Chayei Sarah — The Family of Avraham

…and which concludes the parasha of Vayera, namely the birth of Rivkah within her family. “And it came to pass after these things” — this refers to the akedah (the binding of Yitzchak), which we explained and whose theme we touched on somewhat last week. “And it was told to Avraham”: Avraham is informed, as though he had not been informed before. Behold, Milkah too was granted this miracle of giving birth at ninety, as was the case with Sarah, and she bore children despite the barrenness that struck this family of Avraham. “Terach, the father of Avraham and the father of Nachor.” Terach is the father of Avraham, the father of Nachor, but also the father of Haran. There are three brothers who, in the end, suffer from this emergence of faith in the unity of G-d — Hashem Echad, the One — not a G-d reduced solely to His role as creator, but One who reveals Himself through man.

And this One, as we have already explained, encompasses all beliefs, all divinities, as the text puts it: Elohei ha-elohim, the G-d of gods, the divinity of divinities. The world is not ready to embrace this faith, and we know very well what followed in Avraham’s struggle against the idolatrous practices of his time: he lived through a Shoah in miniature, that is, the crematory furnace. But he did not perish for all that. He survives it, because in truth man cannot be reduced to the physical matter of which he is made. The ideal he carries within him outlives him and is never destined to die. It does not know death.

It is otherwise with Haran, his brother, who in truth did not live it from within but from without. And this, unfortunately, is something we very often do: we plagiarize, we copy those around us, in our practice of the mitzvot (commandments) as in our study. We do not give our soul the opportunity to assert itself, to create, to bring forth its true substance, which is indispensable to the development of the universe. And so Haran indeed died, passing through the furnace of Ur Kasdim. He did not survive. A spiritual life is not copied; it is created. It is personal. It is what carries a person. So Haran disappeared. There were three brothers, as we said. Nachor too is a brother of Avraham, and he is somewhat stirred by this spiritual dream of Avraham’s.

“Terach, the father of Avraham and the father of Nachor”: Terach is the father of both. Why does the Torah insist on saying so? Because the question is how to interpret this appearance of Avraham in a universe of gods. We know very well that history passed through three men. First Adam, who had a passive role: “to work it and to guard it” — he was to guard the Garden of Eden while working it. And he, as it happened, felt the need to make himself useful, to create, to understand by himself, to fulfill himself by himself; but he did not respect the instructions, and he was driven out of that world of perfection in which he was meant to […]. Then comes Noach, ten generations later, of whom it is said that he is tzaddik yesod olam, “the righteous one, foundation of the world.”

He is righteous because he is yesod olam, the foundation of the world: he is the foundation of the universe, the foundation of humanity. But he does not content himself with taking life as it comes. No — he will become ben brito shel HaKadosh Baruch Hu, a partner in the covenant of the Holy One, blessed be He, a partner in the making of this world. And it is in this capacity that he lives in a miniature universe, the ark, where he orders the life of all, while the flood strikes the entire universe. But he takes it upon himself, with the Holy One, blessed be He, his Creator, to give this world, this universe, a new face. In nature this will be the covenant attested by the rainbow.

And Noach will indeed be noach — pleasing — pleasing to Heaven, pleasing to creatures, in this world and in the World to Come, as his name indicates. He too has three children, but he formed these three children so independently of one another that he could not fuse them into one, and this was noticed only later. That is why, regarding Noach, there are those who see him as a truly extraordinary being, a tzaddik: the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to him and says, “For you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation” — you are the one I have seen to be righteous, who walks straight before Me, with Me, in this world. But at the end of his life, he becomes the man of the soil.

He is seized by pride at having escaped the flood. And in the end he is able, having become the man of G-d’s covenant, to restructure the whole universe. As “the man of the soil,” he will lift the curse from the earth by giving humanity the plough, to till it, sow it and make it sprout. And ten more generations must pass before Avraham appears. But Avraham is the one who does not limit himself to living with the Creator, to making his covenant with the Creator; he is the one who, through man, will reveal the Creator. That is why Avraham, as we shall see, engaged the Holy One, blessed be He, in serious discourse concerning Sodom, over justice and mishpat (judgment): “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?”

