Parashat Chayei Sarah focuses on two detailed narratives: Avraham’s purchase of a field with a cave as a burial place for Sarah, and his mission — via his servant Eliezer — to find a wife for his son Yitzchak. The former is Avraham’s initiative to secure the promise of Land (Brit bein HaBetarim), stated five times, and the latter is Avraham’s response to the promise of children (Brit Mila), also assured to Avraham five times. Avraham does not wait for God to fulfill these promises but realizes God is waiting for him to facilitate their fulfillment.
But why wait for Sarah’s death and not purchase land or search for a wife for Yitzchak earlier?
The Torah teaches us: “And the life of Sarah was 100 and 20 and seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah” (Bereishit 23:1). Avraham was not waiting for the death of Sarah. He was inspired by Sarah’s life of active commitment to the aforementioned promises to continue her legacy.
At the climax/transition in the narratives of Avraham Avinu, the Torah tells us a story of Sarah Imeinu (Bereishit 16). This is the story that will determine who will be the “Mother” of the promised nation. Sarah has followed Avram from Ur Kasdim to Canaan, accompanying him as they both sacrificed their pasts for Divine promise (see Radak 11:29–31). But 10 years have passed, a covenant of Land has been forged and promises of a child have yet to be fulfilled. Sarah does not wait around, passively anticipating their fulfillment. She is determined to play a role in the actualization of Hashem’s word. So she forfeits her entire future and potential status of national matriarch, and gives her maidservant Hagar as a full-fledged wife to Avram to beget the long-awaited promised progeny (see Ramban 16:2). She struggles with this change in status as Hagar conceives and belittles her, and stands by as Avraham names his first-born child “Yishmael” — for God had heard the bitter cry of Hagar.
Immediately after this story, the Torah tells us of the Brit Mila, a covenant forged with Avraham and his descendants through the sign of circumcision. And Sarah is to be the mother of Yitzchak through whom the covenant will continue! Sarah’s willingness to sacrifice her future status to actively catalyze the fulfillment of Hashem’s promises, of Land and descendants, merits her to become Am Yisrael’s first Matriarch.
The Netziv (HaEmek Davar, 23:1) explains that although Avraham received direct messages of prophecies from Hashem commanding him to leave his father’s home and later to sacrifice his future hopes through the binding of Yitzchak, Sarah surmounts similar challenges through ruach haKodesh — Divine inspiration and pure faith in the ways of Hashem (Bereishit Rabbah 41 – “Avraham left [Ur Kasdim] in promise, I [Sarah] left in faith”). She willingly undergoes her own “sacrifice” of a child before Avraham is told by Hashem to do so. This is Sarah Imeinu’s legacy.
Upon her death, Avraham is inspired and determined to perpetuate Sarah’s life and legacy. Without any prophetic commands, he struggles with focused willpower to catalyze the fulfillment of Hashem’s promises to secure Land and children for the future. Sarah understood that Divine promise is not a statement that God will act, but “an invitation from God to Avraham and his children that they should act” (Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l “Land and Children,” Covenant and Conversation [Genesis], p. 126), with commitment and willingness to sacrifice, and God will help them. Sarah understood the challenge of fulfilling Hashem’s covenant. She acted with faith, not passivity, overcoming overwhelming personal obstacles to secure the future of Hashem’s nation. She inspired Avraham to get up and do the same. Now, more than ever, Sarah’s proactive sacrifices rooted in her faith of divine promises, should inspire us at home and on the battlefield. May her legacy provide us, her children, with the strength to persevere and act to secure the future of our Land and nation!
Rabbanit Shani Taragin is educational director of World Mizrachi and teaches at Matan and other educational institutions in Israel. She is a member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau (www.mizrachi.org/speakers). The RZA-Mizrachi is a broad Religious Zionist organization without a particular political affiliation.
