Dvar Torah on Parshat Chayei Sarah

Parshat Chayei Sarah opens with the death of Sarah. Her death comes almost immediately after the story at the end of last week's parsha - the binding of Isaac. That story seems to be presented by the Torah as one with a happy ending. Abraham rises to the occasion, and passes the test that God set for him by showing his willingness to sacrifice his beloved son and heir Yitzchak to God. At the last possible moment, divine intervention exempts him from making the actual sacrifice. The Torah seems happy with this narrative, and in the formulaic concluding section God promises the ultra-obedient Avraham progeny as numerous as the stars and victory over his enemies as a reward for his obedience. The modern reader certainly has trouble with this story, questioning the very idea of human sacrifice, and the alacrity with which Avraham seems ready to kill his son. The Rabbis were also uncomfortable with this story, and express this discomfort in an interesting way. They connect the story of Sarah's death with the Akedah - the binding of Yitzchak. According to the Midrash, as quoted by Rashi, Sarah's death, which in the text closely follows the story of the sacrifice, actually occurred as a direct result of it. Upon hearing that Avraham was willing to, or was about to, or had in fact already, sacrificed her beloved son, Sarah died of shock. (There are different Midrashic versions of the story. In some, Sarah seems to know that Yitzchak lived, and it is God's demand and Avraham's willingness to kill him that seems to kill her. In others, she seems to believe that he is about to be slaughtered or, indeed, already has been.) It is for this reason that we are told of her death right after the Akeda story, to tell us that the one actually caused the other. This understanding of Sarah's death is interesting. It posits an alternative, perhaps more feminine response, to this strange commandment. Unlike her husband, Avraham, who, in the Biblical narrative, seems to have no problem in fulfilling this macabre commandment, Sarah is literally unable to live with the thought of it, unable to accept is as a possibility, and when she hears about it, she dies. For those of us who question Avraham's acquiescence to this commandment, who wonder why he does not argue with God, as he did in his attempt to save the people of Sodom and Amora from destruction, Sarah stands as the alternate, 'better' response to God. She is unable, unwilling, to live in a world in which God could make such a cruel, unreasonable demand. She can not accept this commandment. There is a beautiful piece about Sarah's death from Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro, know as the Piaseczna Rebbe - the Aish Kodesh - who was murdered in the Holocaust. He says the following: The juxtaposition of the story of the binding of Yitzchak and the death of Sarah is, as the Rabbis understood it, intentional, and transmits a powerful message. Sarah's response to the news of her son's possible death can be seen as a kind of protest, as an attempt to show God that there are tragedies which are, in fact, too horrible to bear, demands which are too great to be made. Sarah, according to the Aish Kodesh, is making a point about the Jewish future. She is trying, through her death, to teach God, as it were, that there is only so much the Jewish people can take, only so much we can bear, before we will break, as she herself was broken by the thought of her son's death. Her death is a prophetic statement, a response to the cruelty, as indicated by the commandment to sacrifice Yitzchak, which God is apparently capable of introducing into the world. She refuses to accept this cruelty, and with her death intimates that the Jewish people, as well, will be unable to accept, to survive, too much suffering. Written as the horrors of the Shoah were beginning, this piece by the Aish Kodesh transforms Sarah from someone who could mistakenly be seen as a hysterical mother into a defender of her people, attempting to convince, to warn God, with the sacrifice of her own life, not to lay too heavy a burden on us, not to demand too much from His people. Avraham, in fulfilling the commandment to offer his son to God as a sacrifice, was doing as he was told to do, by the highest possible authority. The Jewish tradition sees this act of faith and commitment as a tremendously important model and message for the Jewish people. There is, however, if we can see it, a powerful and beautiful alternative message, the message of Sarah's refusal to accept this horrible commandment. Her decision to follow the dictates of her broken heart, and express, in an ultimate way, her refusal to live with God's unreasonably awesome demand, is a message to us as well. It challenges us to follow, as Sarah did, the wisdom of our hearts. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Shimon Felix