He even seeks to save the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, of whom the Torah says, “And the people of Sodom were wicked and sinful,” declaring them great sinners. But after all, they are divine creatures. They are not entirely responsible for it. A way must be found to save them. And we know very well that even if his prayer and his intervention were not answered, nevertheless [King David] sprang from its roots, as he himself attests. And now, after the akedah, Avraham is seized with remorse. At the time of the akedah, Yitzchak was thirty-seven years old. And Avraham said to himself: I did not want to take the daughters of Aner, Eshkol and Mamre

for my son. I should have done so. And now, had this indeed come to pass — had Yitzchak ended his life [on the altar], judged on the plane of justice, on the plane of strict rigor — I would have lost him, and all would have been lost. Why did I not do it beforehand? Then the tidings come: know that if these things were not done, it is because it was not the time; they were not meant to happen that way. Behold, Nachor is counted among these men who have children, and now he has a daughter. And this daughter is Rivkah. You know that the move of Avraham’s family from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan was first begun by Terach. He wanted to reach the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran.

They stopped at Haran. One does not want to create an entity, a small Jewish entity that will undertake to carry out great projects. It seems scarcely conceivable that a tiny family could shine its light upon all of humanity. Better, it would seem, to remain attached to a great power, to a great civilization, and through that civilization to begin spreading this conception of Avraham’s spirituality along various lines, by way of education, for a revolution from within. But we know very well what became of it: those who did not make the leap to Canaan, in the movement of lech lecha (“go forth”), were condemned to disappear through the scourge of assimilation. It was these great movements that swallowed up Avraham’s ideals and reduced them to nothing.

So much so that, as for Avraham’s [other] children, they take what they can, but the core must be preserved in its purity. To let it go is to alienate it through concessions here and there. It was Avraham who fulfilled the lech lecha. But within the family of Nachor, which had sunk into tum’ah, into utter impurity, there is a little girl, a seed of kedushah (holiness), and that seed is Rivkah. Rivkah, the daughter of Betuel the Aramean. Betuel became an Aramean, although his origin was Hebrew; he lost it, he lost it and adopted other beliefs. But Rivkah is a seed that remained in its purity.

And on this our Sages said: before the sun of one sets, the Holy One, blessed be He, causes the sun of another to rise. Before a tzaddik passes away, He provides for that loss to be taken up by another tzaddik. The midrash sets out many examples, notably that of Yehoshua and Moshe. And how does this come about? There are two beautiful explanations. The first is that the deeds we perform, the positive deeds we perform, are not lost in nature. They do not benefit only the one for whom they were done. They spread their capacity, their force, throughout the whole of creation, throughout humanity itself. And therefore the akedah of Yitzchak, through the holiness it generated, caused an exceptional being to be born somewhere in the family of Nachor — Rivkah — who was entirely opposed to the outlook of her whole family. For there is one thing that must not be lost sight of.

When we examine the number of children born to Nachor, the children born to Yaakov, the children born to Yishmael, we find, strikingly, always this number twelve, on which the months of the year are structured, and which also structures the world of space through its edges — with the possibility of a thirteenth child, who is feminine. In the family of Nachor it is [Rivkah]; in the family of Yaakov, it is Dinah. And this feminine element is malchut, royalty, because it is she who “stands a man on his feet,” she who gives a man stability — the woman. This is how our Sages taught it to us. She has the art of forming the junction, the point of junction, between olam hazeh (this world) and olam haba (the World to Come).

She stands him on his feet. He cannot flee into mystical spheres; he will remain bound to the reality of this world as well. “He did not create it to be a void; He formed it to be inhabited.” The world was created to make the Divine Presence real on earth, to give real existence to that divine spirit which “hovered over the face of the waters.” It hovered over the surface of the water; now it will hover over the surface of man. It is man who will represent it; it is he who will be, as we said, the partner in G-d’s covenant — but a partner who secures the junction between the World to Come and this world. For that is what chayim, life, means: chayim is a dual form. There is not one life; there is a double life.

And if we must think of some transformation, it is the Machpelah — it too is double. It is in this world, and in this world it is an achuzat kever, a burial holding. It is what gives us ownership of the land. Yes: a dead man does not move, does not stir; he is there, he remains there. It is he who brings about this Chevron, this chibur (joining), this junction between this world and the World to Come. Then the second idea that the Or HaChaim develops: in the development of the world — however much one may say that the world is heading toward degeneration — the degeneration is only external; it is not internal. Kedushah does not break apart. Acts of holiness accumulate day after day, month after month, year after year, age after age.

