Chazak u'baruch Hu. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful Wednesday morning. We are starting together with Parashat Chayei Sarah (Sarah's life).
Parashat Chayei Sarah basically deals with two things. Number one, the death of Sarah and Avraham Avinu (Abraham our father) purchasing a piece of land for Sarah to be buried in. We know, of course, that he goes and buries her in Me'arat HaMachpelah (the double cave), a very holy place. He pays top dollar for it at the end of the day. The rabbis explained why specifically: Adam and Havah were already buried there before her. That is why it is called Me'arat HaMachpelah, the double cave. Kaful is double, because there are couples buried there. According to our tradition, four couples are buried there: Adam and Havah, Avraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivkah, and finally Yaakov and Leah. Yaakov and Leah. And remember, Rachel, his other wife, was not buried there. She was buried in Kever Rachel (Rachel's Tomb). She had her own place for other reasons.
But what I actually want to talk about today in our parasha is the first thing it discusses: Sarah's burial and how Avraham navigates that first real estate transaction by a Jew. The second thing it discusses is the search for a wife for Yitzchak. Avraham sends a servant, Eliezer, to find a wife for Yitzchak. Now that Sarah has passed away, Eliezer goes, and Avraham, I guess, is worried that with Sarah gone, who is going to continue the matriarchal line? Maybe he was worried about his own lineage. Yitzchak has to get married. If he doesn't buckle down and find someone, I don't have a wife anymore to bring more kids. I don't know exactly why specifically here, but either way, Avraham now starts looking for a wife.
According to the rabbis, when Sarah passed away, the three miracles—the fresh bread all the time, the candle, and the cloud—were gone. So now it was time to bring those miracles back through another holy woman. Avraham searches for a wife for Yitzchak. But the Pasuk (verse) simply says that Avraham gets old, and that is why he conducts this search.
Either way, what I want to study today is just a couple of pieces from the Meshech Chochmah. Interestingly, today we will stay on the topic of doubling things. I want to notice and point out how the Meshech Chochmah studied the text and the Pasuk with a tremendous analytical lens, questioning everything. We will give a couple of examples. He notices things in the Pesukim that we notice but maybe don't even think about, because obviously the Torah has its reasons. But no, one second, there is a reason. There has to be a reason. Why is it written like that? Ask the question and write it down. If you find an answer, great. If not, at least write the question down. At least notice the question. The Meshech Chochmah notices many, many interesting things in the Pesukim.
As we said, today we are going to try to stick to the theme of doubling. We will notice and point out just a couple of places where something seems to be doubled and repeated. The Meshech Chochmah will ask why and give us beautiful answers for each. Number one, please open to the beginning of our parasha, chapter 23. Chapter 23: the Pasuk says that Avraham is purchasing this field from Ephron. The Pasuk says that he hands him the money. In the beginning, Ephron was a big talker. He offered it for free, on the house. “We love you, Avraham. Whatever you want, take it. Dude, I love you. Call me whenever you need anything. I'll take care of you.” Have you ever heard those words from somebody? “I'll take care of you.” Whenever someone tells you those words, nine out of ten times, you should just know they are not going to take care of you. Unfortunately, people like to talk, and the more people talk, usually the less they do. The doers don't talk; the talkers don't do. Right? That's how it is. The ones who know don't say, and the ones who say don't know. It's just a rule of life.
A person needs to know that the Gemara tells us that the Tzedakah (charity) box—the Tzedakah box that has the least amount of coins—makes the most noise when you shake it, right? The fewer coins, the more noise it makes. When it's a full Tzedakah box, you shake it and you don't really hear it. The Gemara says this. Why? It's a lesson of life. The people who are empty, the less you have, the more you talk. The louder you are, the more arrogant you are. Pay attention. Even at a Shabbat table discussion, it's always the person at the table who has the least wisdom, the least knowledge, who talks the most and the loudest, as if he knows everything about everything. He needs to overcompensate for what he lacks. And the Mishnah warns us: in life, say a little and do a lot. Don't be a talker; be a doer.
Ephron was a big talker. In public, he said, “Avraham, I'll take care of you. Whatever you need, it's on the house. I'll give you whatever land. Take it, take it. Don't worry, I'll hook you up. I'll hook you up.” Eventually, when Avraham tells him which land he wants, Ephron says, “Yeah, you know, 400 silver coins,” which was a crazy amount at the time. But whatever, Avraham didn't care. The money wasn't important, so he shut his mouth and gave Ephron what he wanted.
