Bereshit Rabbah 40, Part One: The Beauty of Sarah and the Attributes

Good evening, everyone; I will begin. We already saw these midrashim now on your screen during the last lecture. We can go back over the general ideas — namely, that however much we set out on the path of this providence of G-d that accompanies us and always enjoins us to direct our steps toward the Promised Land, because that is the source of blessing for the whole Jewish people on every level (there is no need to go back over the nature of these blessings) — let no one be deceived: choosing to walk with G-d, before G-d, does not mean that we are going to have a life of ease. The problems inherent in other societies, in humanity as a whole, remain fully in force for the whole Jewish people.

What changes, then? What changes is the quality of being — the being that knows no death and continues to live beyond the physical death of the person. This is what we call Olam Haba, the World to Come. For through the path we have traced for ourselves through the Torah and the practice of the mitzvot, we have acquired a portion of the infinite — a portion of the infinite that is limited in this world, because we remain human. So too the divine Presence: when it manifests itself here below, it must contract itself. And we no longer know it; we reveal it only through its attributes. There is no use seeking to know G-d; we cannot.

Nor is there any use seeking to uncover His ways; that is beyond our reach. But our encounter with G-d, on the other hand, takes place through the attributes of G-d. Just as He is merciful, it is ours to be merciful; just as He is truth, it is ours to be truthful; just as He is justice, it is ours to be just, and so on. In other words, the microcosm of the divine dwells in man through the attributes of G-d, and this is what makes the difference between havayah — havayah, which is being — and existence. Existence, that is, the natural life of the creature, which we share with the whole human race — I would even say with the whole world of the living.

And because of this, the tribulations we will have to face will be much harder, precisely because of the quality of life, the attributes, that we have set for ourselves. A life is worth only as much as its attributes. When it has none, it is condemned to dissolve into the sand, into the earth, into the pyramids of every civilization. If the Jewish people has defied history to this day, it is because at no moment did it lay down its arms, at no moment did it yield to despair, and it has confronted — just as it has forged — its own reality from its very creation. For we must not forget that the Jewish being was forged in Egypt, in a foreign land. Why? Because it is unthinkable to conceive of the Jewish people withdrawn behind its borders, in a tiny state cut off from the rest of the world; on its own, it would no longer have any reason to exist.

It is a kingdom of priests, a kingdom of educators, and it is as such that it must forge its identity in a foreign land, within a foreign civilization. Egypt is the empire at the summit of the culture of its age, and it is there that the Jewish people forges its identity. We are no strangers to that culture, we do not reject it; we take everything that can serve the dignity of man and everything that can truly become a shared good, at a high level, for all of humanity. It is also on this account that the first liberator of the Jewish people grew up in Egypt, far from his own roots, from his family. You remember how he is described: ish Mitzri, “an Egyptian man” — and whenever we see the word ish, it is always a title of nobility: an Egyptian nobleman. And this Egyptian nobleman, raised in Pharaoh’s palace, is the one who will one day go out in search of his own identity: is it to be found in Egyptian culture, within the Egyptian people, or among his brothers, his family? In the end he was disappointed by both the one and the other. There is no need to remind you of the story: at first he sided with his roots, when he saw an Egyptian nobleman mistreating a Jewish nobleman — so this was a persecution at a high intellectual and spiritual level, and not merely a physical one — and he decided to take the side of the man who was being persecuted, the Jewish nobleman. But the very next day, as soon as he has made his choice, he is jeered by the Jew whom he tries to separate from a quarrel, who denounces him by saying, “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” And he is forced to flee and take refuge in Midian. And Midian, mind you, is the son of Keturah — that is, of Avraham’s wife Hagar, who found another identity more worthy of her, and whom Avraham took back after the death of Sarah, and who bore him Midian. Now Midian possessed the whole tradition; it was the sixth generation, and he had the entire tradition of Avraham. And when we speak of tradition, be careful: the book of Bereshit is not a book of mitzvot, it is not a book of Torah in that sense. It was called Sefer HaYashar, the Book of the Upright — that is, the book of right conduct, of knowing how to be. And that is what our Avot, our Patriarchs, bequeathed to us as our inheritance; onto this book of right conduct the mitzvot of the Torah are grafted. So the vessel that will shape the spirit of the Jewish people and make it receptive to the values of the Torah is, first of all, right conduct. To conceive of a Torah without right conduct is avodah zarah, idolatry, because we have in effect transformed the spiritual, the spirit of holiness — we have simply confined it within laws that are always very easy to keep. You know, putting on tefillin commits you to nothing.

