PARSHAT HAYEI SARA

 (5768)

TWO COUPLES

“Let the maiden to whom I say, please lower your jar that I may drink, and who replies, drink, and I will also water your camels, let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant Isaac.”                                       (Genesis 24:14)

            We humans are a species who like to couple up.  We search for a life partner.  Let me tell the story of two couples, one from long ago and one more contemporary.

            The first couple met through an arrangement by the man’s father.  When the young man came of age to marry, his father sent a trusted servant of the household to find an appropriate wife.  The father did not trust the local young ladies, so the servant went off to a different land in search of that wife.  He went to a well where the local young women went to draw water.  Whichever young woman proved her kindness by offering him water, and also offering it to his camels, she would be an appropriate match for the young man.

            The servant found a young lady, very pretty and still inexperienced around men.  He gave her gifts, told her the story, and asked to meet her family.  After meeting with her family, she was given the choice.  It would be improper for a young woman to enter a marriage against her will.  The young woman’s family asked her, “Will you go with this man?” and she replied, “Yes.”   So she began the long journey to meet her future husband.

            She saw him for the first time while she was sitting on a camel and he was meditating in the field.  She immediate jumped off the camel and covered her face for purposes of modesty.  They met and shortly afterwards they married.  He found great comfort in his new wife, particularly since he had recently lost his mother.  Soon after the marriage they fell in love.

            The marriage had its difficulties, dealing first with infertility and then with two warring sons.  But they prayed for each other.  Unlike most couples in their day and age where men often took a second wife or concubine, this couple remained monogamous.  And they were fortunate to have a playful, joyous sexual life.  Looking back from years later, it seems to have been a good marriage.

            Let us look at a second couple, this one more contemporary.  Both the young man and the young woman had long ago left home and were living on their own in a large city.  They both had good jobs and enjoyed active social and sexual lives.  They each met members of the opposite sex through friends, at parties, at work, at the gym, and sometimes on the internet.  They went out in pairs or with groups of friends.  Sometimes they hooked up.  Sex was casual and recreational; both this man and woman practiced safe sex.  There was no connection between sex and love.

            One day these two young people met each other, and there was an immediate mutual attraction.  They began seeing each other, and soon they were in an exclusive relationship.  Shortly afterwards they decided to take their relationship to the next level.  They moved in together.

            The young man and young woman were in love and they spoke about marriage.  But they wanted to give their relationship time to be sure it was right.  Besides the man said, “I do not need a piece of paper to prove my love for you.”  However they did want a baby.  And they felt that perhaps it would be better to be married before bringing a child into the world.  However, soon the woman found herself pregnant.

            They did plan a wedding, but decided to wait until after the baby was born.  The bride did not want to walk down the aisle in her wedding gown while pregnant.  They did hope their love would last forever.  But they also knew that many of their friends had been married and divorced, and there was always a way out if the relationship did not work out.  So far they have beaten the odds and are still married.

            These are the two couples.  Of course the first couple is in the Biblical story we read this week, the arranged marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.  The second couple could be many of the young people I meet today.  Allow me to ask a simple question.  Which story represents a better way for young people to meet their life partner?  If as a society we want young people to couple up, marry, and have a family, what is the best way for society to arrange such coupling?

PARSHAT HAYEI SARA

 (5766)

SHARING THE JOURNEY

“They called Rebekkah and said to her, will you go with this man?  And she said, I will.”

                                                                        (Genesis 24:58)

            Many years ago a Christian friend gave me a book to read, Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins.  He then gave me the sequel, The Walk West by Jenkins and his wife Barbara.  Although the books came from a Christian perspective, I could identify with them.  Peter was from my generation, a young man who found himself disillusioned and lost in the seventies.  He decided to walk across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to find America but more important, to find himself.  On the trip he had a number of adventures.  He also found his Christian faith.

            One story that moved me was how Peter met his wife Barbara halfway through the trip.  He saw her in church and began courting her.  He decided to ask her to marry him, and join him for the remainder of the journey.  Imagine, the person you love proposing marriage, but only if you are willing to take a journey by foot of a few thousand miles.  Most of us would laugh.  Barbara needed to think and pray about the issue.

            She went to her church and listened to her preacher’s sermon.  The preacher happened to speak about the story we read in this week’s portion, the arranged marriage between Isaac and Rebekkah.   Her family asked Rebekkah, “Will you go with this man?” and she answered, “Yes.”   Barbara saw this sermon as a sign from God.  She married Peter and joined him for the rest of the walk west.  Since then the two of them have taken numerous long walks around the world, writing about their journeys and their religious faith.

