And ephron's field at machpelah by mamre, the field and the cave that was in it and every tree in the field, within its boundaries all around, passed over to abraham as a possession, in the full view of the hittites, all the assembled in the gate of his town

(Bereishit 23;17)

 

And the field of ephron passed - This is the explanation: After he [Abraham] transferred the silver, it came into his ownership, but he had yet to perform an act of possession [hazakah] for it to serve as a burial ground. Therefore it later says (verse 20) "and the field and the cave which was in it passed... for a burial-holding"; for afterwards he performed an act of possession in order to establish it as a cemetery. And this is reason it later states "from the Hittites", for even though he purchased it from its owner, Ephron, it was not proper to make it a burial ground without the assent of all the town's inhabitants.

(R' Yosef Bechor Shor, Bereishit 23;17)

 

And Ephron's field passed [Translator's note - The Hebrew original for "and Ephron's field passed" is "va'yakam sedeh Ephron" .The reverse acrostic of these three words forms the name "Esav" - twin brother of Jacob]

And Ephron's field passed - the reverse acrostic forms "Esav". This is to allude to Esav who will rise up to contest ownership of the cave.

(Baal HaTurim, ibid., ibid)

 

And Ephron's field passed - reverse acrostic forms "Esav".this alludes to the fact that Esav's head would be buried in the cave. [Targum Yehonatan, a midrashic expansion of Scripture, has Hushim, son of Dan, severing the head of Esav, which fell to the ground and rolled to the Machpelah cave, finally resting alongside the bones of his father Yitzchak].

(R' Zvi Elimelech Shapira of Dinov, Iggeret D'kallah, p. 118b)

 

 

The parasha of "chayey sarah": Two ascents of fate and destiny

Elad Kaplan

"Go you forth from your land and your birthplace and your father's house to the land which I will show you." - so the Holy One commands Abraham and promises him that upon his arrival in the promised land he will become "a great nation" and that all the nations of the earth will be blessed by virtue of him. The journey leads Abraham to Canaan where he receives the additional promise that "to your seed will I give this land" - assuming that Sara, his barren wife, will yet be privileged to bear children who will carry on his legacy.

Our Sages understood Abraham's departure from Ur Casdim and his journey to Canaan not only as the realization of a divine order, but as a truly existential need. According to the Midrash, Abraham, following his rebellion against idolatry, is a 'wanted' and persecuted figure in Ur Casdim; he had even set fire to the house of idols, razing it with all its contents (For example, see Sefer Hayovlim, Chap. 12) Many stories describe Abraham being flung into a fiery furnace by Nimrod and being miraculously saved. The Yalkut Shimoni compilation of midrashim has a plastic description of the attempt to kill Abraham: "They tied him, binding him hand and foot, throwing him to the ground, and they surrounded him from all sides with five amot of branches". Abraham escapes his pursuers, leaving his land, his birthplace and his father's house; God's command imparts the journey with a dimension of hope, of faith in the future, of continuity.

Abraham's tribulations do not end with his arrival in the Land of Canaan. Throughout his sojournings he repeatedly withstands tests and challenges. Famine drives him to Egypt. There, concern for his fate almost results in loss of his wife, forcibly taken by Pharaoh. Upon his return to the Land of Canaan, adjacent kings draw him into a war, and he is compelled to free Lot from his captors. Even within the family circle there is no quiet… Hagar and Ishmael are expelled... Abraham is commanded to offer his son, Yitzchak, as a sacrifice. Abraham barely has a moment of calm in the promised land to which he escaped.

It seems to me that Abraham's journey is not determined by his conscious decisions, but by his fate. To fully understand this point, we turn to the writings of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soleveichik, who, in his essay "Kol Dodi Dofek", explains the significance of fate:

In the life the nation, as in the life of the individual, fate indicates an existence by compulsion. A strange necessity binds the individual components into a single whole. The individual, against his will, is subject and subservient to a national-fateful reality; he cannot escape from it and become assimilated into some other external reality. The environment ejects the Jew who flees from God. He is awoken from his slumber as was the prophet Jonah aroused by the captain's request for his personal and his national-religious identification.

