TorahParsha

Thought for Parshat Chayei Sarah

 

How you find your own voice

 

i

Abraham sends his messenger

to the land of his birth

to find a wife

for his son Isaac.

*

The mesenger sets

a pact with God:

Let the woman

who extends the right kindness

to me,

a wanderer alone

from a faraway land,

be the right woman.

And Rebecca fulfills these signs.

*

The messenger asks

Rebecca’s  family

for Rebecca’s hand.

Her father

and her brother

say:

With such signs,

the matter comes from God;

we cannot accept

or reject.

*

The messenger asks

for Rebecca to come right away

to marry Isaac.

Her family says:

Let us ask Rebecca.

Rebecca says:

I will go.

 

ii

The men

who run the affairs of things

need messengers,

need signs,

they do not act for themselves,

they do not decide.

But the woman

speaks for herself.

*

And recall how God

made the first man alone

and in need of help

and so God made Woman:

one daughter of whom

now offers help

to a lone man

and is able to speak

where the men

cannot.

 

iii

There is a lesson in this:

Only the one

who exists to help others

finds her own voice.
 

 
_____
Shabbat shalom,
Abe
 

Please pray for for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, and for NeshamaEmunah bat Batya


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Thought for Haftorat Chayei Sara

For this week, I decided to write about the Haftorah, and not about the Torah portion.

 

Are you the center of your life?

Kings chapter 1

  

i

King David is old.

He is cold and he cannot be warmed.

His servants cover him in clothes, and he cannot be warmed.

His servants bring a young woman to lie in bed with him, and he cannot be warmed.

The warmth of life leaves him.

 

ii

There is strife over who of David’s sons will succeed him.

David tells his wife Batsheva: our son Solomon—and not the son of any of my other wives—will succeed me

as I have sworn to you by Hashem. 

*
Batsheva tells David: May my master the king David live forever.

 

iii

You can be the center of your life. 

All others will be your servants.

But then you have no true life.

*
When your life lies in others around you, then life comes.

*

David has servants to serve him.

They bring him clothes, they bring him a woman to warm him.

He is still cold unto death.

*
David affirms his oath to his wife, to God, of which son will succeed him

—of how he will live on through his family.

Then Batsheva says:

May my master the king David live forever.  

             

 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

For a printer-friendly version of this piece, click here (word document).

Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther

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Interdependence (For Parshat Chayei Sarah)

i

Abraham hopes for a wife for his son.

 

He sends his servant out to seek this wife.

 

We do not know the servant’s name.

 

He is only: the eldest servant of Abraham’s house.

 

*

The servant journeys to Abraham’s homeland and meets Rebecca and she is the one whom he hopes to bring back for Abraham’s son, for Isaac.

 

When the servant does not know if Rebecca is the right woman, or if her family will let her come with him—if HaShem had made his journey prosperous or not—he is only the man. His name servant is taken away.

 

ii

Here is a man whose very name (servant) arises from his mission for others.

 

The presence of his name is contingent upon what he will achieve through other people.

 

*

He is the one who brings a wife to Abraham’s son.

 

He is the one who shifts Abraham’s group, from a father-and-son to the beginning of many generations: the beginning of a nation.

 

iii

At the root of this nation is the man who needs others utterly—even simply to bear a name, simply to be.

 

________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

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The Children of Rebecca and Isaac

i
The text relays how Abraham's servant brings Rebecca from her homeland to Abraham's house, to become Isaac's wife; in that story the text uses the word camel eighteen times.

For instance. The servant sets a sign to know whom of the women he meets should be Isaac's bride. The sign is that the right woman will volunteer to water the servant's camels. It is Rebecca who fulfills that sign.

And for instance. When Rebecca finally does come to the house of Abraham, to be married to Isaac, she is riding on a camel.

And we do not learn that Isaac actually sees Rebecca when she arrives. We only learn that Isaac lifted up his eyes, and behold: camels were coming.

Rebecca is signified by camels.

*
At the time that Rebecca and Isaac meet, Isaac has just gone out to meditate in the field.

*
After they meet, Isaac takes Rebecca in to the tent, in to their marital home.

And he loved her.

ii
A camel in that time and place was a vehicle of journey, like our car or our train.

So Rebecca, drawn to camels, signified by camels, is a woman of journeys. She looks out to the wide expanse of the world.

*
Isaac is a man of meditation, of plumbing the depths of all things in a single field, of things close-at-hand.

*
Isaac and Rebecca's marriage joins two opposite views within a single home of love.

iii
God gives the Law to the Children of Israel—Rebecca and Isaac's descendants—at a precise mountain, a specific spot, along the Children of Israel's journey from Egypt to Canaan, from landlessness to home, from profane to holy. 

And God asks the Children of Israel to make for him a Mishkan, a portable temple, a meeting-house for the people and God, for the people and holiness, in their journeys from place to place.

And even up through now we meditate upon the Law, that is called Halacha, that means Path, inside the room called a Beit Midrash: a House of Study: the journey and the meditation in one home.

*
So that we, who are Rebecca and Isaac's children, come to God as Rebecca and Isaac's children.

Their marriage is eternal.

~~~~~
This thought owes a great deal to both an online shiur from Yaacov Steinman, and insights from Rabbi Laurie Dinnerstein-Kurs.

Chosenness

i
Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac, who is Abraham’s son.

The servant asks God for a sign by which to find her:

The girl to whom I will say, “Let down your pitcher... that I may drink”—and she will say, “Drink, and I will give your camels drink also”—let it be her whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac.

The servant discovers Rebecca by the well near the city. Rebecca fulfills this sign.

*
The servant tells these things to Rebecca’s family. They agree to the marriage. They say: the thing comes from the Lord.

But there is disagreement. The servant wants to take Rebecca to Isaac immediately. Her family wants her to wait. The servant says: Do not hinder me, seeing as the Lord has prospered my way.

*
Rebecca, when her family asks what she prefers, says I will go.

ii
It is clear in a sign from God that Rebecca is to be Isaac’s wife: that she is to become mother to Israel.

But Rebecca must decide, herself, to go on God’s path.

iii
Even those who are chosen by God must themselves choose Him.

~~~~