            I was moved by the story.  It symbolized what I hope marriage can be.  A woman meets a man and he invites her to join him on a journey, perhaps not by foot but an adventure nonetheless.  Their future is unknown.  But she makes a commitment to go along with him, and by her presence she helps him succeed in his journey.  Or perhaps it is the other way around.  A man meets a woman and she invites him to join her on a journey.  His presence helps her succeed on her journey.  Marriage is a journey by two people together into the unknown.  It is risky.  The hope is, by joining someone else on that journey, we not only make him or her better, we make ourselves better.

            Of course, it is extremely important to find the right partner for our journey.  Abraham did not want just any young woman to be Isaac’s wife.  She had to come from his hometown, and more important, she had to have excellent values.  Abraham did not tell his son Isaac, “Go hang out at a single’s dance or a bar with the local girls to find a wife.”  The choice was made carefully, and there is a deep sense in this portion that God brought them together.  As I sometimes say in jest, paraphrasing an old Jewish maxim, “Sometimes God brings the woman to the man like Isaac and Rebekkah, sometimes God brings the man to the woman like Jacob and Rachel - and sometimes they meet on J-Date.”  The first step is finding the right travel partner through life.

            The second step is to stay focused on that partner.  Have you ever walked along with someone, been distracted or daydreaming, then looked besides you and seen that they are not there?  I once lost my son when he was a young child in a mall that way.  Perhaps that is a wonderful illustration of what can easily happen if we are self-absorbed and lose sight of our partner.  We cannot journey through life with someone if we lose sight of him or her on the journey.

            Too often someone has come to me for counseling as his or her marriage is breaking up.  “We have found ourselves going in different directions.  We have decided the time has come to split.”   Often I try to save such marriages, but I am rarely successful.  Sometimes divorce is the best thing.  But it is always a sad last resort.  There is certainly something joyous about a life where two people are joined in a journey together for a lifetime. 

            A wise rabbi once wrote, “Life is a journey.”  Many of us, by choice of necessity, take the journey alone.  But there is something blessed about joining someone else and doing the journey together.  When someone asks the question - “Will you go with this man?”  “Will you go with this woman?” – how wonderful to say, “Yes, I will.”

PARSHAT HAYEI SARA

 (5764)

BUYING LAND

“Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns, which is at the edge of his land.  Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a burial site in your midst."

(Genesis 23:9)

Leo Tolstoy wrote a wonderful short story entitled "How much land does a man need?"  It tells the story of a poor peasant who longs to own more land.   The devil makes a deal with him, giving him as much land as he can encircle in one day, as long as he returns to the same spot where he started before sunset.  Greed overwhelms him as he runs, carving off a huge tract of land.  He barely returns in time, exhausted from running, and keels over dead.  Tolstoy ends with the words "Six feet of land was all that he needed."

This story popped into my mind as I thought about the beginning of this week's Torah portion.  For the first time in the Bible, money changed hands in order to buy a piece of land.  Abraham bought a parcel of land from Ephron the Hittite, including the Cave of Machpelah, to bury his wife Sarah.  Eventually this cave would become the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah.  Only Rachel of the patriarchs and matriarchs was not buried there.  This piece of land is one of the holiest spots on earth today to both Moslems and Jews.  It has also become one of the most violent spots on earth.

The irony is that that, although we have a full record of the transaction, there is a good chance that in any final peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, this land will go back to the Palestinians.  Hopefully the Jews of Israel will have access to their holy spot and be able to pray in the Cave of Machpelah.  But if the military and political leaders of Israel and the Palestinians are ever able to work out a just peace (and as I write these words, such a treaty seems far away), this particular piece of land will become part of the Palestinian state.

I say this with sadness but a sense of reality.  I have visited this piece of real estate and sensed the history and the holiness of the spot.  I have also seen the hatred this piece of land has generated between Jews and Moslems.  I walked away with a belief that if we can make peace in Hebron (Kiryat Arba) where this cave is located, we can make peace anywhere.

Ask any financial advisor, and he or she will tell you that the greatest investment is real estate.  Depending on location, of course, the value of real estate will almost always increase.  Real estate is the symbol of wealth.  Nonetheless, both Tolstoy's story and this Biblical episode point in one direction - our ownership of land is never absolute.   Owning land is important, but so are a number of other values including peace, justice, and life itself.  We worship God; we do not worship land.