And consequently, as we advance through the course of the six millennia, kedushah increases. Only the wicked scatter and disintegrate. […] Outwardly one may speak of degeneration, of yeridat ha-dorot (the decline of the generations); but inwardly there is aliyah, ascent — the Torah. And the Torah of two thousand years ago has only developed, and been realized ever more fully, through our generations; what could be better? Only, as this revelation of holiness grows great in G-d’s world, there are kelipot that seek to contain it — husks that seek to contain it — and this cannot be avoided.

That is what happened in the ordeal Avraham underwent. An enormous measure of holiness radiated through the world, but at the same time it roused all the rest of creation, which sought to oppose it. But that belongs to the world of […], which would like to reduce all of Judaism to a philosophy of life, a current of thought, nothing more — which is not what it is. And so he says that within this impurity there is an impasse that the world reaches; it is forced to reconsider its course. And within this very impurity there begin, indeed, to sprout gerim — converts, converts — those who convert this impurity into purity.

These are the ba’alei teshuvah (those who return) and […]. They are like stars lost in the universe, yet not truly lost, because they are recovered. And that is Rivkah. Rivkah could have been the mother of Yaakov’s twelve children, but she was not, because she knew that Esav first had to be cleared out of the world. Esav was not to come at the same time as the twelve tribes. No — he first had to depart. We know very well what the entities of Yishmael and Esav represent, who will join forces together: […] in its negative form. And Yitzchak and Rivkah are truly the ideal couple, the one through which the continuation truly begins, since “Rivkah loved Yaakov” — it is she who wholly adopted [Yaakov] and placed everything into his hands, even the royal cloak of Nimrod.

And as long as the voice is still the voice of Yaakov, the hand of Esav is powerless. All of this, everything I have just said, is what is suggested by these few verses that conclude the parasha of Vayera, since we are told “Milkah too” — so there was Milkah, and there was Yiskah. Yiskah was Sarah, Avraham’s wife; Milkah was Nachor’s wife. So what did she have, what did she bring forth? “Utz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram” — three children. “Utz his firstborn”: it is said that this is Iyov (Job), “there was a man in the land of Utz.” Buz his brother, Kemuel — all these names bear witness to a certain will to be independent of this conception of G-d held by Avraham: what is this house, what is this face, what is He, where is He?

And she gave birth to Rivkah. So there are twelve children here, plus Rivkah — the thirteenth. You know that there is a thirteenth month which establishes the balance between lunar years and solar years. And there it is. Moreover, there is an important point that […] notes: “The sun rises and the sun sets.” We said that this verse of Kohelet was applied by our Sages to the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, always provides in advance the one who will succeed whoever has completed his mission on earth. That is how the world moves forward. Each is charged with a mission different from the other’s. So all these children, twelve in number — eight with the lawful wife and four with the concubines — just as […], so there are still more names.

These are the forces of tum’ah opposing those of kedushah; and the world does not reach that point of no return, and it takes things up again, however deeply one may sink into the error one has made. When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create man, He cast truth to the ground. Our Sages asked why He cast truth and did not cast shalom, peace, so as to say that peace would sprout from the ground. No: truth — truth asserts itself on its own. With peace one can play games; one can pretend. But no: truth — “truth shall sprout from the earth” — it will make its mark.

As the verse says, this truth, the moment it touches the earth, people will recognize their errors. There is no longer any possibility of lying, no longer any possibility of deceiving. They will take themselves in hand and turn back. That is why it was truth that He cast to the ground. And now this verse [of the sun], as I said, applied — it applies more to the woman, not to the men, not to Avraham. Why only here, with Rivkah, who comes to bring consolation for the passing of Sarah? She is foreseen as such; this is the feminine, because the feminine represents malchut, represents a final stage in the unfolding. For you know, we always speak of ten sefirot, but when we count them properly, starting from the Ein Sof and Da’at, we arrive there too at twelve and thirteen: when the Ein Sof is added, when it is placed in the count, then there too we have malchut [as the thirteenth] — and malchut is the feminine. That is why “the sun rises and the sun sets” applies only to the Imahot (the Matriarchs). The Matriarchs did not know one another before: Sarah did not know Rivkah, and Rivkah did not know Rachel and Leah.

Whereas the Avot (the Patriarchs) probably lived some years together — Avraham and Yaakov, a little. So at this point we arrive at […]. To live without land is to live uprooted. […] Certainly the land served man, but it gives him this notion of independence. And that is why the very first command came to Avraham: it concerns the land — it is with the land that everything begins. “To the land that I will show you”: I will show you your true face, I will reveal you to yourself. And the feminine […] is truly the embodiment of this world together with a covenant, […] which is the link with the World to Come and with this world.

