Two Minute Torah Podcast

Hayyei Sarah 5770 by Dr. Ray Goldstein

Shalom, this is Dr. Ray Goldstein, International President of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Welcome to this installment of KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the College Department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Man, woman, birth, death, infinity.

Few of you listening here are likely to recall those iconic opening words of the 1960's television medical drama, Ben Casey. Those same words could have been the opening for this week's parashah, Parshat Hayyei Sarah.

The parashah teaches us of man, woman, life and death and of infinity.

In much of this parashah we are focused on two men and two women, Abraham and Isaac, Sarah and Rebekah.

In this parashah our matriarch, Sarah, and patriarch, Abraham, both die. Little is said of their lives, not much more than the length of their days. Lessons are taught about death. Abraham's actions, in providing a burial place for Sarah, teach us the importance of caring for the dead. Further, even though bereaved, Abraham teaches us that one must make arrangements for the prompt burial of our deceased, before mourning a loss.

At Abraham's death the parashah states: "After the death of Abraham God blessed his son Isaac." Here we are taught of the mitzvah of comforting the mourner, as even God comforted Isaac.

Abraham's desire to find a bride for Isaac, a bride worthy of providing the qualities of character to insure for the continuity of the Jewish people, epitomizes the forward thinking of our patriarch. Seeing beyond his own lifetime he demonstrates the capacity to see the future for those beliefs he alone has been the spokesman. He was promised posterity but without progeny for Isaac, that promise would go unfulfilled. The love at first sight meeting of Isaac and Rebekah and their marriage certainly portend continuity.

Man, woman, life, death, infinity.

Torah is filled with guideposts, life lessons, concealed in narrative. The stories conveyed in Hayyei Sarah teach us the importance of honoring the past but directs us to the future. It teaches that the continuity of the Jewish people will not happen without effort. That those life lessons cloaked as halachah, must be passed on; that the ethical behavior taught in Torah and given to the Jewish people must continue to be shared with all people throughout all time. The Jewish people are Or L'Goyim, a light to all nations for all times.

So I leave you with another, but likely more familiar quotation… "To infinity and beyond." Or as we say L'dor v'dor.