"Chayei Sarah" or "The Life of Sarah," the title of this Parsha, paradoxically begins with her death. Thus, if we take the Torah seriously, we are to learn something -- or a number of things -- about death, from our Matriarch Sarah's story.
Let's look at our own lives, then, and the deaths we all eventually have to deal with.
When a loved one dies, one sentiment often expressed by the bereaved is the "If only."
"If only we could have caught it earlier," i.e. the disease that killed the deceased, " they'd be alive today." And, in many cases, this is absolutely true. Modern medicine can do miracles if given enough time to treat a person's ailments.
Other variations on this theme abound. "If only the ambulance had gotten there sooner." "If only the deceased had gone to the doctor when they started to feel poorly instead of waiting." "If only the doctor had been smarter in making the correct diagnosis right away, instead of (as is common on the TV medical drama 'House,' for instance) going through a process of trial and error." "If only the deceased had not picked up that infection in the hospital (known as a 'nosocomial,' i.e. caused by being in a hospital, illness). " "If only he hadn't taken that trip." "If only there hadn't been such a long delay between the doctor's diagnosis and referral, and the actual surgery itself."
I actually had a cardiologist say to me, after my late father, a"h, had suffered a massive second heart attack, "I wish I had done an angiogram after his first," something I had inquired about at the time but was told it was not routine (that was then, of course; nowadays, angiograms -- the infusion of the heart's vessels with a blue dye which clearly shows on a video screen how blood is flowing through the heart and where it is blocked, are, in fact, routine). If only, I had broken with the prevailing medical policy, and insisted ...
A key factor in the "if only," is that it is after the fact, after the patient has died, and, probably as a part of grieving, it fulfills a function of expressing our disbelief that this person has been taken from us, and not a little anger over the frustrations we experience over "what should have been," and not a little guilt over letting bad things happen. But it won't, of course, be of any Earthly help to the departed, as it might have been when they were alive.
If we look at how our Mother Sarah died, it might give us another perspective, and ease our potential frustration over the mistakes and misadventures that "shouldn't have happened," which conspired to take our loved one from us.
Sarah's death, in fact, is a textbook case of mistake and misadventure, a seemingly capricious and cruel Act of G-d which also shouldn't have happened.
So what happened?
Sarah was one hundred and twenty-seven years old but in good health. Her husband, our Patriarch Abraham, would go on to live to one hundred and seventy-five (see my comments in the blog on parsha Toldot), and, so, too, might Sarah have, had it not been for the -- apparently -- cruel concatenation of events which befell her.
Abraham, you see, had taken Yitzchak, their only son, up to Mount Moriah, to be bound up on an altar for sacrifice. Not an act of caprice, this, but a serious test of Abraham, and a direct command from G-d. More on this when I fill in the "back catalogue," of commentary on Vayera, G-d willing.
Thankfully, Sarah was kept in the dark. Abraham was not about to tell his wife what he knew would destroy her, so he told her he and their son were going away to study the laws of sacrifices.
The Midrash provides a very colorful account of what happened next but b'kitzur, in short, Sarah found out, had a heart attack, and died.
In the longer version, Satan himself, approaches Sarah, and asks her if she knows where are her husband and child. She tells him what Abraham had told her, that they have gone to study the laws of sacrifice. Satan says, "I think Yitzchak is the sacrifice."
Sarah denies this but it bothers her. She then goes to visit the last remaining giants in the land, and asks them to survey the surrounding lands to find her husband and son.
They stand up to their full height, look around, and say, "Yes, we see your husband and son on top of a mountain. Your son is bound up on an altar, and your husband is approaching him with a knife ..."
Before they could say any more, Sarah cried out, and died.
If only the giants had been asked to find Abraham and Yitzchak a minute later, they would have seen Abraham joyously taking his very much alive son down from the altar. A few moments later, they would simply have seen them both sacrificing a ram together.
What terrible timing! But for the absence of a few scant seconds to let the true story unfold, Sarah would not have died! She and Abraham and Isaac would have lived happily ever after.
What can we learn from this? We learn that G-d has a plan for us, and when time is up, it's up. Conversely, of course, if your number is not up, and you haven't done anything to place yourself unnecessarily in danger, then someone could point a gun to your head and pull the trigger, and it would misfire, likely killing your assailant.