Putting a mezuzah on the door of one’s house commits you to nothing. Even eating kosher — for a few shekels or euros more, we will eat kosher. And that is that. But what are we in the depths of ourselves? It is not the mezuzah that will realize our being; nor is it the tefillin. The tefillin will give content to this right conduct. The mezuzah will give a direction to our house, to our dwelling, and so on. The laws of kashrut will likewise predispose our mind to a state of purity — but that is all. And it is much harder to master one’s anger than to wear tefillin. Do you agree with me? Well then — if our sages said, “Whoever becomes angry is as though he worshipped idols,” as though he served an idol, a worship foreign to himself, it is because they understood that, in the end, what they did not say of the other mitzvot, they said of an attribute such as anger.

This does not mean that one must remain indifferent to everything, and we will have occasion to speak of that. So, to return to our parashah: immediately after G-d’s promises, we are thrust into Egypt — and it must be said with a touch of irony — on account of a famine. But this famine… there are ten famines, as we have said, programmed along our itinerary through history, which in principle ought to express this unquenched thirst for knowledge. In the same way that man scatters in time of famine to find the food he needs to survive physically, so too he must go into exile to seek the spiritual nourishment he lacks — whether thirst for water or hunger for bread, here it must be understood on another level. And that is why we are — why we must — go down to Egypt, lagur sham, “to sojourn there,” and take on the condition of the ger.

Ger, that is, living as a stranger. This is what our ancestors did for many years, with a foreign residence card in various countries, before obtaining the right to recognized residence in their host country. But that recognized residence — as in Egypt, for that matter — set in motion a movement of hitbolelut, of assimilation; that too is part of the program. So Avram goes down to Egypt. It is a descent that he makes into Egypt. And we should not wonder at the fact that, if we are ultimately under G-d’s protection, we ought to be spared all miseries and all misfortunes. No — quite the contrary. This is the problem raised ever since the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people, and ever since G-d’s revelation to Avraham, before there was any giving of the Torah: namely, the descent into Egypt, exile. And what is said? What is the verse, the scriptural support? Hinneh ein Hashem el yere’av — “Behold, the eye of G-d is upon those who fear Him,” upon those who await His kindness. Those who fear Him: a man whose fear of G-d has been tested and is attested by G-d Himself.

Paradoxically — through the trial of the sacrifice, let us say — paradoxically, lamyachalim lechasdo, “to those who wait for His kindness”: he was always waiting for His kindness, and indeed G-d answered; He kept His promise. Lehatzil mimavet nafsham — “to save their soul from death”: at no moment did He let them perish. He always saved them from the throes of death — from the rebels against G-d, such as Nimrod was. And likewise ulechayotam bara’av, “and to keep them alive in famine”: survival is given them, assured them, even in time of famine. So, in short — I will pause this development here and continue it later — ulechayotam bara’av: He gave them, He assured them their bread in time of famine, and we have already explained what this was, what the nature of this famine was. And therefore, therefore: happy is the man whom G-d puts to the test.

If you would scroll the text down a little, so that I can find my place. “What You wrote concerning Avraham — from Your Torah You have taught it to us.” From Your Torah You instruct him. What did You write concerning Avraham? What was written concerning Avraham is […] “and I will make your name great” — that is what was written. […] But Avraham trusted G-d, and even in time of famine he did not complain. He voiced no criticism whatsoever. So we will pass over this number of famines that have marked the whole itinerary of the people of Israel.

