Sarah - Wherein we discuss the unique relationship of Avraham and Sarah, and how they provide a framework for the ideal Jewish home
Avraham passed ten trials which raised him from being a travelling preacher-teacher to become the great hope of humankind. But his story is not his alone, as the repair of Adam and Eve cannot happen without a repair for Eve! Sarah also had trials. Eve’s curses were that her reproductive process would be much more difficult now, but Sarah was denied the pleasure of all that pain until at age 90 she miraculously conceived and gave birth to Isaac.
The coupling of Avraham and Sarah, and how Isaac comes to be, form perhaps the most important part of the repair of Adam. If Hillel the Elder can sum up the Torah while standing on one foot - that it’s all about loving others, then there is no arena where that mitzva has more import than the relationship between spouses. Eve gave her husband a poison fruit, and he knew it, but listened to her and ate it. Somehow Avraham and Sarah are going to not only eat from the Tree of Life, but also repair the separation that happened between man and woman in the aftermath of the curses.
One of the curses Eve hears is: Your longing shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. Not only does Sarah initiate the idea of giving her young Egyptian handmade Hagar to Avraham so that he may bear a child from his own body, and perhaps in that merit Sarah might also conceive. Is this the choice of a woman who is needy of her husband? Or one that cares for her husband and his future, even as she does all she can to merit her own bearing of a child? The aspect of a woman pining for her man was fixed by Sarah, the strong. But there is more to this than Sarah’s independence of thought and desire, we will soon learn, that Sarah’s use of her voice repaired Eve’s use of hers.
Sarah’s death and subsequent burial in Chevron mark the beginning of Jewish ownership of Israel, as recorded in the Bible, when Avraham purchased with full money the Cave of the Patriarchs together with it’s surrounding fields. That the first Jewish possession of Israel is required by a man’s need to bury his wife is significant. Let’s see why.
There is a very interesting Gemara1 about a Torah sage named R. Banai, who was marking graves in Hebron so that Kohanim would not walk inadvertently walk over them. He comes to the entrance to the Cave and encounters (a vision of) Eliezer, the faithful servant of Avraham, standing guard at the door.
Rav Banai asks Eliezer what Avraham is doing right then. Eliezer answers that Avraham lies cradled in the arms (liter ally wings) of Sarah, as she gazes at his head.
The Maharal explains:
…And it says that he lay cradled in Sarah’s arms, meaning that from this servant (Eliezer) we can appreciate the whole level that Avraham attained, that he lies in the arms of Sarah,
Know that Avraham and Sarah unified themselves from their own choice more than any man and woman in the world.
Maharal then proves this from a verse in Yeshaya (Isaiah). I have brought the verses in full as to better understand the point of his commentary.
Isaiah 51:1
Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord;
Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
Look to Avraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth.
For he was one when I called to him, and I blessed him and made him many.
Maharal:
About both of them is says “for he was one when I called him” because Sarah with Avraham is one. And this is because Avraham and Sarah were the (new) beginning of the world… and as a beginning it is fitting that it [Adam] should be one [being], because as it comes from the One Maker, who is the cause of this beginning, and therefore it [Adam] will be similar in some way to the Cause from which it comes. But if it [Adam] were totally (i.e. originally) divided [into genders], it would imply God forbid that the Cause is also not one but two, even though as we’ve explained in our collection Gevuros God (Chap 5) that from one Maker a multitude can come, behold as we explained there the multitude must be able to unify as well [or else God’s unity on Earth would also (God forbid) be lacking].
Similarly, when Primordial Adam was created, because he was the first and the beginning (of humankind), it says about him “and they shall be as one flesh….” And therefore it follows perforce that Avraham and Sarah, who are both the (new) beginning, that they should be unified. And with that the beginning will be unified. Just as Primordial Adam, who was also a beginning, was one body with Eve. There is however a difference between the two (couples), but this is not the place to go into it….
I believe that according to the Maharal the verse in Isaiah should be translated slightly differently than what I quoted from Isaiah, which is the normal translation. According to Maharal the verse is better understood if we substitute “for I have called him one” in place of “he was (but) one when I called him.”
So the verse would read like this: For I have called him “One,” and I blessed him and made him many.
The verse referring to both Avraham and Sarah together as “him” and “one,” and the point is that God saw their unity and by calling them “one,” made them into a new beginning for humanity. Because they had a great marriage. Good stuff.
According the the normal translation, the point of the verse is simply that Avraham (and Sarah) were just one couple when all this began, and now with God’s blessings he (they) are many. But with the Maharal’s explanation the unification of Avraham and Sarah was a necessary aspect of returning from the curses. If we look more closely at the verse itself this also becomes clear, in which case it’s not really the Maharal who is teaching this, but also Isaiah.
Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn
Rock is Avraham, Quarry is Sarah. A rock comes from a quarry. These are at their roots one thing divided into two, one taken by the outside world to build with, as the Talmud says about Torah Sages:
Do not call them sons but rather builders.