The classical Biblical punishment for wrongdoing is removal from a piece of land.  Adam and Eve were forced out of the Garden of Eden for eating fruit that God had forbade them to eat.  Cain was an eternal wanderer, never settling on a piece of land, because he slew his brother Abel.  Abraham was not allowed to permanently settle on the land because the sins of the Canaanites were not yet complete.  The Israelites were not allowed to return to the land because they were unworthy after the incident of the spies.  By Biblical law, all land purchased was returned to its original owner every fiftieth year for the Jubilee.  Later Rabbinic literature includes a phrase which has become part of our festival liturgy, "Because of our sins were we exiled from our land."   The land is ours, but only if we prove worthy.  And it is never ours forever.

In our modern times, our right to use our land is not absolute.  We must obey zoning laws, pollution laws, and act in a way that is in keeping with the public good.  My own community, Lauderhill, is about to pass an ordinance limiting the colors that a homeowner can paint his or her house.  And we all know, by the laws of eminent domain, the community can take away land if it is deeded for a greater community good.

Our ownership of land is never absolute.  It is always conditional upon our using the land for a greater public good.  For in some ultimate sense, we do not own our land at all, no matter how lien free our deed is.  In an ultimate sense, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”  (Psalms 24:1)  We are simply temporary sojourners. 

PARSHAT HAYEI SARA

(5763)

OVERCOMING ESTRANGEMENT

"And Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin.  His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah."

(Genesis 25:9)

Abraham died and his sons Isaac and Ishmael came together for the funeral.  The boys had been estranged from one another, Ishmael had been sent away from his home because he was a bad influence on Isaac.  Ishmael was estranged from Abraham who had sent him into the wilderness with a minimum of water.  And of course, there was an estrangement between Abraham and Isaac.  Twice the Torah speaks of how Isaac and Abraham had walked up the mountain together for the near sacrifice.  When it was over, Abraham had walked down alone.  Isaac would not speak with Abraham again.  As so often happens in life today, it took a funeral to overcome the estrangement.

I want to share some thoughts I wrote in my book God, Love, Sex, and Family.  Family estrangement is one of the most common counseling issues I confront as a rabbi.  Occasionally the estrangement comes as the result of abusive behavior.  Sometimes it occurs over money, particularly when a family business breaks up.  Often, however, the estrangement begins as a minor fight that causes two family members to stop speaking with one another.  Stubbornness prevents either from backing down and seeking peace.  The years go by, until there is a permanent rift.  Often it takes a funeral to get two warring relatives to speak with one another once again.

The Talmud tells the story of two scholars of the law, Rabbi Johanan and Reish Lakesh.  Reish Lakesh had been a gladiator who tried to rob R. Johanan.  The rabbi, a man known not only for his piety but his beauty, told him, "Your strength should be used for the study of Torah."  Reish Lakesh replied, "Your beauty should be used for women."  R. Johanan said, "If you dedicate yourself to a life of study, I will let you marry my sister who is even more beautiful than I."

The two men became brothers-in-law and study partners, each impressed with the other's brilliance.  Then one day they were arguing an obscure point of law - the ritual purity of certain weapons.  R. Johanan shouted out in exasperation, "A thief knows his own trade."  An argument ensued and the two men stopped talking.  Each was angry with the other.  Reish Lakesh's wife (who was R. Johanan's sister) begged R. Johanan to apologize, but he refused.  Only when Reish Lakesh died did R. Johanan express bitter regret for the estrangement. ( Baba Metzia 84a.)

Here were two brilliant men who were too proud to open the door and seek forgiveness.  As the book of Proverbs teaches, "Pride comes before the fall."  (Proverbs 16:18)  Family counselors know that to apologize, and to forgive, is to release a heavy burden.  Rabbi Charles Klein, in his fine book How to Forgive When You Can't Forget writes:

"Several years ago, I offered my own version of a guaranteed weight-loss program.  Unlike other highly-touted diet plans, mine did not require giving up any of the foods people love to eat.  I simply suggested that if people were to lay aside a grudge or forgive someone, they would feel as though they were ten pounds lighter."  (Charles Klein, How to Forgive When You Can't Forget,, p. 35-36.)

When I counsel family members estranged from one another, my advice is always the same.  Take action to reestablish contact.  Pick up the phone and call.  Write a note.  Send a birthday card.  Even if there is no response, continue to do it, even for years.  I know a divorced father whose teenage daughter cut off all contact, blaming him for the divorce.  He continued to send her birthday and holiday cards, even as she refused to take his calls.  I told him not to give up.  She was twenty-four before she reestablished contact with him after eight years of painful separation.  Today they have a cordial if not close relation­ship.