I speak of the whole itinerary because we live in cycles. The cycle of the Written Torah and the cycle of the Oral Torah are nothing but cycles that unfold in time the first cycle of history. That is, the cycle of the Written Law will be developed by that of the Oral Law. The cycle of the Oral Law will be codified by that of the Zohar, and that of the Zohar will afterwards be translated into another form of thought, through the language and the developments of the rabbis: Rashi, the Tosafot and all the rabbis. And there are the slices of history — whether the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or our own time today.

So these are layers of history laid one upon another, but each, according to its time, reveals its own light. And that is why one cannot remain glued to the text, to its literalness. One must always extrapolate. One must go beyond the limits of the text, because this text is, in a sense, bound to the language of a given era, and it must be given its present substance — and that is what we always try to do when our reasoning succeeds: to give it its vitality. And this is what is meant to take place in the various exiles — Egypt first and foremost, because Egypt is the exile that encompasses all exiles. And we speak of yetziat Mitzrayim — we have spoken of yetziat Mitzrayim — we speak of the Exodus from Egypt.

But when we speak of the Exodus from Egypt, we take it to mean the people’s departure from Egypt. That is wrong. The meaning of yetziat Mitzrayim is to bring Egypt out of its slavery, out of its dependence; it is to raise Egypt to another stage of thought, to another stage of existence. This is what Avraham tries to do in a miniature setting, what the children of Israel will do on a broader plane, and what we will go on doing — and that is why we continue to celebrate the Exodus from Egypt. You know very well that there are fifty mentions of the Exodus from Egypt in the Bible, quite simply because the fiftieth mention is the anniversary, the jubilee — the one that gathers the whole body of the universe and brings it back to its Creator, returns it, in a sense, to its Creator. That is the Jubilee year.

So this is the first stage marked out for Avraham. Namely: be careful — the fact that you are today chosen from among the nations does not mean that you are going to separate yourself from them entirely. On the contrary, your responsibility is engaged in what they represent, and you can fully forge your being only through them. And that is why even the Messiah will have — must have — a foreign origin; but at no moment will one people be exchanged for another. For that is what Moshe tried when he withdrew to Midian. He said to himself, in effect: in the end I cannot live here — I don’t feel at home in Europe, or I don’t feel at home in my own country; I’ll go to Israel — but I don’t feel at home in Israel either; so I’ll look for another corner, another people, and there I will be able to fulfill myself completely.

The Holy One, blessed be He, tells him: No, you must go back — you must go back to your community. “I have seen the poverty of My people that is in Egypt.” The poverty of My people comes from the fact that it could not bear the exile in its entirety, so that the exile has at times eroded its moral reality. It made it lose its function, its calling in the world. But things must be set right. One must go in order to set things right. One does not leave the Jewish people to identify with another culture because one has been disappointed. There may be logical reasons for that disappointment, but in spite of everything one must hold on — just as the Creator holds on to His people.

So what is going to happen in Egypt? I point out that I am now in Midrash Rabbah, chapter 40, section 4, when Avraham draws near to Egypt. This is the first dialogue between Avraham and Sarah; until then — dialogue, or rather monologue — Avraham has not addressed a single word to Sarah in the text. But as he approaches the border of Egypt, he says to her, “Now I know that you are a woman beautiful to look upon.” Beautiful to look upon. Now we have, for our part, two attributes: veRachel hayetah yefat to’ar vifat mar’eh — “and Rachel was beautiful of form and beautiful to look upon.” Yefat to’ar: she is beautiful in her attributes. Vifat mar’eh: she is beautiful in physical appearance. Now, this one is a beauty. Let us not forget that we are speaking of a woman of ninety.

To perceive a beauty that has not withered at the age of ninety — well, let us not exaggerate. But we can say that despite all the setbacks, all the tribulations she had known in her life, these did not affect her unduly. She remained serene, her face radiant; but above all she is a woman […]. That is where we begin. Beauty is judged by the attributes of the being. Indeed, in the daily morning prayer we enumerate the attributes of G-d, because we bring them down to human attributes, to our own conception, our own vision of things, our own projection onto Him. And we say: emet veyatziv venachon vekayam veyashar vene’eman ve’ahuv vechaviv venechmad vena’im venora ve’adir — “true and firm, established and enduring, upright and faithful, beloved and cherished, delightful and pleasant, awesome and mighty…” In any case, we enumerate fifteen attributes, and at the summit of these attributes there is beauty.