And the second holding maintaining it’s connection to Mother Earth.
It is because God called Avraham and Sarah “One”, that the world has new hope. Thus, it is their perfecting of what it means to be “as one flesh” that is the cause of the great nation that grows from them.
Let us consider something else about Sarah’s embrace of Avraham. If we think of the interplay between males and females we might assume the opposite should really be true, that the male should surround and protect the female. And when it comes to needing protection from external threats, this may be very much the case. But in Judaism, as we see from the custom that the bride walks around her groom seven times, as well as the custom of her presenting him with his tallis, which surrounds him during prayer times (and his burial) that it is actually the female that surrounds the male when it comes to spiritual matters. Why is this? Because she is the proper place for him to put his creative energies. Even when he is out in the world among the many people he must deal with to provide the bread for the table, her presence surrounds him inside. His can learn all the wisdom he wants, but only she can provide the sense of completeness that protects her husband from the ravages of his own ego and libido.
And because she is the protector of the internal world, she also holds sway over the educational decisions regarding the little ones. For when Isaac was but knee high to a grasshopper Sarah demanded that Avraham finally divorce the maidservant cum concubine Hagar and her son Ishmael, and God sided with Sarah. How God sides with her is very instructive:
God tells Avraham:
Be not distressed over the youth or the slave woman, whatever Sarah tells you, heed her voice, since through Isaac will offspring be considered yours. But the son of the slave woman I will also make into a nation, as he is your offspring.
God tells Avraham to heed Sarah’s voice. What is it about her voice that makes that God’s choice of words? The Midrash teaches that Sarah’s voice repaired Eve’s misuse of same.
When God is telling Adam about his punishment, the verse says:
And to Adam He said: “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the Tree which I had commanded you regarding, saying ‘Don’t eat from it,’ cursed is the earth on your behalf….”
Sarah’s great mastery over her inner world had allowed her over time to develop her voice into something of great power. Indeed, even in her relative youth, when Pharaoh stole her with the intent of taking her as his Queen, the verse says:2
And God struck Pharoah with great plagues, him and his household, on the matter of Sarahi the wife of Avram.
And Rashi quotes the Midrash:
On the matter [literally by the word] of Sarah:
[The plagues came about] Through her word. She said to the angel “strike!” and he struck.
We see Sarah’s voice is quite powerful, no? When it comes to the domain of the inner world, the world of the Divine Spirit, Avraham is instructed by God to listen to Sarah’s voice. His ability to learn from her completes the circuit so speak in the union of woman and man. But while Adam’s weakness was in listening to his wife’s bad ideas, it shows Avraham’s strength that he can put himself under his wife’s good instruction.
In Torah a human is whole only as part of a team. Life is a team sport, played in pairs. The pairs are complementary, and different, and both beautiful and powerful in there own unique ways. The mitzvos are different between them, as suits the domain of their power. They are of course individuals - but anchored together in a human partnership within which to practise the skills of being human, and eventually parent a household which produces happy and constructive members of society.
A careful study of Genesis shows clearly the power that women have, not only Eve but Sarah, Rivka, Rochel and Leah all playing vital roles and making critical decisions regarding the direction of the nation that would spring from them. Following is a verse from Leviticus and then the Midrash on same, and after that a comment from the Brisker Rav found in the Haggadah MiBeis HaLevi, on the section “Who knows Four.”
Leviticus 26:42
I will remember My covenant with Jacob as well as My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Avraham. I will remember the land.
Midrash Rabbah 36:5 and Sifra
And why are the patriarchs mentioned in reverse order? To say “if there were no deeds from Jacob, sufficient are the deeds of Isaac, and if there were no deeds from Isaac, sufficient are the deeds of Avraham. Sufficient are the deeds of each one of them that the entire world could exist on their behalf. …We only have the patriarchs, from where do we know the matriarchs [also merit these covenants]? The Torah says “v’es; v’es; v’es” which can only refer to the matriarchs, as it’s written: ‘And there they buried Avraham and (v’es) Sarah.’
Brisker Rav quoted by his students:
We learn in Toras Kohanim (Midrash Vayikra):
“I will remember My covenant with Jacob…” we only have the patriarchs, from where do we know the matriarchs? The Torah says “V’es.”
Behold we see that besides the covenant that God made with the patriarchs there was also a covenant with the matriarchs. It appears that this covenant with the matriarchs was not about new promises in addition to what already promised the patriarchs, but the covenant with the matriarchs was that what [God] had promised to the patriarchs regarding the building of the congregation of Israel through the tribes and regarding the giving of the Land to their offspring would be fulfilled through these matriarchs.