How, though, do we account for the seemingly cruel way in which Sarah was taken?
Sarah had reached the end of her allotted time on Earth. This kind of reckoning is not available for us to know. G-d's accounts and plans are of an order beyond our understanding.
But G-d had a problem. The Angel of Death could not take Sarah because she was such a devout Tzadekess, righteous person, that her entire being was always suffused with G-dliness and focused on the Divine. According to our understanding, the Angel of Death can have no power to act over someone cleaving to the Divine -- or studying Torah.
According to tradition, King David is a case in point. Having learned what no mortal should, the intended date of his death, King David decided the knowledge was given to him for a reason and it was up to him to escape his fate. So, on the appointed day, which, by the way, was the holiday of Shavuos, he did what he had to do to defeat the Angel of Death -- he immersed himself in the constant study of Torah. The Angel of Death, however, had a card up his sleeve, and created a loud distraction outside King David's room of study. The loud noise distracted the King momentarily from his study of Torah, and the Angel of Death snatched his soul.
Thus it was with Sarah. Since her mind was always on G-d, the Angel of Death could not take her soul at the appointed time. The entire scene with the giants and the inauspicious moment they espied Abraham and Yitzchak (Isaac), served one purpose: to shock Sarah so much that for a brief moment she would lose her concentration on G-d. It worked, and the Angel of Death was able to take her soul.
Thus what seems cruel was simply a mechanism to enable her to go at her appointed time. Had this incredible scene not occurred, she might have missed her train.
That there are "more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies," to adapt a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, is key to understanding this. "My thoughts are not your thoughts," says G-d, and we would be wise to accept that there are reasons for everything that goes on in our world, regardless of how cruel or unfortunate things may seem.
That is why the "If only" sentiments we often experience at the passing of a loved one should be informed by the understanding that G-d has a plan, and what seemed to us to be avoidable -- even stupid -- circumstances and events leading up to what we think is the untimely demise of our mother, father, son etc etc. were actually the hand of G-d at work. I have my own saying that when it's a person's time to go, G-d makes the doctors stupid, i.e. that mistakes are made in the care of a patient, diagnoses are missed, etc which conspire to bring that person to their death. Bad luck, misadventure, negligence, it's all part of the plan.
So, when we see mistakes happening in the care of our loved ones in hospital or anywhere else, should we sit back and say, "I guess it's G-d's will. It must be their time to go."
No! Of course not! When Moses was told he could not enter the Promised Land, he never ever stopped praying to G-d to reverse his decision (see the parsha "Va-techanan" in the Torah, and its commentaries). Moses beseached G-d more than 500 times, even though this was an edict from the mouth of G-d Himself. From this, our sages learned that even when the sword is at your neck, you must keep praying to G-d for salvation and deliverance. There is never an end to hope, prayer, and action.
So what does it mean? It means that we should be on the alert for the "If Only" circumstances before a person reaches death, and fight like the Dickens to reverse the situation. If someone is feeling poorly, make sure they go to the doctor in a timely manner. If someone is not getting good treatment from one doctor, get a second opinion. The time for identifying problems is when the person is still alive, not after.
After the fact, however, when the end has come, we must realize that any misadventures that led to the person's demise were G-d ordained, and we must not torture ourselves about them.
So Sarah was buried in the Ma-arat Hamachpela, The Two-Tiered Cave, and a very interesting story lies therein ... leading us to the second aspect of this blog.
The Ma-arat Hamachela is a cave in Chevron which -- apart from a secret function to be described here later --contains the earthly remains of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivka, Yaakov and Leah, and the head only of Eisav. In other words, it's the place where our forefathers are buried, -- in Hebrew, "kever avos,--" and for that alone, it is considered one of the holiest sites of Judaism. It is purchased in this Parsha, Chayei Sarah, by Abraham so that he may bury his wife, Sarah. Some say its purchase is recorded in the Torah to provide some kind of proof that this land was legally obtained, and belongs to the Jews, i.e. the descendants of Abraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
In an interesting linguistic correspondence, the cave's name also signifies its nature. "Machpela," with its root form, "kephel," means "dual" or "double." On the surface, this refers to the two-tiered physical structure of the cave but if we look at its function, we find another meaning.