Who speaks of beauty? The Holy One, blessed be He, among the attributes. At the summit we found veyafeh, “and beautiful.” Well, yes: yofi, beauty, is the coordination of all the attributes, because each attribute taken separately could indeed leave room for some other failing, some defect or other. So no — veyafeh is that which harmoniously unites all the attributes, and that is the yofi we are speaking of. Whoever would say there is no Jewish art — it is there first of all: it lies in the attributes of being. And the one who embodies them — here we must say she who embodies them — is the feminine, because she has this capacity to give life. Em kol chai, the mother of all life, of every living being: that is how she is defined.

And if she can give life, then she unites within herself this work of an artist. That is why this definition is conferred first and foremost on the feminine — on the feminine, which is granted four further attributes in its horizontal relationship. For the relationship of the attributes is a vertical one, whereas the relationship to the other is a horizontal one. The feminine is defined first as a sister; then ra’ayati, as a companion. Now, ra’ayati does not simply mean companion. There is a great deal more in ra’ayah: there is ro’eh, shepherd — she is my shepherd. And then yonati, my dove — the one who gives me serenity in life, she is the source of my serenity in life. And at the summit she is tammati. Tammati we tend to translate as “my pure one,” which might not mean anything; but one must…

It would be better, then, to take its synonym, te’omati, my twin — at an advanced age. It is the relationship lived with the feminine when one did not have the opportunity, or the good fortune, to feel it already in the early years, when one was younger. So then: achoti, “my sister,” is a love in which any physical relationship is forbidden — it would be incestuous. Well, this relationship exists in the life of the couple, where the wife becomes achot, she is my sister. And then ra’ayati: she is the one without whom I can undertake nothing. Of course I could succeed at many things without her, but it would have no meaning, no purpose — for the sake of what? The finality — as in the creation of the feminine: zot hapa’am etzem me’atzamai uvasar mibesari, “this time, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” This is the first declaration of man once he begins to speak, once he has the faculty of speech — because G-d breathed the spirit into him. Yet we have not heard him speak until then; we hear him when he goes out to meet his feminine counterpart and says this. One must not translate it, either, by confining it to its literal sense; one must give it life. And so now, if he takes on any work at all, if he spends himself, if he wants at all costs to succeed, it is first of all to deserve his feminine, to win her.

That is ra’ayati. Tammati is the one who indeed restrains my excesses. Purity is what puts a brake on all vulgar familiarity, on all vulgarity within familiarity. […] We have just expressed it; we have just translated it. But te’omati is the one who, indeed, becomes my mirror before the whole world. So let us return to our text. When he goes into exile in Egypt, he says: we are going, we are making our way into a country where things are judged, valued, appreciated only by their outward appearance, by their surface, by their usefulness. Now, you have never been that to me; but now, in the society in which we are landing, you are indeed going to be an object of covetousness — you are going to become an object of covetousness. And yes, Jewish values have been an object of covetousness within humanity, more for their outer wrapping than for their inner demands.

[The sound is back? Yes.] Everything that belongs to outward appearance ends up wearing thin over time and becoming contemptible. It is puerile. This outward beauty is bound to wrinkle, to lose its luster; but the beauty that remains the reflection of inner values — amdah beyofyah, she stood firm in her beauty — holds its ground against all the setbacks of life, all the trials of life. And so Rabbi Azariah, in the name of Rabbi Simon, said: we have gone round all of Aram — we have been through Aram Naharayim and Aram Nachor — velo matzanu ishah na’ah kemotekh, “and we have not found a woman as na’ah as you.” Na’ah — it is not “beautiful,” it is “pleasing”; that is the difference. I was saying a moment ago that beauty is what coordinates all the nuances, all the movements; it is the art of gathering into a marvelous sheaf this whole range of colors and values — and that is precisely what is pleasing.

