The Life That Continues

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

Our parsha opens, “Sarah’s life was one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of Sarah’s life” (Bereishis 23:1). The very next pasuk tells us that Sarah died, and that Avraham came to eulogize her and to weep for her. Rashi explains that she died right after the Akeidah. Someone told her that Yitzchak had been bound on the altar to be slaughtered, and before she could hear that he had been saved, the shock took her life. The Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer (32) adds that it was the Satan who brought her this news.

This raises a few questions. First, if the pasuk is telling us about Sarah’s death, why does it open with “Sarah’s life”? It should simply have said that she died, and how old she was. Similarly, why is the whole parsha called Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” when it begins with her death? Also, how could the Satan cause her death? We know that the Satan can test a person and try to lead him to sin. But here he simply shocked Sarah, and she passed away without any choice in the matter. Does the Satan really have the power to kill a person before his time?

The Ohr HaChaim answers that this is exactly why the pasuk opens with “Sarah’s life.” It is telling us that Sarah did not die before her time. She was meant to live one hundred and twenty-seven years, and her years were complete. Had she not passed away when she heard about the Akeidah, she would have passed away at the same time in some other way.

Why, then, did she pass away in this particular way? Rav Zalman Sorotzkin suggests that the Satan could not reach her in any other way. She was so immersed in holiness that he could not interrupt her, and only the news of the Akeidah broke through. He compares this to the Gemara in Shabbos (30b) about David HaMelech. As long as David was learning Torah, his life could not be taken. So a noise was made in the trees, David stopped learning for a moment to see what it was, and in that moment his life was taken. There may be other reasons why Sarah passed away in this way, but the main point is clear: the Satan did not take Sarah’s life. She was meant to live one hundred and twenty-seven years, and no more.

We need to understand this when a tragedy happens. Of course we are deeply pained by it. But we should know that life is given only by Hashem and taken only by Hashem. When a person passes away through a tragedy, it was the time that Hashem had granted him, and Hashem arranged that it should end in this way. The same is true when a relative is ill. We should try to find him the best doctors and help him in every possible way. But if, despite everything, he passes away, we should not blame ourselves and say, “I didn’t do enough; I didn’t find good enough doctors; I didn’t take proper care of him.” It was his time, and Hashem arranged that it should happen this way. We have to understand this, and truly believe it: Hashem gives life, and Hashem takes life.

There is also a practical lesson here for anyone who wants a long life. He should certainly do his part: eat healthily, go to the doctor for checkups, and stay away from dangerous places, dangerous trips and reckless exercise. But since life is only in Hashem’s hands, the main thing he should do is daven to Hashem for long life, and perhaps ask a tzaddik (righteous person) for a berachah (blessing).

That is one explanation of the words “Sarah’s life.” Rav Yerucham Bordiansky, the mashgiach, offers another. He says that the Torah speaks of “Sarah’s life” at the very moment it tells us about her death to teach us that her life did not end there. On the contrary, what comes after this world is a Jew’s real life, because the main life of a Jew is in Olam Haba. The body passes away and will return at Techiyas HaMeisim (the resurrection of the dead) but the neshamah (soul) continues to live, close to Hashem’s Throne of Glory.

Avraham Avinu himself hints at this. When he asks the sons of Cheis for a burial place, he says that he wants to “bury my dead from before me” (Bereishis 23:4). What does “from before me” mean? It means that only the body, which is lying in front of him, needs to be buried; the soul has already gone up. Avraham also refused to accept the burial place as a gift. He insisted on paying for it, and he called it an “achuzas kever,” a burial estate: a permanent holding where his whole family would be buried. Why was this so important to him? Because a Jew’s life truly continues after this world, and a burial place is part of that continuing life, not something temporary.

This can give us great comfort when someone close to us passes away, whether a father, a mother, a grandparent or another close relative. How can we bear to be separated from them? We should know that the separation is only from the body. The person himself continues to live. His neshamah is still close to us, and it is also connected to his resting place, so we should go to his kever (grave) and daven there. We can even ask him, at his kever, to plead for us before Hashem. And although he can no longer do mitzvos himself, we can do mitzvos in his merit. His sons and daughters especially should try to send him, so to speak, packages of merits.

