One of the tasks of the sages
of old is to determine why one narrative of the Torah follows another. This phenomenon,
known as semikhut parshiyot, or the juxtaposition of stories,
applies to this week’s parashah, Hayyei Sarah. The first
story in Hayyei Sarah, meaning “the life of Sarah,” oddly enough
is not about her life but about her death. She dies at 127 years of age and
Abraham must go about the business of securing land for her burial. This story
follows the much discussed and debated tale of Abraham’s sacrifice, or
attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac, also known as the Akeidah (literally,
the Binding, Isaac having been bound upon an altar and prepared for sacrifice).
So the rabbinic question in this case would be—why does the tale of Sarah’s
death immediately follow the tale of Isaac’s sacrifice. The Torah is silent on
this matter so the rabbis resorted to their creative juices to craft an answer.
And they found their answer in Satan—the evil angel.
Satan, never up to any good,
decides to inform Sarah about the attempted sacrifice. He transforms himself into
the likeness of Isaac and appears before Sarah. Sarah, seeing her son, but noticing
that something looks a tad off, inquires of her son’s wellbeing, asking the
exact question Satan would have her ask—What has your father done to you? And
so Satan, in Isaac guise, does something we would all typically admire: he
tells the truth. He goes through the whole narrative—how God instructed Abraham
to take the boy, travel to some far-off destination, build an altar, bind the
child on the altar, prepare to offer the child to God, and with knife raised above
the child’s head, an angel from heaven intervened and prevented Abraham from
completing the task. Not a word Satan spoke was false, but for Sarah’s fate, it
made no difference. So shaken by the initial details, her soul departed before
Satan completed the full account. And that, the rabbis tell us, is the reason the
tale of Sarah’s death immediately follows the tale of the Akeidah, Isaac’s Binding.
The rabbis’ explanation is
often used as a morality lesson in how we go about expressing the truth. As the
old adage goes, the truth hurts. But how hurtful should the truth be? Should
the truth scathe? Should it kill? Is every truth worth verbalizing if it serves
no other purpose than hurting the person who hears it? As one might expect, the
rabbis advise discretion. But there is another way of understanding the
rabbinic tale of Sarah and Satan, and one that very much addresses the
challenges of our day.
Last Tuesday, when we
gathered at the Mid-Island Y in memory of our 11 slain brothers and sisters,
murdered by a person filled with hate¸ I found myself incapable of singing. It
was a strange phenomenon. I had already spoken on several occasions to our
Religious School students about the tragedy, and had no problem discussing the
massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, and how our own synagogue had
long ago instituted security protocols and safety measures in the interest of
keeping our members safe. And yet, while on stage, before a crowd of thousands,
the weight of how hateful people can be, how self-righteous they can be of
their convictions, how perfectly diabolic they will act given the opportunity, weighed heavily upon me, and I that
felt if I opened my mouth the slightest, I would dissolve into tears. I was
facing a truth, and the truth is that there are people in this world who
absolutely detest Jews. They hate our guts.
But as true as that may be,
it is also not the full truth. The first memorial I attended was sponsored by
the Islamic Center of Long Island located in Westbury, NY. Imagine the Moslems
pulling together a memorial in memory of 11 slain Jews. There were many rabbis
and Christian ministers present, including, of course, representatives of the
Moslem community. They spoke lovingly of the Jewish people, lamented the lack
of civility in the nation and the hatred that is fueling so many of our
debates. Last night, at our Shabbat service, two Moslem families attended to
show their solidarity with us. We welcomed them and their presence was a sure
gesture of their respect for us. Just a couple days ago, I received a call from
our old custodian, Roberto, who just had to speak to me, to express his
condolences on the murder of 11 strangers, but whom he knew as Jews and therefore
connected to our community, a community of Jews whom he does know and loves. So
yes, there are people in this world who hate us, but there are also people in
this world who love us, and when we hear only one part of the truth, without
looking at the full truth, we die the death of Sarah.
We are living in silos of partial or incomplete truths.
We talk to people who reflect our own political views rather than engaging
those with different points of view. We are speaking in echo chambers and
instead of reaching out to our neighbors who differ with us in love, we
demonize them as the enemy and dismiss their views as dangerous. It may be very
difficult to love one’s neighbor, but when we feel justified in hating our neighbors,
it will almost always go nowhere good.
Thank God for America. It has been and I suspect will
continue to be a wonderful place for the Jewish people. And for every anti-Semite who resides in this
country, there is a minyan of non-Jews who love and respect us. So beware focusing
on incomplete truths. We must always embrace the fuller truth. For some of us,
it will be the only way we will ever be able to sing again.
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