Perhaps most important, I teach people to forgive.  The act of forgiveness is a vital step in healing the self and rebuilding relationships.  ­Certainly nobody has to destroy their own being in order to maintain a relationship with their family.  Healing the self will take time, and usually demands professional counseling.  It also requires an attempt to forgive family members who have hurt us.   Once the self has been healed, it is time to begin the work of reestablishing a relationship with family.

PARSHAT HAYEI SARA

(5762)

LOOK FOR VALUES

"Let the maiden to whom I say, `Please lower your jar that I may drink, and who replies, `Drink, and I will also water your camels,' let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant Isaac."

(Genesis 24:14)

I recently spoke with a young woman involved in a long term relationship with the same man.  They were living together but had no plans to formalize their relationship with a wedding ceremony.  I mentioned, half jokingly and half seriously, "I have a huppah (marriage canopy) in the trunk of my car.  (Have huppah, will travel!)  How about making the relationship kosher."  The woman replied, "Rabbi, no thanks.  I have discovered that as soon as people get married, they stop treating each other nicely.  They start to take each other for granted.  Marriage is not for me."

Unfortunately for those of us who believe in marriage, there is some truth to this woman's claim.  How often have I spoken to someone in a bitter unhappy marriage, or after a painful divorce, and I have asked, "Why did you marry this person in the first place?"  Their reply, "Before I married them, they were different."  They were nicer.

I must ask, were they truly nicer, or were they putting on a façade to win over the heart of their boyfriend - girlfriend.  Was the dating period used to uncover the true values of their partner?  Let me share something I wrote in a pamphlet I prepared for perspective brides and grooms entitled, The Seven Secrets of a Successful Marriage.      

In the book of Genesis, Abraham sent his servant Eliezer to find a fitting wife for his son Isaac.  Eliezer traveled back to Abraham's homeland, waited by the well, vowed that whichever young woman offered him water to drink, and also water for his camels, would be the appropriate wife for Isaac.  Shortly afterward, Rebekah went down to the well, and proved her kindness by offering them water.  The arranged marriage worked beautifully, as she became Isaac's wife and he loved her.  (Genesis 24:67)

Note that Eliezer, in his test, looked for kindness and generosity.  As a wise person once taught, "Don't marry for looks and don't marry for money.  Both can disappear overnight.  Marry for values; they never disappear."

Most of us, during our courtship days, put our best foot forward.  After all, we are trying to win the affection of another person.  Only after marriage are our true values  revealed.  The man who treated his girlfriend so kindly during the courtship days will begin to take her for granted, or may even become abusive.  The woman who flirts coyly with a boyfriend suddenly becomes insensitive to his needs after marriage.  When the courtship days are finished, the true self comes forth.

Therefore, it becomes vital to look carefully and honestly at our perspective spouse before we walk down the aisle.  If either the bride or group suspects that their future spouse's values are not what they should be, now is the time to reconsider.  It is rare that people change substantially after marriage. 

What are the values that one should look for in a spouse?  I urge couples to look carefully for such character traits as kindness, honesty, even temperedness, generosity, tolerance, and compassion.  The purpose of courtship is to slowly uncover the real "self" of our perspective spouse, often hidden under a facade.  As we see our partner more clearly, we can honestly ask, "Is this the person I want to share a bed with for fifty years?  Is this the person I want to parent my children?"

PARSHAT HAYEI SARAH

(5761)

THE POTENTIAL OF LIFE

"And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years."                      (Genesis 23:1)

Sarah the wife of Abraham lived to be one hundred twenty seven years old.  The wording is strange - "one hundred years and twenty years and seven years."  The Rabbis understood this to mean that at age one hundred she had the beauty of a twenty year old and the innocence of a seven year old.  This is certainly a summary of life worth striving for.

This portion is called Hayei Sarah, meaning The Life of Sarah.  Yet it speaks about her death.  Only with death can we realize whether someone lived up to their potential in life.  Only at the end can we look back and say, this was a successful life.  Sarah's death became a celebration of her life.

When a baby is born, he or she is mere potential.  He or she have not been defined yet.  The baby will grow up, start down a path, and decide, to use a baseball metaphor, will his or her life be a ball or a strike?  Will he or she miss the plate, fall short of the mark, not live up to his or her potential?  Or will he or she hit the mark, find the plate, live the life that God meant them to live?  Will the baby be a source of naches, of pride and joy, or a source of tsures, of trouble and travail, for his or her parents.  At birth we do not know.  A baby is mere potential.

