Parshat Chayei Sara
November 1st-2nd, 2002
27 Cheshvan, 5763

If we were making a movie of this week’s parsha, we could appropriately call it, "Love and Death." However, since another Jewish filmmaker already used that name back in his glory days, perhaps we could title it, "Chasanas and Levayas." Doesn’t sound like much of a blockbuster…I’m certainly open to other suggestions once we can get some funding.

In any case, why was "Love and Death" my first thought? Check it out for yourself. The parsha opens with the death of the matriarch, Sara (and Avraham’s noble negotiation to secure her burial plot from a crooked local chieftain), then turns to its central topic--the mission of Eliezer, Avraham’s trusted servant, to secure a wife for Yitzhak (Avraham’s son) from the land of Aram. With Hashem’s help, Eliezer succeeds marvelously--if not miraculously--in his mission, and Rivka (granddaughter of Avraham’s brother), embodiment even as a youngster of the trait of chesed (lovingkindness), becomes Yitzhak’s beloved wife and life-companion. Before the parsha is over, however, we also learn about the death of Avraham himself, and finally, the passing of his eldest son, Yishmael.

I encourage you to read the whole parsha for yourself [Genesis: Chapters 23-25, verse18] in order to appreciate the composure of Avraham in trying circumstances, and the dignity of the Torah’s description of his final passage. Note the zerizus (alacrity) of Eliezer in carrying out his mission, as well as the remarkable spirit and maturity of the young Rivka, who decides on her own to follow Eliezer to the land of Canaan. But now we must turn our attention to love and death.

"And Yitzhak went out to meditate in the field at the evening time; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rivka lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said to the servant [Eliezer], ‘What man is this who walks in the field to meet us?’

And the servant said, ‘It is my master.’ Therefore she took a veil, and covered herself. And the servant told Yitzhak all the things that he had done. And Yitzhak brought her to his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rivka, and she became his wife; and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death." (24, 63-67)

It almost sounds like it could be a classic romantic man-meets-woman scene, with the orchestral score drowning the audience in a sea of emotion. But there are a couple of things awry. When Rivka sees him, and realizes that this is the man whom Divine Providence has designated for her, she covers herself modestly--the source of the ancient custom at Jewish weddings of covering the bride’s face with a veil. (Movie audiences nowadays typically look forward to some serious unveilings!) Secondly, the Torah stands our mythical notion of love-at-first-sight on its head. Note the precise order of the words in the verse: first, "she became his wife," and only later, after living together and growing to know each other more deeply, "he loved her."

The Jewish conception of true love is that it comes about as a result of constant giving to another person. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, zt’l, discusses this topic in a celebrated essay on chesed, in Michtav M’Eliyahu. He points out there that the Hebrew word, ahavah (love), contains in it a root that means, "giving" (hav). We attain the glorious experience of "true love" through our acts of giving to another person. Attraction to a potential spouse is by no means a trivial matter (the Talmud forbids a person from marrying someone he or she has never seen before), but attraction--and the passion, or infatuation that it leads to--is NOT ahavah, "love," and it is not the ultimate goal of a union.

Hashem’s desire in giving us the great blessing of marriage is that we build an eternal partnership (and a home) with our spouse, and that we reach true love through constant acts of giving and sharing. (Of course, passion does play an important role in fostering closeness and unity between husband and wife.)

You know, I wasn’t necessarily going to write on this topic this week because I could imagine someone saying: "Oh, come on, Rabbi. Here, the Torah recounts the archaic practice of arranging a marriage between two people—a primitive custom that goes against our modern and up-to-date understanding of love." And while this point of view is itself narrow and mistaken, I wasn’t sure I had the energy right now to contest it.

UNTIL I remembered an amazing essay I saw in Psychology Today several weeks back, by the editor (Robert Epstein, PhD). If you bear with me, I’m going to reprint it here. Listen to what he says about this "primitive custom" of arranged marriages, and listen to this modern psychologist’s instinct about "true love" and how it’s attained. (Maybe Epstein knows this week’s parsha…but I have no evidence on that score.)

[Column by Robert Epstein, FROM PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, JUNE 2, 2002]:

"I’m about to embark on a very bold, very personal experiment, one that some people might call—in fact, have already called—crazy. Self-experimentation has a long and proud history in psychology, dating back at least to Ebbinghaus’ classic book Memory, published in 1885. So I insist that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants and that I’m not simply daffy. OK, here’s my experiment:

Through friends, family and some small ads, I’m in the process of seeking a co-author to help me write a book called The Love You Make: How We Learned to Love Each Other, and How You Can Too. My co-author and I will sign an agreement in which we pledge 1) to read extensively about love, and especially about the emergence of love in arranged marriages, 2) to subject ourselves to various types of counseling and 3) to put ourselves through various exercises and perhaps to create new ones, the goal being to fall deeply in love by the end of the contract period. The agreement will run from six months to a year (to be negotiated), during which time we will also pledge not to date other people and to keep detailed, private diaries of our experiences, knowing, of course, that the contents might end up in print.

