Parashat HaShavua - Chayei Sarah

This week's Torah portion, Chayey Sarah, begins with Sarah’s death and ends with her son Yitzhak (Isaac) marrying Rivka (Rebecca). In the beginning of the Torah reading, Yitzhak is absent. He is not included in the mourning process that is described. Sarah dies and we read of Avraham’s efforts to find her a proper burial site. At the end of the Torah reading however, we learn that Yitzhak in fact has been mourning his mother’s death. The closing verse of the parsha states:

וַיְבִאֶ֣הָ יִצְחָ֗ק הָאֹ֙הֱלָה֙ שָׂרָ֣ה אִמּ֔וֹ וַיִּקַּ֧ח אֶת־רִבְקָ֛ה וַתְּהִי־ל֥וֹ לְאִשָּׁ֖ה וַיֶּאֱהָבֶ֑הָ וַיִּנָּחֵ֥ם יִצְחָ֖ק אַחֲרֵ֥י אִמּֽוֹ׃

Yitzhak then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rivka as his wife. Yitzhak loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.

Anat Yisraeli, an Israeli author and teacher who contributed to the feminist aggadic interpretation of the Torah called Dirshuni, plays with the Hebrew word הָאֹ֙הֱלָה֙ (ha-ohela, which means to the tent) and suggests that instead we should read the word as אֱלֹהָּהּ (elo-ha, which means her God). In other words, Yisraeli is guiding us to read this closing verse as about more than Yitzhak consummating his marriage in his mother’s tent, but rather, Yitzhak bringing his new beloved into the traditions of his mother - and most importantly to understand and encounter Sarah’s God. 

Yisraeli elaborates and teaches that Avraham was not the only one who encountered God, but that Sarah encountered the same God in her tent and had her own opportunity for revelation. And this experience of revelation brought Sarah much joy as is evident in the verse where Sarah learns that she is about to birth a child. The Torah states: 

וַתִּצְחַק שָׂרָה בְּקִרְבָּהּ

This verse is often translated as “Sarah laughed to herself.” I understand Yisraeli’s translation to be “And Sarah laughed in her midst.” In other words, Sarah laughed, was joyful, in the presence of this God who shared with her the good news of her (Sarah’s) upcoming pregnancy.  When Rivka entered Sarah’s tent, she too experienced this revelation and this joy and was immediately able to connect with Yitzhak’s past, present and future. This brough Yitzhak great comfort and he was able to finally be consoled. 

Last week, we read the story of the Akedat Yitzhak (Binding of Isaac). That story ends with Yitzhak and his father Avraham returning from Mount Moriah separately. Different from the way they walked towards the mountain, they are no longer unified. Midrash teaches that when Sarah learned about what transpired at Mount Moriah, she cried and that cry led to her death. I read Yisraeli as offering us a new ending to the Akedah story. Yitzhak must have left that mountain bereft. What God was he to believe in? His father could no longer be his religious guide and now neither could his mother. This is an incredibly lonely experience. When Rivka entered the tent, she experienced the fullness of Yitzhak’s tradition and was able to reconnect him to the joy that his parents’ faith offered.

I dedicate this teaching to the parents and children who have been taken hostage and who are yearning to be reconnected and reunited with each other. May that happen very soon.  

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dahlia Kronish
High School Associate Head