Chaye Sarah

Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild

POLSKĄ WERSJĘ For Beit Warszawa, 22nd. November 2019 – This sidra has a particularly personal message for me at present, as it commences with the death of an elderly matriarch and the preparations that need to be made for her burial – and my own mother is approaching her own end, slowly and with dignity. But this is a part of life and has to be accepted as such, however painful it may be. Poor Abraham – first he was told by God to leave his own father’s home in Chapter 12, now in Chapter 23 his wife of many years, indeed decades is leaving him. Later in Chapter 25 (verse 8) we will be told how Abraham dies and is ”gathered to his people” – there is no mention of being reunited with his wife! Nor of her being ”gathered to her people”. It is never quite clear what the Torah means about the concept of a life after death, or at least an existence after the earthly existence has ended. There are various odd references – starting with the way Hevel’s blood still screams from the ground after his killing. At the end of the Torah Moses, too, will be gathered to his ancestors, the irony here being that he was removed as a child from his natural family and so had little awareness of these ancestors. But sooner or later we all must go and the question then comes of: Where to? Who with? What will become of each of us? Will the relationships we had – of child to parent (or grandparent), of partner and spouse, of parent to child, of sibling to sibling – continue somehow? Will we still be recognisable as ‘We’, whatever that may mean, to those who knew us? There are those who go to the graves of famous rabbis and put their requests to them as though the fellows were neither retired nor deceased but still in office, still had their network of useful contacts…. and could still be approached. (Deceased rabbis are of course also cheaper and less troublesome than living ones!)

A week ago I officiated at the dedication of a tombstone for an old man who, unmarried and childless, died alone in Hamburg in 1942 at the age of 82 – he had fled there from his home town, a small place in Mecklenburg, due to the persecutions and deportations but all this meant was that he died alone in Hamburg rather than with other members of his community in Auschwitz. The move made in desperation did not bring him many more years, nor health nor happiness. Still, he had a grave in Hamburg – but one that was not marked, and so a group had decided to mark it with a stone, with his name, with a few bare details of his life story. It is a nice gesture, indeed it is a mitzvah although these people were not Jewish and therefore were under no obligation to perform a mitzvah – but one asks: Will this man ever know? Will he be aware that people gathered round his grave, where he has lain for over 70 years, will his bones hear the Kaddish being said, or his soul feel gratified? Will he feel better, now that he has not been forgotten? It is hard to say anything sensible or rational about such matters, for all is a matter of feeling, of what ‘feels right’.

For Abraham it ‘feels right’ that the corpse of his late wife should be laid to rest somewhere, somewhere secure, safe from wandering animals that might disturb the remains. Under the earth, or at least underground, in a cave. Strangely, although there have been many generations before now, many have been born and many have died, this is the first time that a funeral is mentioned. We never hear of Adam arranging a funeral for Chava, or either of them for their son. We know that one of Avram’s brothers had died before he leaves Haran, but there is no mention of any mourning rituals. Sadly, this silence also surrounds the end of Sarah; in the chapters before we have read of the expulsion and almost-murder of Hagar the maid with her son – Avraham’s elder son; and then of the near-murder or ‘sacrifice’ of Isaac, Sarah’s son, Avraham’s second son, their only son. Then Avraham is informed of the birth of a number of nephews – 12 nephews and a niece to be exact, a strange parallel with his own grandchildren, the family of Jacob later, twelve sons and a daughter. And then – suddenly – without any farewell, any famous last words, any deathbed scene, without a whimper – apparently alone – Sarah has passed away. We are even told that Abraham ”came” to mourn for her, as though he had not been there when she died. It is a rather pathetic ending for such a long marriage. One cannot always arrange things the way one maybe might want to, with a final kiss and some words of pleasant farewell, but this death seems, if anything, to be a bit of an anticlimax, a reaction maybe to the shock of the Akedah – we are not told that she had been ill, only that she had reached a high age. 127! Death comes naturally after a certain number of years; certain organs and muscles simply lose their vitality, certain joints wear out, and it seems indeed that there is a natural end for all of us, whatever we do. One can perhaps hasten it by stupidity and the misuse of alcohol, drugs, tobacco or other substances, or by taking unnecessary risks – or one can attempt to lengthen it, to stay physically and mentally fit by regular exercise and abstinence – but the end will be the same and the difference will not be measured in hundreds of years! One can discuss the issue of ‘quality of life’ as well as ‘quantity’ and this is a legitimate discussion and may affect the last few years or months – but we stay mortal.

So – what should one do with the remains? We know that there are several different possible answers, ranging from burning them to burying them, to leaving them for the birds to eat, to eating them ourselves…. There are combinations: One can bury the body and then, a year or so later remove what is left – the bones – and put them into an ossuary; one can first burn the body and then afterwards scatter the ashes or bury the ashes. Each culture has found different solutions to the question but each is faced with the same problem: What to do? Does it matter WHO does it, or officiates? Does it matter WHERE one does things – for example, scattering ashes into a holy river, or burying a body in ‘consecrated ground’? As you know, I am sure, there are traditional Jewish answers to these matters – but Abraham is the first person mentioned to be confronted with the problem. What guidance does he have, what is expected of him? We know he is left alone to make arrangements, neither of his sons – for different reasons – being around.

To make matters more complex, he is a stranger, a foreigner, a nomad in the land of Canaan, and interestingly amongst the inhabitants are also Hittites who are so settled that they actually ‘own’ land – a strange concept in itself, but a topic for another time. Abraham has to plead with them, to negotiate with them. He describes himself as a stranger in ‘their’ land, which is intriguing, for the Hittites were not the Canaanites. He needs to buy some land, not to build a house, not to plant a crop, not to establish an altar – but just to put the body of his dead wife. Such land will not gain in value, it cannot later be re-sold. It is occupied, nobody else will want it. The Hittites, it seems, already own grave plots, sepulchres, places prepared in advance for when they might be needed, a ‘Kever’. They have planned for their own futures and offer to sell one to Abraham the nomad, for whom all land is open and free.

It takes almost nineteen verses of polite but hard bargaining before a deal is struck with Ephron who owns a field with a cave. Then: ”Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre.” She may be dead, but she is still ”his wife”. There is no mention of prayers or offerings, of hymns, or rituals, of tearing his clothes or beating his breast. He just does what has to be done. He is, after all, getting old himself and will spend the next chapter preparing his will, attempting to ensure he will have heirs. Then in Chapter 25, after a sudden late blooming, he will himself die and his sons – both of them, Ishmael and Itzhak! – will come to bury him ”in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre…. there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.”

It remains an important idea for many people to be buried with or next to or close to other family members, to have a family tomb perhaps, or a joint plot. If you ask them ”Why?” – they will not normally have much of an answer. Are they expecting to be pursuing a joint existence further, or to be gossipping all the time? No, of course not! But it somehow ”feels right”, it feels appropriate, and therefore it often happens that someone will say ”Reserve the plot next to my loved one, I want to be close to them when I myself am buried.”

There is no logic to this, but since when was there any logic to matters of living and dying, to life and death? It ”feels right”. And this is why we have cemeteries, and rituals, and gravestones, and inscriptions, and anniversaries, and prayers. If not for the dead, then at least for the living. ”Chayye Sara” – it is the LIFE of Sarah that is being described here. Death is just a part of it.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Walter Rothschild.