From the Rabbi

Parshas Chayei Sarah

At the end of last week’s parsha we see Avraham go through the greatest of his ten trials– he was prepared to sacrifice his precious son Isaac, whom he waited for all these years. Then, as he was about to lift up the knife, a voice came out from Heaven, telling him to stop. At this point– after passing this test with such incredibly flying colors, we would think that his story would end, and he will live happily ever after.

But that is not what happens. 

Instead, he gets back home, to learn of the tragic death of his beloved wife, Sarah. Just as he was returning, relieved his son’s life was spared, he finds out the devastating news that his wife had died.  As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z’tl describes, after everything that just transpired, losing his wife of many years, the woman who stayed with him through all of his travails, who twice saved his life, who miraculously gave birth at an old age- had Avraham grieved for the rest of his days, we would surely have understood.

But the Torah paints a very different picture: “Avraham eulogized Sarah, and he cried over her. And then he got up from beside his dead, to speak to the children of Chet.” Avraham grieved. And then he got up, arranged for his wife’s burial by purchasing a plot of land in Israel. And then, as the Parsha continues, he immediately sought out a wife for his son Isaac, to ensure the continuity of the future Jewish people. 

What is the lesson for us?

Rabbi Sacks describes how maaseh avos siman l’banim– everything that happened to our ancestors ultimately was a sign of things to come for all of us. 

Avraham grieved knowing what he has lost– but then, he rises up and builds the Jewish future. This was a unique and special gift that Avraham bestowed to his descendents. Because throughout our history, the Jewish People have experienced immense tragedies– the likes of which are truly hard to fathom and make sense of. As Rabbi Sacks describes, there was the destruction of the First Temple and Babylonian exiles, followed by the destruction of the second Temple and the end of Jewish sovereignty. Eventually came the expulsions, massacres, forced conversions and inquisitions of the Middle Ages. These were followed by the pogroms of the 17th and 19th centuries, and then the Holocaust. And, we would add the devastation of October 7th. 

Yet somehow, says Rabbi Sacks, the Jewish people mourned and wept, and then rose up and built the future.  This is our unique strength, which came from Avraham. As he writes, ”We must turn from yesterday’s loss to the call of a tomorrow we must help to be born.”

As we look at our people, this quality of perseverance we inherited from Avraham Avinu seems to truly define us.  79 years ago my grandmother was an orphan with no family, who found herself at a DP Camp in Europe. It was terrible– everything she had been through was truly horrific. 

But somehow she found the inner resolve to move forward and to pick up her life and to rebuild.

Tens of thousands of other people like her did the same thing.

Eli Sharabi, who survived so many days in captivity in Gaza, only to come home, like Abraham to see his wife (and daughters) were no longer alive, had this to say: “This here is rock bottom. I've seen it. I've touched it. Now, life." And, “I choose life. I need to be strong for them.”

We get knocked down time after time.

It seems inconceivable to get up again and to carry on.

And yet, every single time in our history, that is exactly what we do. 

This is the legacy we received from Abraham.