The above list of residents -- excluding Eisav, -- are couples. Here's that interesting correspondence. Through either luck or the evolution of our languages, the Hebrew word, "kephel," seems like a both a synonym and near homonym for "couple," meaning two of something. Perhaps it is the same word, somehow managing to work its way into both languages.
So the Ma-arat Hamachpela is not only the two-tiered cave but the Cave of the Couples.
And it doesn't stop there. In fact, there is a third way in which this cave has a dual nature. In Yiddishkeit, three is a "chazaka," or a form of strong confirmation.
The two-tiers of the Cave, are not merely physical, according to Chazal, ("Chachmenu" -- our sages -- "Zichronam" -- may their memory -- "Livracha" -- be a blessing). They are spiritual.
In fact, according to our sages, the Ma-arat Hamachpela was the gateway between two worlds, ours as we know it, and "Olam Haba" -- the World To Come, i.e. the world of eternal spiritual splendour which transcends and dwarfs our world of the five senses and temporal reality.
Our sages were very clear about this world we live in as humans -- called "Olam Hazeh" -- in the Talmud. They called our life on Earth a "Prozdor," a vestibule, a promontory entrance to our main house which is the infinite and eternal reality called the "afterlife." It is in the eternal afterlife that ultimate truth pertains, and the life of the spirit reveals itself in all its glory.
Thus, the Ma-arat Hamachpela was the actual doorway connecting the vestibule of this life to the main house beyond. It's dual nature was to connect to both worlds.
And, here's the mussar, i.e., what lesson we should learn from all this in order to improve our understanding and behaviour: think twice, and it's alright (sorry, Bob).
Think about who's in the Two-Tiered Cave, and why they are there, Eisav notwithstanding. Eisav is clearly the anomaly, and the presence of his severed head inside begs for insight that I don't have except to note that by being Yitzchak's first born, he originally did have the right to be buried there.
Maybe that's the explanation: that Eisav had the birthright to be buried in the Ma-arat Hamachpela is recognized by the presence of his head there. That he relinquished the right to be there whole in body and with a spouse, is, as they say, the rest of the story.
The rest of the story is the lesson for us to learn. Who was worthy, after all, of resting in a spot which, in addition to being a cave containing mortal remains, was the portal to Paradise? One exception must be mentioned, and she is Rachel. Rachel, Yaakov's chosen wife, was a Tzadekess worthy of burial in the Ma-arat HaMachpela but G-d had other plans for her. Her tomb near Beth Lechem has served as a source of spiritual support to Jews for thousands of years through exiles and tribulations, and as an inspiration even when there are -- Baruch Hashem -- no tribulations.
But those who were buried in the Cave had something we would all do well to emulate. They themselves were similar to the Cave, i.e., they mirrored its great and unique qualities in their beings, and in the lives they led.
Of all the geographic locations in the world, the Ma-arat HaMachpela exemplifies the dual nature of the life we are born into. On the one side, is our earthly existence, on the other side is the transcendent life of the spirit in a realm far closer to the whole of reality, and G-d.
Thus, as we journey through life, will we be oblivious to the testament of the Torah, and -- chas v'shalom -- ignore the life beyond the world we can see, or will we approach the heights of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs who discovered and maintained a constant awareness of G-d in their daily lives, i.e. who understood the dual nature of reality.
I recently overheard a sad comment on this when I had occasion to be in a school which provided a "Jewish" education. I'm not faulting the quality of the education the school provided but it saddened me when I heard one young lady saying to her friend -- perhaps when she saw me wearing a kippah -- "Oh, yeah, my zaidy used to keep kosher."
Clearly the school did not impress upon its students the truth of the Torah. It didn't lead them to understand that there is indeed a dual nature to life, that life is more than we can just touch, see, hear and feel but there is a realm of truth beyond that, with G-d sitting at the top, on the eighth floor, above the Seven Heavens, and that G-d is real, and he means it when he says in the Torah that Jews should keep kosher. Apparently, this school taught that -- chas v'shalom -- G-d did not mean it. Why anyone would believe that G-d would say such a thing, and not mean it, is, of course, more than a bit of a puzzle to me.
Thus we may understand how these couples came to be worthy to be buried in the Cave of the Connection to Olam Haba, and thus, they stand as shining examples to all of us to try to emulate.
The unusual circumstances of Sarah's death, in fact, show how devoutly our blessed ancestors applied the practice of awareness of G-d while in the world.
