Chayei Sarah

By Sari Laufer

Boker tov.

Like everyone else in New York, and I think in America, I jumped on the Rent bandwagon. And I have to admit that the words of Rent’s finale were running through my head the entire time I was trying to find a topic for this drasha. Because in the finale, the question asked over and over is: “How do you measure a life?”

Just a few years (a few thousand really, but who’s counting?) before Rent opened on Broadway, someone else asked (and answered) that same question. In the opening lines of this week’s parsha, a life is quite clearly measured. We read: “V’yihiyu chayei Sarah meah shana v’esrim shana v’sheva shanim shnei chayei Sarah.” The life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years. Why not tell us that her life lasted meah esrim v’sheva shanim—why is the measurement not simply 127 years?

Rashi gives the most well known explanation of this division, when he writes that her life is numbered as such because at 100 years, Sarah was like a 20 year old in terms of sin. And we learn further that in the accounting of the world to come, a 20 year old has not yet acquired any sin. The psalmist apparently agrees with Rashi’s interpretation, when, in Psalm 37 it is written that “The Lord knows the days of those who are without blemish, and their inheritance shall be forever,” a line which many commentators liken to the life and death of Sarah.

For the commentators, trying to understand Sarah in her time, it is easy to see her as without sin. For, after all, she was Abraham’s wife, chosen by G-d to bear Isaac, and her ultimate role was to be the first mother of the Jewish people. Far be it from me to argue with Rashi, but Sarah was older than 20 when she had Hagar and Ishmael banished, and that act in and of itself, to my standards seems to take her out of the “without sin” category.

So, if Sarah is not truly without sin, what is the point of separating her life as such? Why not just give the final amount, and be done with it?

In Genesis Rabbah, we learn from a midrash that suggests that we hear of Sarah’s death through a measurement of her life because all her years are truly filled with life. It is interesting to compare the account of Sarah’s death with that of Abraham’s death later in this very parsha. While his life too is divided into these distinct segments, the text then reads: “Va-yigva va-yamat Avraham.” , which is translated loosely as “And Abraham breathed his last, and died.”

In contrast, we never learn specifically that Sarah dies. We know only the final length of her life, which to me suggests a completion of life, rather than an ending. While some midrashim disagree with me, I do not think that Sarah has died an untimely death. Instead, the text suggests that she has just reached the end of her days.

This midrashic idea of a complete life, meaning a life in which all the years are filled with life, is for me a better explanation of why Sarah lived 100 years and 20 years and 7 years, instead of 127 years. This explanation suggests a very complete story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. She lived 7 years—suggesting a childhood. She lived 20 years, which suggests the beginning of adulthood. And she lived 100 years, which read by our modern standards suggests a long life.

And, as the midrash suggests, each of these time periods were filled with life. In modern parlance, we might say that Sarah “lived each day to its fullest.” Here, I agree with Rashi when he says that the word shana is written after every digit in order to tell us that each part of her life is to be explained by itself.

So, how do we explain each digit to ourselves? Perhaps one answer lies in the way that we commemorate milestones in our lives. Those of us who went to Kibbutz Gezer not long ago were blessed to see the ceremony of Kabbalat Chumash, where secular Israeli second graders were welcomed into their study of Chumash. It reminded me in some ways of my nursery school graduation— and my sixth grade graduation, my bat-mitzvah, my high school graduation, my college graduation. All of these milestones are, in some way or another, divisions. They are indications that one interval of life has ended and another has begun. They are a way of accepting one part of life ending and another one beginning. Perhaps most importantly, they are times to stop and reflect on what you have accomplished, and what lies ahead.

Yet, unfortunately, we often miss noting these special moments, and grand ceremonies such as these seem to be few and far between. I think that more often, many of us spend our lives in a whirlwind—running from one place to the next, often with no clear starting point nor destination. I do not know if it is comforting or upsetting to know that we are far from the first generation to have lived life this way. In Psalm 90, the psalmist laments that “We spend our years like a sigh…The span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years; but the best of them are trouble and sorrow. They pass by speedily, and we are in darkness.”

I know that these days, with the sun setting so early that Shabbat preparations seem to begin on Thursday nights, I am feeling that press of time. And as I notice how long I have been here in Israel, I notice time has been passing faster than I realize. And when I think my long day of classes is never going to end, I blink my eyes, it seems, and the next thing I know, Shabbat has come and gone once again.

Time is going to pass. That is age-old knowledge. No human can stop time. What we must do is what the psalmist asks of G-d: “Teach us to count our days rightly…” It is a lesson I learned clearly this year, when Yom Kippur seemed to sneak up on me. For once, I felt false standing in synagogue and asking to be pardoned of my sins.

For my month of Elul, my month of Heshbon Nefesh, was crowded with Ulpan tests and adjustment to Israel and a new life, a trip to the States and the beginning of official classes—not to mention the very real and frightening fact of watching the world change before my very eyes. I did not have the “time” to sit back and take stock of my year, of my place in life, of what I hoped to do in the following year, or of what I had done in the previous year.

Elul—the perfect answer to the psalmist’s plea, and I missed it. For after Elul comes Yom Kippur, where we are cleansed of our sins. Perhaps Sarah died soon after Yom Kippur, and thus Rashi could say, given both her good deeds and her sins, that she was as free of sin at age 100 as she was at age 20. We don’t know that fact, but we do know that each Yom Kippur is a chance for us to begin anew, to start an unblemished life.

Which would be the perfect end if, in fact, I were giving this drasha right before Yom Kippur. But, Yom Kippur has passed for the year, and our next Elul is many months away.

Does this mean that we have no hope, that our lives are hopelessly blemished, and thus, according to the psalmist, unknown by G-d? I certainly hope not. What is does mean, I think, is that, we have to MAKE them known.

This month, Mar Cheshvan, is traditionally distinguished by its lack of distinguishment. We have no Chaggim, and thus no built in or seemingly explicit opportunities to mark time.

Yet, even in this quiet month, we have so many opportunities through which to mark our time—blessing the candles on Shabbat, daily (or weekly) prayer, any time-bound ritual you can think of to create—even something as simple as a scheduled weekly call to the States. With every Rosh Chodesh we celebrate, every Shavua Tov we speak, each morning recitation of Elohai Neshama, each request for slichot in the Amidah--- we can emulate Yom Kippur. At each of these times, we have a brief chance to start anew, to mark our time, to make it meaningful.

Let us take account and take advantage of these opportunities, in order that we may learn to count our own days rightly, appreciate them, and fill each day, each week, each month, each year with life. And hopefully, we, like Sarah, will have lived one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years, and not just a sum total of our lives…..

Shavua tov.