Drash on Chayei Sarah 2024

Rabbi Moshe Givental

North Shore Temple Emanuel

Life is full of paradox and Judaism is masterful at honouring and lifting up those realities. This week’s Torah reading, Parshat Chayyei Sarah is another poignant example of that. On the one hand, the Parshah’s english translation is “The Life of Sarah” but on the other hand it begins with her actual death. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l pointed out, based on a comment from Rashi, that the first sentence of our Parshah contains an even deeper mystery. It says “Sarah’s life was 127 years: the years of Sarah’s life.” Rashi comments that this strange repetition of words is meant to convey that all the years of her life were equally good. However, how could we say that all of her years were good, whether equally or not?

Her life involved unceasing movement and instability. Her husband convinced her to pretend that she was his sister twice, first in Egypt and then in Gerar, and both times this led to her being taken captive into the royal Harem. She remained childless until her elderly years, seemingly in contradiction to God’s promise. She herself died, shortly after her husband took her only son away on a journey which almost had him murdered on an altar. How is any of that good? Why would Rashi offer such an interpretation?

Rabbi Sacks z”l concludes that Sarah’s life was good, in direct contradiction to how most of us would experience these events because ultimately she had faith. He brings Friedrich Neitzche as a support, “He who has a big enough why in life, can bear almost any how.” The famous Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, developed an entire philosophy of psychology on a similar principle. He taught that human beings are primarily meaning-seeking creatures. The religious equivalent of this is something like faith, perhaps purpose filled faith.

I think Viktor Frankl is right, we are indeed meaning-seeking creatures. However, I think it’s too simple, and somehow too disrespectful to the reality of life’s suffering, to say that a big enough dash of meaning and faith will transform all of that into “good.” It feels more honest instead to name the bewildering paradoxes of life’s majesty and purpose intertwined with its suffering and uncertainty as paradox, full stop. Perhaps we can better learn to stand and face that paradox with “Yirat Adonai.” The classical interpretation of that is “Fear of God,” but a more nuanced translation is something like “trembling awe.” My female colleagues in Rabbinical School suggested this might be something like the experience of giving birth – the terror, pain, majesty, and awe combined into one. A big part of me believes that standing in this place of mystery is the most powerful response.

At the same time, I know that it’s helpful to have something more concrete. So I’ll leave you with the Rabbinically crafted refrain we recite throughout the High Holidays. I think it’s fitting all year around. “U-teshuvah u-tefillah u-tzedakah ma’avirin et ro’a ha-gezeirah.” Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzeddakah make it possible for us to cross over the harshness of our lives. Teshuvah (the capacity to turn and make new choices in our lives), tefillah (the capacity for prayer – for the humility to open to something bigger than ourselves) and tzedakah (justice, not just charity) don’t erase our suffering, but I do think they can be our compass in the face of life’s majesty, it’s opposite, and the mysterious paradox which contains it all.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Moshe