What is the greatest merit we can send him? Continuing the main thing he did in his life. A person’s life is not the time he spent sleeping, waking up and eating. His life is what he put his time and effort into: his avodas Hashem (service of Hashem). So find out what his main avodah was, and continue it. If he davened with feeling, try to daven the way he did. If he did a lot of chesed (kindness) for other people, do something for others. If he put his effort into Torah, by learning or by teaching, do something to strengthen Torah in your community. Continuing what he was moser nefesh for, what he gave himself to, is the main way to make his life continue, even in this world, and it all goes to his merit.

We see this with Avraham Avinu in our parsha. There had been a small difference of approach between Avraham and Sarah. Avraham was concerned for his son Yitzchak, but he was also concerned for Yishmael, and sending Yishmael away was very hard for him. The pasuk calls Avraham “av hamon goyim,” the father of a multitude of nations (Bereishis 17:5). His task was not only to raise Yitzchak, but also to bring the nations of the world to believe in Hashem and abandon idol worship, and so he hoped to be a good influence on Yishmael. Sarah, however, was the mother of Yisrael, not the mother of all the nations. She was Yitzchak’s mother, and she was afraid of any bad influence on him; she wanted him to be completely holy. That is why she told Avraham to send Yishmael away.

After Sarah passed away, Avraham took on her concern and devoted himself even more to Yitzchak. Right away, he set about finding Yitzchak a shidduch (match). He would not take a wife for him from the daughters of Canaan, where they lived, nor would he accept Eliezer’s daughter. Instead he sent Eliezer far away to find the one right match: Rivkah, who could become the mother of Klal Yisrael in Sarah’s place. Avraham went out of his way to make this happen. The pasuk says that Yitzchak brought Rivkah into his mother Sarah’s tent and married her, and “Yitzchak was comforted after his mother” (Bereishis 24:67). Rashi explains that the three things that had been in Sarah’s tent returned with Rivkah: the candle lit on Erev Shabbos burned all week, there was a blessing in the dough, and a cloud rested over the tent. Avraham had found Yitzchak a wife who truly continued Sarah and became the mother of Klal Yisrael.

At the end of the parsha, Avraham marries Keturah (Bereishis 25:1), and Rashi says that Keturah was Hagar. Avraham had more children with her, because he still cared about the nations of the world. But he made sure that Hagar was only a pilegesh (a wife of lesser status), not a full wife, because his main wife was always Sarah. And the pasuk says that Avraham gave everything he had to Yitzchak, while to his other sons he gave only gifts, and sent them away (Bereishis 25:5 to 6). Avraham showed clearly that he was following Sarah’s path, and that Yitzchak came first.

There is a story from the war in Gaza, which not everyone knows.  A boy named Ariel Zohar lived near Gaza. On Simchas Torah morning he left his house at 6:30, and suddenly heard shooting and explosions all around him. He ran into the nearest house and hid in its safe room, where he stayed the whole day. The man who lived there went out to fight and was killed. When Ariel finally came out, he discovered that his parents and his whole family had been killed. He was the only survivor.

He went to his grandfather, who lives in Rishon LeTzion, and said, “I want something to remember my father by. My bar mitzvah is in two weeks, and my father wanted to give me his father’s tefillin. We talked about how I should daven the same way my grandfather did, and wear his tefillin. I want those tefillin. Can someone get them out of the house?” The house was still burning and almost completely destroyed, but someone went in, and baruch Hashem, the tefillin were brought out two weeks before his bar mitzvah. Think about what this boy asked for. He did not ask for pictures or for anything of value. He asked for his grandfather’s tefillin, because they were his family’s true inheritance. “My grandfather davened with these tefillin, my father davened with them and I want to daven the same way.” That is what continuing a life really means.

May we be zocheh to carry on the important work of those close to us who have passed away, and in this way to send them great merit and continue their avodah in this world.