This idea comes across in a classical rabbinic passage I often share at funerals to give comfort to the mourners.  There are two boats, one leaving the harbor on a long voyage, and one coming into the harbor at the end of a long voyage.  For the one leaving the harbor, people are nervous, they do not know whether the boat will successfully reach its destination.  For the one coming into the harbor, people feel a great comfort, the journey is over and it has been successful. 

The rabbis mention that in real life it is the other way around.  A baby is born and we feel such joy.  Yet we never know if that baby will live a full and successful life, whether he or she will live up to potential.  A person dies and we feel such great sadness.  Nonetheless, if the person has lived a successful life, we ought to feel a great comfort.  When a baby is born, he or she is mere potential.  Only when life ends can we ascertain whether the life was successful, whether the person fulfilled their destiny.

This is reflected in an interesting fact about Jewish life.  Did you know that traditionally we Jews do not celebrate birthdays.  In fact, the Bible only once mentions a birthday, and that was Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.  It was Pharaoh whose whole life was set out for him in advance, who never seems to have the will to do the right thing.  He is the only one who celebrates a birthday.  In Judaism, when we commemorate a person, we remember their yahrzeit, the day they died, not their birthday, the day they were born.

In America, we honor Martin Luther King Jr. by celebrating his birthday.  In Israel, they honor Yitzhak Rabin on his yahrzeit, the day he was assassinated.  In America, they celebrate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Jews remember the yahrzeit of Moses and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  Now that they are gone, I remember the yahrzeits of my parents, not their birthdays.  It is more than a mere cultural difference.  It is a major theological statement.

On the day we are born we are simply potential.  We do not know if we will live up to the reason why God created us.  Only when life is over do we know if we have lived up to our potential.  Sarah lived up to her potential.  Will we?

PARSHAT HAYEI SARAH

(5760)

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

"And Isaac took Rebekah home, and he married her, and he loved her, and found comfort after the death of his mother."

(Genesis 24:67)

"Love and Marriage, Go Together like a Horse and Carriage."  So goes the old song.  In reality, it is not necessarily true.  Too often a couple will fall in love and marry despite serious disagreements about such fundamental issues as religion, money, family, gender roles, or even the basic values of their partner.  These couples naively believe that "love conquers all."  As time passes, the love seems to fade.  Rarely can love alone sustain a marriage when other ingredients are missing.

To explore the role of love in marriage, it would be useful to compare two Biblical stories, the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah and the marriage of their son Jacob to Rachel.  Isaac and Rebekah had an arranged marriage; they did not even meet until shortly before the wedding.  The love came after the marriage.

Jacob and Rachel's marriage was much closer to our contemporary scenario.  He loved her, worked seven years for her, was forced to work a second group of seven years, and yet "they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her."  (Genesis 29:20)  They fell in love and eventually go married.

Which couple had the stronger marriage?  There is no way to compare absolutely.  Nonetheless, both couples suffered severe infertil­ity problems.  Their very different reactions serve as a clue to the strength of their respective marriages.  Isaac and Rebekah waited twenty years to have a child.  When they learned that Rebekah was infertile, "Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife."  (Genesis 25:21)  Rachel also was infertile and she cried out in pain at her inability to conceive.  Jacob answered with anger, "Can I take the place of God, who has denied you the fruit of the womb!" (Genesis 30:2). 

There seems to be more kindness and understand­ing in Isaac and Rebekah's arranged marriage than in Jacob and Rachel's marriage built on romantic love.  It is noteworthy that Isaac and Rebekah were the only couple who are described as having a playful sexual relationship.  It is also noteworthy that when Jacob died, he asked to be buried not with his true love Rachel but with his first wife Leah. 

What is the role of love in creating a successful marriage?  The best answer comes out of the Greek view of love.  The Greeks had three terms for various aspects of love - eros, philos, and agape.  Eros is romantic love, where sexual attraction is combined with a kind of chemistry.  Philos is the love that grows out of friendship.  It implies an intimacy, a sharing, a total comfort with one another.   Agape is altruistic love.  It is the love the Bible refers to when it speaks of one's soul being bound up in another soul.  (Genesis 44:30)  It is love as service to the other, being and giving for the welfare of the other.  It is love built on empathy.  It is the love when a man or a woman makes their spouse the most important commitment in their life.

I am convinced this kind of love does not come immediately, in the rush of romance, to a couple.  It comes after they have established intimacy, after they have begun to build a home together.  That is why I tell every couple planning a wedding, the true love comes after the marriage.