The Pasuk says that after Avraham pays, “Vayakam sedeh Ephron asher baMachpelah asher lifnei Mamre.” This is the Pasuk we are going to focus on: “Vayakam” (it was established). That field of Ephron, that field—Vayakam, it went, it transferred, right?—to Avraham. “Hasadeh vehaMe'arah asher bo vechol ha'etz asher basadeh.” The field and the surrounding area, the cave, and everything there went over to Avraham as an acquisition. And then Avraham buried his wife, and again the field transferred to Avraham. So you notice right away, if you read these Pesukim, that Pasuk 17 and Pasuk 20 both say, “And the field transferred,” right? The land passed to Avraham in both Pesukim. So the Meshech Chochmah wants to know: why is it doubled? Why is it doubled?
He gives a very interesting halakhic answer, and it's beautiful to see sometimes the overlap between halakha and the text. He says like this: there is an interesting Kinyan (acquisition) halakha. When you want to acquire something, at what point does it become yours? When you buy something from somebody, until what point can you back out? Let's say I want to buy your jacket. I say, “Hey, I want to buy your jacket.” You say, “Okay, fine.” You say, “Fine, deal.” So now is it done because you said it? How, halachically, can you back out? Let's say you give money. You say, “Here, here's a hundred bucks. I'm going to come later and pick it up.” Later, the guy decides he doesn't want to sell it, changes his mind, and says, “Here's your money back. I don't want to give you the jacket. I changed my mind.” Are you allowed to renege? At what point is the deal considered done? Is it a sealed deal? These are interesting questions. Believe it or not, it depends what you're buying. It matters.
When you're buying land, for example, in order to acquire land, you need to do one of three things: give money, use a Shtar, a contract, or do a Chazakah, which means you need to do something to the land, right? To the house. You need to do something. You need to lock the door. You need to dig. Something you need to do. So, one of three ways: money, contract, or Chazakah—an act of doing something physical to the land, to the property.
There is a very interesting opinion of Rav Hai Gaon. Rav Hai Gaon says that this is true only if a Jew is buying from a Jew or if a non-Jew is buying from a non-Jew. But if a Jew is buying from a non-Jew, or vice versa, money is not enough. You need a Chazakah. You need to do an additional act, either a contract or a Chazakah, as we said, doing something to the actual property. That's Rav Hai Gaon's opinion. It's brought down by the Gaon of Vilna, which leads to a very interesting question.
Here, in our case, we're dealing with a Jew, Avraham, and a non-Jew, Ephron. Now, there is discussion about whether our patriarchs, before the giving of the Torah, were Jewish. Or were they just Jew-ish, right? Were they actually Jewish, halachically? Did they have the status of a Jew? Obviously, there was no Torah yet. There was no obligation to do mitzvot (commandments). There is a lot of literature on this. This is the status of our patriarchs before the giving of the Torah. What were they? Were they Jewish? I mean, technically, we became Jewish at Har Sinai (Mount Sinai), when we got the Torah, when we got the laws. Before we got the laws, there was no—obviously, there was no Torah. What made us Jewish? We were just descendants of Avraham. We were Avrahamites. Whatever you want to call us, part of that family. But we didn't do anything; there was no conversion, right? What's the difference between us and other people? We're just from a family, from a family.
So this is very—I don't want to get into the complexities of this case—but the Meshech Chochmah takes the view that the avot (patriarchs) had graduated from the status of Noahide (descendant of Noah) and were something more. They were something better. They were Jewish. They weren't just Noahides who abided by the rules of God. They had the status of a Yisrael, of a Jew. Given that, at what point does Avraham's sale become effective? Avraham's purchase, excuse me.
Well, if Avraham is a Jew and Ephron is a non-Jew, it technically takes place only after Avraham does a Chazakah. Money is not enough, says the Meshech Chochmah. Something beautiful—look at this. The Pasuk says twice that Avraham got the land. He says it's because the first time was how the people perceived it. The people saw Avraham as a fellow Noahide, so to them, a Noahide and a Noahide, money is enough. So the Pasuk says in Pasuk 16 that Avraham pays money, and Pasuk 17 says the land transferred to him. But, as it says very clearly in Pasuk 18, this was only in their eyes. In their eyes, the sale was completed because to them Avraham was a Noahide. They were Noahides; we're equal. Therefore, money makes the sale effective. That's only true in their eyes. But Avraham himself knew he was more. He was Israel. For him, the money wasn't enough. He needed to do something to the land in order to make it his.
So what would that something be? The very next Pasuk, after he pays the money and the land becomes his in their eyes, Avraham goes and digs into the ground with a shovel and buries his wife. When he does that, he performs a formal act of doing something to the property. That's why the last Pasuk, Pasuk 20, says the field and the cave passed to Avraham, because that was what happened in reality, according to the halakha, according to how Avraham perceived it.
This is just a beautiful piece of the Meshech Chochmah, again showing us how what seems to be just an honest repetition of Pesukim is, the Meshech Chochmah says, absolutely not. The Pasuk is not repetitive, and it is not making any mistake. Every word is calculated in the beautiful Torah.