So we have not found such a woman. The others have — of course there is a Miss Aram Naharayim, there is a Miss Aram Nachor. Beauties of that kind, outward beauties — there is no need to claim that Sarah, at ninety, was out there outshining all the young women of Aram Naharayim. Rather, we are speaking of culture — the culture of Aram Naharayim, the culture of Aram Nachor. These cultures are valid; they are not worthless, they are not devoid of meaning or foundation, they are not contemptible. But you, by your values, you reign supreme. And each time we enter [a new place], what do we say — what does it say?

You are going to call the text racist. “Now that we are entering a place” — what does it say? — “of people who are black and ugly,” as though there were no black beauty. Imri na achoti at, “say, please, that you are my sister.” Yes — but let me set aside at once any wrong interpretation of this word ke’urim, “ugly.” First of all, you see in it the word iver, “blind.” Blindness is when one sees only one color, only one direction, only one meaning — when one does not seek to gather into sheaves all the flowers scattered across the field, to bring them together and make a beautiful composition. So ke’urim […]; and shechorim […]. You know very well what the difference is between black and white — what is the difference? There is no difference: white is all the colors in motion, and black is all the colors in a state of inertia.

Set all the colors in motion and you have white; in a state of inertia, you have black. So give meaning to your tallit, from today on, where white and black do indeed appear on the garment we wear. It is true that we cannot banish black from our [lives] — sometimes we have to mourn certain things — and black represents this inertia; that is why it is the color chosen to express mourning. But white is this constant transformation: when you present a child for the milah, when the bride stands beneath the chuppah. That is a transformation, that is movement — the movement of a being who changes its spiritual reality and even its physical reality. So shechorim here, the black ones, are those who see everything from the standpoint of death; and because they see everything from the standpoint of death, of inertia, what is their motto? Let us eat and drink, let us give ourselves over to the pleasures of life, since in any case we are going to die, we are destined to die. So we might as well have a blast, might as well enjoy life. That is it. We are going to steep ourselves in a civilization which indeed holds a cult of death — and which will, moreover, distinguish itself by its pyramids.

So, be careful: imri na achoti at — I will come back to this text next time. Imri na achoti at. If you have questions to ask […]. Is that possible, Rav? Yes. I actually had three questions. First, I did not quite understand the connection between harmony — you spoke to us about the woman and about yofi, about harmony — and her power of creation. If we speak of harmony as the whole of the colors that come together, that gather, it is something inward in the woman. Creation is something outward, so I don’t quite see… I will put my three questions to you and then let you speak. And since I did not quite understand what was special about Egyptian society that made it the right place to forge the Jewish people — what was actually special about the Egyptians? What did we have to take from the Egyptians? — I don’t know how to turn up the volume so I can hear better. — Sorry, I’ll try to speak more clearly. The second thing I wanted to know concerns Egypt: what was there in Egypt that made it the suitable place to forge the Jewish people?

Why did the Jewish people need the Egyptian people in order to be forged, and not some other people? It seemed to be a very materialistic people. Why… — Well, as I told you, Egypt was first defined as a crucible, kur habarzel, the iron crucible. That is, it is Egypt that succeeded in melting down many cultures within itself, and that also sought to melt Jewish identity into its own culture. And that is why, as a land, it takes on the feminine, which is the image of fertility and childbearing, of creation. And Mitzrayim should be understood as an entity of all the nations merged together. Yes — and that is also why it begins with a mem and ends with a mem: to tell you that Egyptian culture is the culture that sees itself as the protagonist of the messianism of all humanity. And it is as the representative of all the nations that the Jewish people is called to be forged, to forge its identity in Egypt, and to go out of Egypt and give Egypt its first movement of independence — that is, the abolition of slavery in Egypt; a multitude of slaves went out of Egypt with the Jewish people. That was the mission of the Jewish people in Egypt. And therefore it was not to go out — it was to be formed only in Egypt, in order truly to carry out its first messianic trajectory: to bring Egypt out of slavery.