I’m already represented on the book by one of the top literary agents in the country, and several large houses have expressed interest in publishing it—not surprising, since the concept is pure Oprah: a perfect bundle of romance, controversy and inspiration.

But this isn’t just a publicity stunt. It’s a serious, albeit small-scale, challenge to a vexing myth. We teach our children, and especially our little girls, that a knight in shining Porsche is going to drive up one day, awaken perfect passion with a magical kiss and then drive the blessed couple down the road to Happily Ever After, a special place where no one ever changes. Hollywood tells us that the One is out there for everyone, so no one is willing to settle for Mr. or Ms. Two-Thirds. We want our relationships to be like our antidepressants—perfect and effortless—and if they don’t look as perfect today as they did yesterday, unskilled and gutless, we abandon them.

But here’s a surprise: Sixty percent of the world’s marriages are not love marriages—they’re arranged. Divorce rates are extremely low for such marriages, and, even more surprising, in perhaps half of them, the spouses somehow fall in love with each other. Arranged marriage is a complex institution, but even where it’s flawed it demonstrates that people can learn to love. A couple of decades ago, after millennia of nail biting, Westerners finally figured out how to take elements of Eastern mystical practices and cast them into consumer-friendly terms; now we’ve got mantras and chakras and katas by the dozens, and we’re better for it. Can we distill key elements of arranged marriage to help us learn how to create a new, more stable institution in the West? Must we stumble clumsily onto love, or can we learn, precisely, how to fall in love

In 1998, some friends of David Weinlick, a graduate student in Minnesota, set out to find him a wife. An advertising campaign generated 25 applications, and then a party was held where he interacted with the five finalists. His friends selected the winner, and the unlikely pair was married on the spot. Ridiculous, yes? Funny thing is, they’re still married and doing fine, and their second child is due in November.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Well, I’ve wondered long enough. I’m up for an experiment."

Incredible, really! Epstein sees clearly what the Torah (and Rav Dessler) want to teach us: love CAN be "learned," it can be generated through a genuine commitment to another person, and to building intimacy through giving. Yitzhak first married Rivka, trusting in G-d that this was the right person: she shared his lofty ideals of building on Avraham’s legacy, and had demonstrated to Eliezer that she was completely devoted to chesed--the very best foundation for building a Jewish home. (He saw her, as well, and presumably had no complaints. The Torah tells us she "was very fair to look upon.") Then, sometime after the honeymoon, he came to love her.

I’m not suggesting we return to the arranged marriages of our ancestors…but I agree with Robert Epstein that people have to banish the fantasy of stumbling clumsily "into love," and admit just how shallow a notion that is. Our movie of the parsha would somehow have to convey that lesson, and reveal the Torah’s profound (and true) conception of "ahavah."

And now, quickly, on to death. (So to speak.) "Sarah’s lifetime was one hundred years, twenty years, and seven years; the years of Sarah’s life." Our Sages explain that the last, seemingly extra clause conveys the greatest praise possible of this holy woman: "they [her years] were all equal for goodness." (See Rashi on 23, 1) Sara conceived of her life as a steady spiritual progression, each individual year constituting another rung in the ladder of coming close to G-d, and to carrying out His will on earth. Because her life had the loftiest spiritual goal as its constant center, all her years were "good," i.e., full of meaning and purpose--no matter the tests and tribulations. There were joyous times, to be sure, but above all there was the joy of using all her time to grow as a person and as a servant of G-d.

The Torah’s description of Avraham’s death is, perhaps, even more enlightening. From it, we see that a year of life is not ONE rung in a ladder of spiritual growth, but 365 rungs! "Now these are the days of the years of Avraham’s life which he lived…And Avraham expired and died at a good old age, an old man and content…" (25, 7-8) And earlier, the Torah had told us: "Now Avraham was old, coming on in days…" (24, 1) The S’fas Emes (and other commentaries) explain that this verse could be read, "coming with his days." That is to say, when he would die, Avraham would be coming to the reward of the next world with all of his days, having passed a lifetime filled with spiritual growth and insight-- individual temporal days that contained eternal meaning and blessing. In this world, we are meant to be giving life to all of our days, making them eternally shining accomplishments…not "killing time."

After such a life, death is a joyous homecoming for the soul (though of course a sadness for those loved ones left behind). All one’s days should be worthy of bringing before G-d, and saying: "Look, Father, how I tried to serve you sincerely on each and every one of them." With days like that, Avraham was able to pass from this world, "content" in the knowledge that he had used all his potential to serve G-d. Death was nothing to be feared, or shunned, after such a life.

May we all learn the true meaning of love and life (and death as well), and do our best to utilize the potential we all have to reach the spiritual levels of our blessed ancestors.

GOOD SHABBOS!!

My e-mail address is yosefe@comcast.net

Archives

Insights Into Genesis | Insights Into Exodus | Insights Into Leviticus
Insights into Numbers | Insights Into Deuteronomy

Rabbi Yosef Edelstein, Savannah Kollel. Phone: 912-351-0469; fax: 354-9923