That was the first example of something being repeated. The next example is very obvious if we move on to the next topic, which is Eliezer conducting a search for a wife for Yitzchak. And I challenge you, my dear listeners, to study this chapter well. Take paper and pen, or Xerox the pages, and try to find—okay, play a game. When the story takes place of Eliezer looking for a wife, read that story. After he finds the wife, what happens is that he sits down for a meal with the consuegros, with the Mechutanim, with the soon-to-be in-laws, and he's trying to sell this deal, this Shidduch (match).
He repeats the entire story. It's very interesting, because the Torah, as we just said, doesn't waste any words. The Torah would be very careful not to repeat anything unnecessary. So really, the Torah could have skipped maybe 30 Pesukim this week and just written one sentence saying that Eliezer repeated all of this to the people, to the family. It could have just said that one sentence: he repeated it all, and that would have been that. That would have been that. But it doesn't just say that one sentence. Instead, it repeats the entire story for us, as if we didn't know the story. We know it. The family doesn't know it—Rivkah's family. So it should repeat it for them. But when the Torah is recording what happens, it should just say, “And Eliezer retold the story to them: how he was by the well, how he looked for a miracle and a sign, and how God sent him one, and this is heaven's end.” Why do we need to read it again? Why does the Torah have to repeat it again for us?
There are many ideas here, many interesting points and lessons. But fascinatingly, when you read the story the second time around, you'll start noticing a lot of nuanced details that are not identical to the first time around. The first time around it said this. When Eliezer repeats the story, he actually deviates slightly, which makes you wonder: why did Eliezer have to do that? Was he trying to sell this Shidduch? Was he trying to convince them? Or was he trying to hide something? So on and so forth.
But he is the first matchmaker, so I'm not sure if that is precedent for what matchmakers do. He is very much trying to push this through, not because he's trying to lie or conceal, but because sometimes people need a little push. Yitzchak, of course, is a great bachelor. He's a great catch. He doesn't need to be sold. He's got tremendous quality inherently. But still, the buyer is sometimes nervous, and you've got to do some convincing that it's a good deal. And sometimes the convincing is not necessarily—you wouldn't use the same tactic to convince one buyer and another. For some buyers, you need to come from one angle; sometimes, from another. Either way, Eliezer is definitely doing some convincing here. Again, I challenge you to take paper and pen and jot down some of the differences between the story as it actually happened and the story as Eliezer repeats it. Try to notice what those differences are. You'll be surprised that probably most of them, if not all of them, have already been noticed and discussed by the commentaries.
Let's point out just one repetition here and how it differs from the first time around to the second time around. Chapter 24, Pasuk 4. Avraham Avinu is getting old and looking for a wife for his son, Yitzchak. He calls over Eliezer, whom he trusts with everything, and makes him swear on his holiest organ, his Brit Milah (covenant of circumcision). He makes him swear that he is not going to take a girl from here. “Please go to where I came from. Go back to my people. Go to the land of my birth, my land where I was born.” Basically, “I don't want a girl from Canaan, from Israel back then. I want a girl from where I came from, from my homeland, from back up there.” He wanted a Syrian girl, you know what I mean? He wanted a Syrian girl for his son.
Now, I have to share the Kli Yakar's explanation. He asks, what was wrong with the girls here? The Kli Yakar says the girls here had bad character. And even though the place Rivkah came from was filled with idolatry—remember, when Eliezer goes into the house, he couldn't even step in there; there was so much idolatry in the home—the Kli Yakar says that if a girl has idolatry, if she has bad philosophy, that's not a big deal. Philosophy and intellect are things you can change. You can talk to someone, inspire them, debate them. That's actually easy to work with. What is very hard to change is character. A girl with bad character? No, no chance. Stay away, run.
When Avraham was looking for a wife for his son, what mattered most was midot—the character of the person. Are they a good person? Because if they're a good person, they have kindness, they're giving, and they're respectful. If they're a good person, if they're respectful, then the marriage will be fine, even if we're not on the same page religiously, if you do this and I do that. If there's mutual respect, you can do you and I can do me, and that's fine. Trust me, that's not going to harm the kids. You know what harms the kids in a marriage more than anything? Dysfunctional parents, always fighting and bickering. When there's no shalom (peace), when there's no respect. When there's respect in the home—when there's respect in the home—the kid will choose his own path. Don't worry about your kid. You can be religious and your wife not, or vice versa, your husband not. It's not going to mess up your kid. Don't fight with your spouse. Be respectful. Shalom. Avraham Avinu understands that. Obviously, we try to inspire observance and religion. But ultimately, when looking for a wife, he says, don't take a girl from here, because they have bad character. Bad character is very hard to change. It takes a lifetime. I don't want that. I don't know—who knows if they change? Ultimately, a person can only change himself. But philosophy and religion—you can talk to them, inspire them, explain things to them. See, the Kli Yakar makes a very important point.
