A bit later we are told \u201c\u2026 And then Avraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre\u2014now Chevron\u2014in the land of Canaan.\u201d (Verse 19)<\/p>\n
After that, there is no mention of Sarah in the entire parsha<\/em>! How can I possibly dedicate my weekly column, which I have entitled \u201cPerson in the Parsha,\u201d to a woman whose name appears only after her death, and who plays no active role in this week\u2019s narrative?<\/p>\nBut wait! She is indeed mentioned much later in the story, when her son Isaac takes a bride, Rebecca. There we learn, \u201c\u2026 Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebecca as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother\u2019s death.\u201d (Chapter 24, verse 67)<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, how can I justify choosing Sarah as a \u201cperson in the parsha<\/em>\u201d when she plays no \u201cliving\u201d role in the entire episode? Yes, she is mentioned in a praiseworthy manner, but does she remain a heroine after her death?<\/p>\nI insist that she does, but to prove it, I will have to return to the opening verses above, where we learn of her grief-stricken husband\u2019s hesped <\/em>and bechi<\/em>, \u201ceulogy\u201d and \u201cweeping\u201d.<\/p>\nTo demonstrate the \u201cpresence\u201d of the deceased person even after that person\u2019s death, I must first define the terms \u201ceulogy\u201d\/hesped <\/em>and \u201cshedding tears\u201d\/bechi<\/em> and then distinguish between them. For this purpose, I will share with you three comments upon the opening verses of our parsha <\/em>by three great mid-nineteenth century commentators, all three contemporaries with each other but with three different approaches to the text. They are Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, zecher tzaddikim l\u2019vracha<\/em>, of blessed memory.<\/p>\nLet me begin with Rav Hirsch, Rabbi of Frankfurt, Germany, who wrote his commentary on the Pentateuch\/Chumash <\/em>in German, but which I study in a Hebrew translation.<\/p>\nRav Hirsch is often very creative in his interpretations, sometimes daringly so.<\/p>\n
He comments on the phrase \u201cand Avraham came<\/u> to eulogize and weep.\u201d \u201cCame from where?\u201d, he asks.<\/p>\n
This is a question that many much earlier commentators ask as well, and they generally answer that Avraham had come from Beersheba to Chevron, since, as we read in the final chapter of last week\u2019s parsha<\/em>, he had returned to Beersheba directly from the akedah<\/em>, from the \u201cbinding of Isaac.\u201d It was in Beersheba that he learned of Sarah\u2019s demise in Chevron, and so he \u201ccame\u201d there to bury her.<\/p>\nRav Hirsch strongly rejects this approach. He insists, as was his wont, that the word vayavo<\/em>\/\u201dand he came\u201d often means \u201che withdrew\u201d, or \u201che secluded himself\u201d. Thus, Avraham withdrew from the public that sought to comfort him so that he refused to address an audience. Instead, his \u201ceulogy\u201d was his own inner response to his personal tragedy, and he secluded himself in a place where he could tearfully and emotionally grieve for his life-partner. The \u201ceulogy\u201d was not a performance before an audience. Rather, it was his self-expression of torment. His \u201ctears\u201d were shed in the presence of the One Above alone. Only in his own private space could he \u201cshed tears\u201d and \u201ceulogize\u201d his beloved, and only afterwards could he \u201cgo public\u201d and negotiate for a proper burial place for Sarah.<\/p>\nRav Mecklenburg takes an entirely different approach. He reports that in his experience, the mourner first \u201csheds tears\u201d and only afterwards presents a \u201ceulogy\u201d. First, there is a deeply emotional and wholly personal reaction, tears of pain and heartful grief. Then, the mourner composes himself somewhat and formulates a verbal description of the person he lost so that others can know who the deceased was in his or her lifetime.<\/p>\n
But Avraham reverses the sequence: first, the relatively calm public assessment of his wife\u2019s life of great account, and only then, the bitter tears of personal loss and bereavement. \u201cWhy this reversal?\u201d, asks the author of HaKsav V\u2019HaKabbalah, <\/em>the rabbi of the town of Koenigsburg.<\/p>\nHis answer is a profoundly religious one. Avraham, he correctly assumes, faithfully believed that \u201cthe righteous in their death are greater than in their lifetimes.\u201d (Chulin<\/em> 7b) His priority was to convey Sarah\u2019s life of piety, compassion, and achievement to a wide audience. That was and remains the purpose of a eulogy in Jewish tradition. It is an assertion of the valuable life that the deceased lived and not primarily an expression of grief.<\/p>\nOnly after the eulogy accomplished its mission did Avraham allow himself a tear or two, and perhaps, suggests Rav Mecklenburg, that is why the letter \u201ckaf\u201d in the word \u201cto weep for her\u201d\/v\u2019livkosa<\/em> is reduced in size in the Torah scroll. <\/p>\nRav Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, the Dean of Volozhin, the \u201cmother of all yeshivos<\/em>\u201d, and author of Haamek Davar<\/em>, has yet another approach to our concern. He sees the \u201ctears\u201d as the mourner\u2019s expression of his or her own reaction to the loss of a loved one, and the \u201ceulogy\u201d as a kind of biography of the deceased for the benefit of those who did not know much about the person who just died.<\/p>\nAvraham did not \u201close\u201d Sarah when she passed away. She left behind a son, a heritage, a model of a way of life. His tears were thus secondary to the educational message that he felt he needed to convey and that he knew that Sarah would have wanted him to continue to propagate. <\/p>\n
Sarah, although no longer among the living, is nevertheless a \u201cperson in this parsha<\/em>\u201d. She plays a vital role even after her demise. She is still \u201cpresent\u201d for Avraham, for his very wide and diverse audience, and for her beloved son Isaac, who attributes the joy he experiences with his new wife to the fact that she reminds him of his mother!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Weinreb_Tzvi.jpg\")