With a daughter spending a gap year learning in Israel, we get phone calls at rather odd times. One of the odd times she decides to call is at the conclusion of Shabbat in Israel. Knowing that she can only leave a message, our daughter will call, inform us of her Shabbat experience. If she was spending Shabbat away from her Seminary, she will call to let us know that she is safely home. If there was important news that occurred late Friday night or on Saturday eastern standard time, she will tell us what we might have missed. Last Shabbat was no different than any other Shabbat since she has been in Israel. While we were eating Shabbat lunch here in Toronto, our daughter called and told us that Joe Biden was now the President-Elect. In our home, we were thankful and hopeful that there might be a new beginning, as these troubling and chaotic four years draw to an inevitable conclusion. Ten minutes later, that hope, that sense of a new beginning, and new opportunity burst as our daughter called again. This time she called to tell us that Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of England, passed away. The Jewish people and indeed the world lost a brilliant intellect, and an empathetic soul, teacher of Jewish texts, and perhaps the greatest ambassador of Modern Orthodox Judaism, western morality, ethics, and philosophy. Within ten minutes of our Shabbat lunch, there was life and death, joy and grief, light, and darkness.
This Shabbat is Parsha Chayei Sarah. In Chayei Sarah, life and death appear almost simultaneously. We read of Sarah’s death in terms of life: “Sarah’s lifetime was…” (Gen23:1). Then Avraham prepares for his wife’s burial. Next, Avraham concentrates his focus upon the perpetuation of life. He sends his servant, Eliezer, to find a wife for his son. He sends his servant, Eliezer, to find a matriarch that can fill the void left by Sarah’s death. Rivkah embodied this notion of life and legacy. These qualities are inherent to her character. Rivkah offered water, a symbol of both life and Torah, to Eliezer. Then she offered water to Eliezer’s camels thereby demonstrating her menschlekite. Rivkah also possessed the ability to sustain life. She sustained Eliezer’s life by allowing him to accomplish his mission and return to Avraham with a wife for Yitzchak. She sustained her own life by having the wherewithal and the strength to leave her family, a family which our sages suggest were cutthroats and cheats (Genesis Rabbah 63:4), and join a family that made a covenant with God. Ultimately she brought sustenance and comfort to Yitzchak when they both entered his mother’s tent.
After Eliezer received water from this girl, we are told her name, Rivkah. Her name is indicative of her character. Her name also suggests an inherent ability to join seemingly disparate events or ideas such as life and death and make meaning from it. The Hebrew root of her name (RVK) means “join”, or “yoked together”, e.g. two oxen are joined together to pull a plow. The team must be of equal strength or the plow won’t go straight. Therefore Rivkah must be equally as strong as and independent as Yitzchak. Rivkah must be strong enough to take the memory and legacy of Sarah and make it her own. This requires a very strong sense of self.
Rivkah fills the spiritual vacuum created by Sarah’s death. Rivka will also become Avraham in the sense that just like God shared with Avraham the prophecy; God will share the prophecy of Rivkah’s two sons with Rivkah (Parsha Toldot). Like Avraham, Rivka is the bridge between this family’s current state of affairs and future spiritual holiness. “And Yitzchak brought her into the tent of his mother; he married Rivkah, she became his wife, and he loved her; and thus was Yitzchak consoled after his mother.” (Gen 24:67) The Rabbis explain that while Sarah lived a cloud of glory hung over her tent, her tent was known for hospitality, and a lamp remained alit from Shabbat to Shabbat. When Sarah died all these qualities died with her. However, when Rivkah was brought into the tent of his mother, all these qualities returned (Genesis Rabbah 60:16). Besides perpetuating life, she perpetuated the spiritual holiness necessary for joining Yitzchak in God’s covenant. Only Rivkah was able to fill the powerful memory of Sarah and still prevent herself from being overwhelmed by such a memory, joining the legacy of Sarah to her own being and her marriage to Yitzchak. Only Rivkah was able to join the generation of Avraham and Sarah with the next generation. Fittingly, the Parshah ends as it began, with death. However, now read of Avraham’s death.
Rivkah took the legacy, the Middot, the qualities of the deceased, of Sarah, and (RVK) joined those qualities, aspects, and Middot to her life. She accomplished this monumental task when she and her husband Yitzchak entered his mother’s tent and she brought him comfort. At that moment Rivkah managed to demonstrate life and death can converge, that joy and sorrow can be linked, that past and present can intersect resulting in something spiritually powerful as opposed to spiritually debilitating.
Peace,
Rav Yitz
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