Either way, Avraham tells Eliezer, “Don't take a girl from here. Go back to my land where I was born.” That's really what he says. Yet, when Eliezer repeats the story to the family, he says that Avraham told him to go back to his family and get a girl from his own family. That's very interesting, because Avraham never mentioned that. If you look closely, Avraham never cared that it should be a girl from his family. He just said, “Get a girl from my hometown.” So why did Eliezer add that detail?
Not only that, but when Eliezer conducts the test at the well and Rivkah shows that kindness, he gives her the jewelry and then asks, “Who's your family? Where are you from?” When he recounts the story, he does the opposite. He tells them, “I asked her where she's from, and when she told me, then I gave her the jewelry.” So again, he deviates from what actually happened.
The Meshech Chochmah explains that originally Avraham did not care that the girl should be from his family. Again, he wanted a girl with good character, and he believed that, in general, the people of his hometown had good character. They had morality and ethics, and he trusted Eliezer to look for a girl with stellar character. It didn't necessarily need to be someone from his family. “Whoever you find to be like that, I trust your judgment.”
That's why, when Eliezer gets to the land, when he gets to Haran, he doesn't go to her family. He doesn't ask, “Hey, guys, do you know where Betuel is? Where is Avraham Avinu's home? Where is his—you know?” He doesn't look for that house. Where does he look? He just goes to the well, because he's not looking for any specific girl. He's looking for any good girl. So he goes to the well. He goes to, I guess, the town square. It was just a local center.
When she passes the test, Eliezer immediately says, “Good, done. You're the girl,” and gives her the ring, the jewelry. He asks, “Okay, now who's your family?” just for technicality purposes. He just wanted to know who her family was. But that was not inherently part of the condition. It didn't matter who her family was, right?
As it turns out, she happened to also be Avraham Avinu's great-niece or whatever it is. She's actually his cousin. She's Yitzchak's family. She's from the family. She's Nahor's granddaughter. So, couldn't believe it—this is the family. Although it wasn't part of his original plan, Eliezer realizes now this is part of Hashem's original plan. Hashem wanted not just a girl, but what are the odds that she was actually from Avraham's family? Now Eliezer starts replaying the story and going backwards, and he realizes, “Oh, wow, so this is actually part of what Hashem wanted.” He sees an opportunity to, in a way, be able to fabricate the story so that it convinces the family even more that this is divine.
When he retells the story, he makes it sound as if all along it was supposed to be the family. So when he goes back and tells the story from the beginning, he says, “You know, Avraham sent me to get a girl.” He doesn't say just from his land, because that would be a lost opportunity. It would sound like Avraham didn't care that it should be them. So Eliezer says, “He wants a girl from my family. He said to me, ‘Go to my family,’” right? In truth, that never happened. Eliezer made that up. He made it up because he knew it would sell better to the family if they heard that Avraham specifically wanted them.
Once you change that, you have to be careful, because you have to keep track of all your other lies. Eliezer is very good at that. So he has to change one more detail. Which other detail? The order of the jewelry. Because if you care that it should be a girl from the family, then why did you give her the jewelry before finding out which family she's from? So Eliezer had to flip that detail too. First he says, “I asked the girl, ‘Which family are you from?’ And when she told me it was this family, then I gave her the jewelry.” So you see how clever Eliezer was in making sure to push this through, to sell it in a way the family would hear.
The rabbis tell us that the family even tried sabotaging this Shidduch. They tried sabotaging it. They wanted to kill Eliezer. They put out a plate of poison, whatever it is. The rabbis are trying to convey that there was hesitation, and Eliezer sensed it. But he knew this to be a great Shidduch. He knew that this girl, Rivkah, was the perfect match for Yitzchak. We know Yitzchak was the middat hadin, strict judgment. Yitzchak was disciplined, strict in judgment. To balance him out, he needed a wife like Rivkah, who embodied kindness and would give camels to drink. That's why this is the test Eliezer conducts: “Who is going to give me to drink and give my camels to drink?” Ultimately, she is the girl who is going to be kindness. Together, they have a child, Yaakov, who is the embodiment of emet (truth). That's why, when you have balance in a home, when you have two parents who are not the same but each has their strengths, together they create something beautiful in a child. Ultimately, that is the balance, the truth that emerges.
That's what Eliezer says when he repeats the story: “Baruch Adonai Elohei adoni Avraham, Hashem lo azav chasdo va'amito me'im Adonai.” He says, “Thank God who gave me his chesed (kindness) and his truth,” with Yitzchak's din (strict judgment) and Rivkah's chesed. “Now the result will be Yaakov's emet, the truth, the harmony, the balance.”