The Rav describes Abraham's life of fate:

With the appearance of the first Jew - our father, Abraham - loneliness descended to our world. Abraham the Hebrew lived the life of a loner; the entire world on one side, he on the other side. [The word 'Hebrew' - 'Ivri;- means 'on the other side'').

But Rabbi Soleveitchik bases the existence of the Jewish people not only upon fate; destiny is also a factor:

In the life of a nation - as in the life of the individual - there is also volitional existence which the nation chooses of its own free will and in which it finds the full realization of its historic existence. Instead of existence as factual, immutable experience into which the nation is forced, there appears existence as an active experience with purposeful dimensions, dynamism, ascent, aspiration and realization. The nation is involved in the destiny because of its yearnings for a more perfect existence full of content and direction. Destiny is the bubbling fountain of the unique spiritual elevation of the nation and the ceaseless flow of divine inspiration which does not ebb as long the nation's path is charted by Divine Law. A life of destiny is a life of direction, the result of compulsory alertness and freedom of choice. (Kol Dodi Dofek, p.92)

Abraham's ascent to The Land, the First Aliyah, is accompanied by many difficulties and fears. When, as we read in the parasha of "Chayey Sarah", he wants to find a bride for his son, he dispatches his servant back to his land of origin into order to lead the second aliyah to The Land, the aliyah of Rebecca. This aliya is of a completely different nature than that of Abraham. Instead of a journey of fate, Rebecca's aliya is one of goal.

Abraham is commanded "Lech Lecha - "go forth", Rebecca's reaction to "Lech lecha" is based upon her decision. Her family insists on hearing her opinion: "Will you go with this man?" She succinctly replies: "I will go".

Abraham's story begins in a fiery furnace that destroys life; Rebecca's story begins at a well of water that provides life. In contrast to Abraham's fleeing, Rebecca leaves a warm and loving home which is reluctant to let her go.

"Let the girl remain with us ten days or so, then she may go," her brother and mother request of Abraham's servant. Then they bless her: "Our sister, become hence myriads teeming. May your seed take hold of the gate of its foes."

Abraham goes forth to the unknown, "to the land which I will show you"; Rebecca, accompanied by her maids, goes to an established and stable location where there await her "sheep and cattle and silver and gold and male and female slaves and camels and donkeys."

Abraham goes to The Land in the hope of progeny, continuity, future. Rebecca goes with expectations of love. "Yitzchak brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebecca as wife. And he loved her, and Yitzchak was consoled after his mother's death." So is described the meeting between Yitzchak and Rebecca. The meeting between

Yitzchak, product of fate, and Rebecca, messenger of destiny, leads to the birth of the Jewish people.

"How does destiny differ from fate?" asks Rav Soleveitchik. He answers:

In two respects. Fate means necessary existence, Destiny is will-based existence. Destiny is created by man himself, who chooses and delineates his way in life. Secondly, Fate, in the teleological sense, is expressed by undefined existence. Destiny has purpose and goal.

Now it is our turn, the turn of Israel, "the son". We recall our father Yitzhak, who was born in The Land, after his parents had escaped from persecution, in the hope for a future and continuity in The Land. A grain of fear will always accompany us, a sense of flight from the Diaspora's fiery furnaces and coping with Fate. However, we will not grow through fear. We will again return to alien lands and again ascend with Mother, with Rebecca, who sets out on a journey which began at a well and followed love, with a sense of destiny and mission.

Whereas a generation of Fate feels the need to struggle for its existence, the generation of Destiny does not fear for its future. The new reality reaches expression with the closing of the parasha. When Abraham dies in ripe old age, Yitzchak again bonds with Ishmael--the son expelled because Sarah feared lest "the son of this maidservant inherit together with my son, with Yitzchak" - in a common goal, the interment of their father. The connection between Fate and Destiny remembers the fears of the past, but knows how to create a new reality of love and of peace.

Elad Kaplan writes the weekly "Parasha B'chakira" column for Nana10

 

 

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