This world and the World to Come are [joined], and this is […] through the transformation of matter. The transformation of matter takes things in their raw state and gives them consistency, reality, vitality. […] That is the reason why […] life — here the name of the parasha is Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” while we are speaking of Sarah’s death. But no: the death of Sarah is what sealed the lech lecha, because now he has an achuzat kever, a burial holding — he has a property in the land. The Cave of the Machpelah will indeed be the point of reference and the contract, the title deed of the Land of Israel for the descendants of Avraham.

So this life, Chayei Sarah, this life of a princess: “a hundred years and twenty years and seven years — the years of the life of Sarah.” One can translate […], because it follows a perfect progression. There is no rupture, no tear […]. There are ages, days, perfect beings, righteous beings. […] days of success, like a […] of perfume. It is wonderful. But each […] has a new value. It is not only material, not only spiritual; it is generally both at once. But take note: these are years that one can compress.

And of course, think of it in the same way as a piece of work: one does not […] a project; one invests many hours, much energy, until one brings it to completion — it depends on the project. One project takes two years, three years, four years, and another, of course, less. But when one miniaturizes this project in its reality, it is seven years, it is twenty years — yet it is a work of a hundred years, the fruit that one has drawn from […]. […] And that is why it is the only time since the creation […] that the Torah has recounted a person’s life so completely, in detail, in detail.

[…] “a hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years” […]. At the age of a hundred she was ki-vat esrim, like a woman of twenty […]; and at twenty she was […] as in her early childhood […]. Well, and in the same vein, one can read it in reverse. Yes? So: “to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her” — the death of Sarah. We know very well […]: death has no [final hold]. In reality, what we weep for in death is the void it leaves for those who surrounded the person, for those who had grown used to him, for those who benefited from all his experience.

But the substance of every being does indeed return to its original nature […]: fire [to fire], dust returns to dust, the waters to their original waters too, and the spirit to [the spirit]. There are four elements that make up [a person], and there are also four stages in the development of a person, the last of which encompasses the whole in a single ensemble. So death — there is none; there is no final death, no total disintegration. And that is why there is, in the end, a possibility of techiyat ha-metim (the resurrection of the dead). And the thirteenth principle of faith is to believe in the resurrection of the dead.

For the kever, the grave, […] lies at the heart of the disintegration of the four constituents of life; and it is the place where a new combination of life is forged and formed, at a higher level — and this independently of what is accomplished by the children and grandchildren, who surround all [that their parents left] with respect and seek to enhance it. So this Kiryat Arba, this city of the four — it is not by chance that Chevron also bears the name Kiryat Arba. It is not incidentally Chevron: it is the place that has the art of binding them together, of composing them. […] many disputes, the Arabs and the Christians.

It is the first […]: until now we had not seen […]. We came to know his wife when she went down to Egypt with Avraham: “Say, please, that you are my sister.” We witnessed this expression, by Avraham, of Sarah’s beauty — a beauty that time had not [worn away], for she remained herself. Now you know very well: what is beautiful […] through the exterior […]; it is the interior […] that you clothe […]. But here it is entirely the interior. It is Sarah […]. So, “to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her”: “to eulogize” — to speak her praise.

But […] and weeping […] the eulogy […]. It is the homage […]. It is rather about the importance of what she accomplished in life. And he wept — and one weeps more, and […] asks us to weep, in solidarity, for those who die at the front and who, day after day, sacrifice their lives for peace, for peace, for peace — these holy ones, these holy beings; and so it is. But when a person has already […], she has already been wept for, insofar as her life was positive and precious. It is wonderful […]. The text did not overlook this small kaf in ve-livkotah (“and to weep for her”).

There is a small kaf. You know that there are three sizes [of letters] in the Sefer Torah. There are what are called the large letters, such as the bet of Bereshit. There is, for example, the small heh of be-hibar’am (“when they were created”), and […]. There are miniature letters. And here there is ve-livkotah; here too there is a miniature kaf. A miniature kaf, and the text is saying: he wept, yes — she was wept for. She was wept for a little. It is hard to part […]. But after all, she had had a life. We will continue this chapter, if you wish, next week, at the end of the week, and we will begin the marriage […].