded the status of princess, the mother of kings and nations. Why? Because in the face of Avraham’s undifferentiated love for all people and all his children, Sarah advocates for the son through whom the destiny of the Jewish people will be manifested and established. No one will inherit alongside him.

God enunciates His approval of her position, which is a fulfillment of His covenant, with the words:

כל אשר תאמר אליך שרה, שמע בקולה.

“All that Sarah says to you, hearken to her instruction.”

(Author’s Note: God issued many commandments, but this one clearly ranks among the top three. The world would be a far better place if the codifiers of Jewish law had included it among the 613 mitzvot. In my house, it is both the 614th and the first.)

The apparent mystery as to why the Biblical accounts of the deaths of Sarah and Yaakov bear the Hebrew word for life is thus elucidated. Sarah understood that sometimes the parochial must take precedence over the universal in order for a people to survive and live. Yaakov understood that for a nation to live and flourish, it would need to encompass the entire next generation and all future generations.  And that is what he taught his grandchildren.

Of course, great grandchildren are just bonuses, for which one must be very blessed and very grateful.