This Shabbat, we read Parashat Chayei Sarah, the Life of Sarah. It recounts that Sarah has died, Abraham finds a burial place for her, and after that, he begins the process of finding a wife for his son, Isaac. Reading Chayei Sarah, this year, feels particularly resonant. Our community has experienced a hard month of deaths, and in reading about Sarah’s death I’m thinking about how we honor those we’ve lost and how we think about their legacies.
While the first chapter of the parashah deals with Abraham’s purchase and coordination of Sarah’s burial, after that he moves immediately into the process of finding Isaac’s wife. Every year, though especially this year, I wonder how he could move from one mode to the next so quickly. In the throes of grief, how could he immediately think about the future? How could he partake in a process that is meant to bring such simcha, such joy, when his wife had just died?
I think, in honoring the lives of three exemplary women of the Beth Sholom community in the last month, I actually read Abraham’s actions differently than I have before. Perhaps Abraham wasn’t brushing aside his grief to tend to something else. Maybe he wasn’t rushing too quickly to something celebratory while he was still in mourning. In contrast, I think it’s quite possible that Abraham was thinking, in the most intense way, about Sarah’s legacy. In the aftermath of her death, Abraham focused on finding a wife for Isaac which is a way to think about future generations. It is a way of ensuring that Sarah’s legacy lives on, that the values that were important to her are solidified in the formation of this new people.
I can’t imagine the process of finding a wife for Isaac was easy for Abraham to think about, but I do imagine that it gave him an important opportunity to put Sarah’s life’s lessons into action. But what’s important for me to realize, especially given the month we’ve had at Beth Sholom, is that it’s not really the specifics of finding a wife or the cultivation of a new generation that matter here. What it teaches is that part of our responsibility in perpetuating the legacy of those we love, those that impacted us and our lives, is finding ways to make their legacy have an impact. That is what Abraham was doing here. He wasn’t quickly moving on from the loss, he wasn’t ignoring his grief. In fact, it was the opposite. He was ensuring that Sarah’s life mattered. He was ensuring that her values lived on. I pray that in whatever ways we have an impact in the world, we can do the same for those we have loved and lost.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Sarit
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