Originally posted November 20, 2024
It’s no accident that this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, opens with the death of our matriarch Sarah and segues quickly to the story of the next generation. Abraham ensures that Isaac marries, sending his servant Eliezer back home to find someone fitting to be Isaac’s partner, to give life to the next generation in the family. When Isaac first meets Rebecca, Torah tells us that the very first thing he does is to bring her into the tent of his mother Sarah. This is kind of a weird verse! Sarah has died – what does it mean that Isaac brought his beloved, soon-to-be-wife, into the tent of his mother of blessed memory? Midrash offers us an answer, teaching us that while Sarah was alive, her tent, her home, was a special, almost magical place. The cloud of the Divine Presence rested upon the Tent. The doors of her tent were always open wide. Sarah’s challah dough was blessed – such that every week when she baked challah, abundant loaves came out of the oven, no matter how little flour she used. And the Shabbat candles that Sarah lit – they burned from one Shabbat to the next. But all of these miraculous blessings stopped when Sarah died. I imagine that without Sarah’s presence, her home – Isaac’s home – was a pretty dismal place. Until Rebecca arrives, with the promise of a new family – the family that Isaac and Rebecca will create, a family that will continue Sarah’s legacy into the future. All of the blessings of Sarah’s tent return in abundance with Rebecca’s presence. We can imagine a bereaved, falling in love Isaac telling stories of his mom to Rebecca – how special her Shabbat dinners were, how safe and loved he felt in her tent. And Isaac and Rebecca have the potential, just as each of us in our own homes and families, and in our community, to create the next generation of Jewish life, the next generation that will cherish the memories of what a vibrant Judaism can be, and seek to build it for themselves.