That is the first idea. You spoke of the feminine. The feminine — indeed, since man is the composite of the whole of creation, he integrates within himself all the characteristics of the whole of creation; but the masculine is incapable of reproducing them on its own. It is the feminine that is entrusted with this bringing forth, with this creation. And so, in the same way that the Holy One, blessed be He, placed a rainbow within His creation to remind Noah that the world will not be destroyed again — because of what I would call the losses of substance, of the generations — and that the world will endure, that there is a covenant with the world: well, how does G-d represent this? In this rainbow, in this beauty, in this harmony. There is a harmonious whole that must be neither underestimated nor debased. And the feminine, by giving life to this sample of the masculine and the feminine, is em kol chai; she is the matrix of all this beauty. Is that all right? — By being the matrix, in fact, she forms the harmony of the creation of man, of the artist.

— No? — Yes: the woman and the harmony of man. The woman’s mentality gives harmony to the world, in fact. In that she is harmonious, I understand. — Tell me, do you have a problem with the woman giving harmony to man? — Sorry? — Is there a problem at that level? Yes — you don’t acknowledge that she can ultimately give this harmonious image to the whole of creation, as she does to the home? — I think it is complementarity that creates harmony, no? — We are indeed speaking of ishah. And it must be said: we have learned that Yerushalayimah, with the final heh, is Jerusalem in its finality. And ishah, with the heh at the end, is man in his finality.

— In any case, Mr. Benizri, hello, this is Nathaniel. I want to thank you for this wonderful tribute to the feminine. — Please, bear in mind my age, and speak up. — Mr. Benizri, this is Nathaniel, and I want to thank you, in any case, for this magnificent tribute to the feminine — which all your lectures are, in general, for you never cease to pay tribute to the feminine, and for that alone your lectures are a marvel and a blessing. Mr. Benizri, I have a question — can you hear me? — You should know one thing: I only ever teach what I believe in, what I truly try to integrate into my life; these are the values that have marked every stage of my life. And when I tell you something, it is certainly not to please the audience, or to give an inflated picture of what the Torah says.

That is it: these are the teachings that build the spirit of man. It is true that we do not at every moment make ourselves worthy of these teachings, nor manage to measure up to their demands. But as I said, we are not shechorim, we are not “black”: we are in perpetual motion. So we try to reach that. And this holds as much for man as for woman. Of course — Gaëlle has a question. My little sister Gaëlle has a question. — Yes, I wanted to know how it could be that G-d allowed this incestuous relationship between Avraham and Sarah. — I will tell you: it is incestuous only insofar as it becomes an uninterrupted pleasure of the flesh. And this truce that G-d established in the life of the couple, in which for nearly two weeks out of a month the couple lives a relationship of ach and achot, of brother and sister — this gives their love a dimension other than the carnal one, or even, I would say, the utilitarian one. That is it: it is to integrate the notion of a pure love in its true dimension, which the couple is obliged to insert, if you like, into its love.

— Yes, but it is something very different for a man and a woman to regard each other morally as brother and sister; here it is Avraham and Sarah — it is a very concrete incestuous relationship. — The term “incestuous” is perhaps very harsh; but the notion is that imri na achoti at — we will indeed see to it; I will look at it next week, with G-d’s help — because it says: emor lachochmah achoti at, “say to wisdom, you are my sister.” — But it is a reality, since Sarah is Avraham’s half-sister; I no longer remember what you said. — And now: “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for?” Well, I will have occasion to come back to this question. — All right, thank you very much, Mr. Benizri. — Thank you. — Thank you very much. — There we are. Thank you very much.

I’ll leave you. Until next week. — Until next week. — May G-d bless you. — Amen. — There we are: as I told you, I am putting the little card back up for you; the House of Jewish Culture needs your support, so everything is written on it. Many thanks once again to Mr. Benizri, and to Manu too, for this wonderful evening. Thank you, good evening to all. — How are your parents? — Very well; they received their vaccine three weeks ago. Tomorrow they will get the second dose. — Very good. Well, good evening, everyone. — Good evening. — Good evening to all. — Good evening… — Bye, we’ll leave it there. Bye, Manu. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye to all.

Ciao. Bye, Manu; goodbye, everyone. Goodbye to all. Ciao.