Spiritual and
Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach;
SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE BEREISHIT STORIES These four books ostensibly are merely the history of Israel from the entry into the Promised Land until the destruction of the Temple and the temporary loss of independent statehood. In fact they are actually, in a specifically Jewish sense, the most deeply religious and spiritual books of the Bible. One does not have to be specifically Jewish to see or feel the religion and spirituality in the revelations of the prophetic writings or in the words of the Tehillim. They speak to all people, as evidenced by the fact that the Bible is still the world's bestseller and there are millions of non-Jews who regularly recite the Psalms. However, it is specifically and intrinsically Jewish to understand that G-d is revealed in the prosaic material, in the political, social and military events in the lives of ordinary men and women, kings and leaders that are described in the Nevim Rishonim. Here are described the ideology and religious thoughts in Judaism, while in Chronicles we have the purely historical. "Grant me a burial place" [1] 1."If we take BA to mean 'came', then we have to explain that before Avraham left from Beer Sheva for the Akeida, he sent Sara from there to Hevron to prevent her suddenly receiving the tragic news. How- ever, the real original meaning of BA is to take oneself out of the public space into privacy; as in BA HASHEMESH in contrast to YATZA HASHEMESH. So Avraham shut himself in to mourn; [similarly we withdraw during the period of our SHIVA], making no parade of grief. This may also be indicated by the small KAF in V'LIVKOTAH from which Chazal learn that one should not mourn excessively" (Rabbi S. R. Hirsch). 2. At the same time, the death of loved ones often causes people to revolt against what they view as a miscarriage of, or even as the absence of, Divine Justice. In order to express our knowledge and acceptance of the power and intervention of His Divine Justice and Wisdom, there is Kaddish; our prayer for the dead which makes no mention of death or the dead. We can easily understand Avraham's mourning for Sara and the concern of Bnei Chet for his sorrow. After all, Chazal taught: "One whose wife's death precedes his own, it is as though the Bet HaMikdash were destroyed in his time" (Sanhedrin 22). Less obvious is his feeling the essential need for a special place for her burial and the importance of the Ma'arat HaMachpeila in that need. "Why should Avraham acutely feel that need? Why bother with burial at all; surely the body could simply be left to rot? And if it is necessary, what difference does it make to the dead or to the living, where that place is? A philosopher of the nations (one of the ancient Greeks] said that if the dead are aware, then their burial would only cause them much sorrow; and if they feel nothing why bother? Burial is beneficial to Mankind both as far as the body and the NEFESH are concerned. Since the body of a person without the soul is far more useless that that of an animal, which does not possess a soul, (as) the human body decomposes far quicker, the smell is more noxious and therefore the [environmental] damage to other people, incurred by leaving it lying around unburied, is far greater. Death marks the decomposition and transformation of the body back into the physical components that it was formed from; however, it also marks the return of the soul to its spiritual source. 'And the dust shall return unto the earth from where it was taken and the soul unto the Lord who granted it.' Yet the severance between the two is not immediate as the soul cannot return on high until the body has become completely reduced to its components. '12 months a dead man's body continues to exist and the soul rises and descends from heaven. At the end of that time the body may be negated and the soul ascends without descending again' (Shabbat 122). So, through burial, the body is granted time until it disintegrates into the materials from which it was formed and the soul is finally released. Furthermore, the entity that is a human being, body and soul, bears the TZELEM of G-d, so it is a place for the SH'CHINA to reside, it has divinely granted wisdom, it is the pinnacle of the whole creation and has a connection with Him. It is not fitting therefore, that after death it should be treated with dishonor, disrespect and abuse, to be cast aside like redundant garbage. So burial is needed in order to give the dead that honor and respect due to a person's divine origins. The honor rendered by proper burial is directly commensurate with the moral, social and religious status of the person. So we find that Shaul, who was not the founder of Jewish Kingship, was simply buried together with his forefathers, since now in death he was their equal. However, David, whose dynasty was to continue forever, was not buried in Bet Lechem, his hometown, but rather in Zion, Ir David, that was the burial ground of all the House of David, the King. For these reasons Avraham saw it fitting that there should be a significant place for Sara's burial" (Don Yitschak Abarbanel). The spiritual significance of burial may be further seen from the verse "His body shall not hang on the gallows overnight [the prolonged exposure of the unburied body of a human being is an insult to G-d in whose Image it was created], rather you shall surely bury him" (D'varim 21:3). "From this we learn that it is a positive mitzva to bury the dead. By commanding us to do so, Hashem shows His concern for the welfare of His Creatures "(Sefer Hachinuch, 537). "Achuza refers only to landed property, property that grips, holds and outlives the owner. So Avraham, the wanderer and stranger, does not ask for permission just to bury his wife. He asks for land for a sepulchre since he wants her to rest in her permanent resting place, that is the first and only need that he has: to acquire a piece of land in the Promised Land. This will be the bond that attaches him to that land" (Rabbi S. R. Hirsch). That achuza where: "Avraham and Sara were buried; there they buried Yitschak and Rivka and there I buried Leah", (B'reishit 49:31); these were Yaakov's words to his sons and there they buried him. Indeed Ma'arat HaMachpeila is such an achuza, where all the generations of Israel can know who their ancestors were, can draw strength and inspiration from them and can see themselves as the eternal owners of that Land. This is the 112th installment in Dr. Tamari’s series on “Tanach and its messages for our times” [The
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