With this it becomes clear what is written (Gen. 21:10) “And she (Sarah) said: ‘Divorce this maidservant and her son, for the son of this maidservant will not inherit with my son, with Isaac.’ For we must clarify the double expression ‘with my son, with Isaac.’ According to the above [Midrash] we can explain that Sarah claimed Avraham should divorce the maidservant and her son for two reasons: One, because of the covenant that existed with the matriarchs that all of the promises be fulfilled through the offspring of the matriarchs, and for this reason Ishmael could not inherit with Isaac, and this is what Sarah means ‘my son.’ And another reason she claimed was because of Isaac, because [God] had already said to Avraham3 ‘for in Isaac will offspring be considered yours.’ I.e. And not Ishmael. This is what she meant ‘with Isaac.’
But we could ask, even if the covenant with the Matriarchs is about the same items as the Patriarchs, why do we only mention the Patriarchs in the first blessing of the Amida, and not the matriarchs? Why are we keeping the women hidden… patriarchy as usual?
Well, I first starting seeking an answer to that question because of an exchange that happened in my Parsha class not long after we’d moved to Boston. Lisa, a young, intelligent lawyer raised her hand and asked: “I’ve already become more observant, so I don’t do this… but I have some friends who add into their Shemoneh Essray “God of Avraham and Sarah, God of Isaac and Rebecca, etc. I don’t know what to say to them. Are they wrong? I feel that they are but I don’t know why. It bothers me though… where are the Mothers?
It was an important question to her, to all of us, and it struck me deeply. I thought for a minute and decided to go with my gut instinct, although I had not yet seen the above Midrash or Brisker Rav. It’s a dangerous habit as a teacher, I know. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my head. I said: “They’re included. I mean that when we say God of Avraham, we’re not only speaking of Avraham, but rather a covenant that God sealed with the union of Avraham and Sarah, which will therefore carry on in Isaac. Who then has to marry Rebecca, and so on. All of the mothers are included in this blessing, in fact the entire Torah from Parshat Lech Lecha through the end of Breishit are only trying to discern this question: Who will be included in the blessing of the Avot? Who will be able to say: “My God and the God of my ancestors Avraham, Isaac and Jacob. And who can do that? Only those that are born from these mothers. The covenant is with them also, and they are included in a hidden sense in the names of the Fathers. How? I don’t know.”
Sometimes one gets lucky. But let’s get back to Sarah.
How did Sarah develop such a powerful voice? If we go back to just before we hear of her commanding the angel to beat up Pharaoh, Rashi comments of the following verse:
Now it came to pass when he drew near to come to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Behold now I know that you are a woman of fair appearance.”4
Rashi:
[From] Midrash Aggadah: Until now he did not recognise that she [was a beautiful woman] because of the modesty that existed between them, and now, through an event [that happened while travelling] he recognised her [beauty].
She knew how to raise her voice when necessary, but she was also the paragon of modesty. This is not co-incidental. She had the inner power to be able to effect those around her at her will. She was an internal master. Not only does she not mind being the hidden in the tent, she knows that that’s where the action is. Her grandson Jacob picked up on this, after all – he is the “simple man who sits in tents.”
So what’s so great about sitting in the tent? That’s where we build the inner world. When Jacob is “sitting in tents” we learn from the Midrash that he was studying Torah. In other words, he was expanding his awareness of God.
Let’s sit for a moment in Sarah’s tent. When she, at the age of 127 passes from this world – three thing cease that are not rekindled until Isaac brings Rebecca into his mother’s tent to become the next Matriarch.
The verse in the Torah reads [Genesis 24:67]
“And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother”
Upon which Rashi comments:
“He brought her into the tent and she was the paradigm of his mother Sarah. That is to say, she was (just like) Sarah his mother. For as long as Sarah was alive there was a candle lit from Sabbath eve to Sabbath eve, and a blessing in the dough, and a “cloud” attached to the tent. When she died, these ceased. And when Rebecca came, they returned.”
So what do these things symbolise, and teach us about the nature of Matriarchal work?
All of this work is inside the tent – let’s examine each one.
“A candle lit from Sabbath eve to Sabbath eve” doesn’t mean Sarah burned a lot of candles. Quite the opposite – it was the same candles she lit on Friday evening that remained lit all week long. The message here is that Sarah was adept at bringing the light of Shabbat into the week – the whole week. This is no small task. The feeling of Shabbat is one of joy at the very realisation that we are alive – and are created for a purpose – which is to rejoice in our relationship with the Almighty and the very fact that we are indeed alive. The light from Sarah’s candles wasn’t a dim bulb – it was the radiance of her soul that stored the blessedness of Shabbat for herself and her family – which then shone out to the thousands of visitors and students who came through the tents of Avraham and Sarah regularly.
“A blessing in the dough.” This is meant on two levels as well. Materially, this teaches us that her bread miraculously satisfied – as a special blessing from God. But on a deeper sense the “dough” here refers to the very bodies of the people in her care. Through her love and attention they flourished and grew in every possible way.
“A cloud attached to the tent” is the same “cloud” of the Divine Presence that we find later in on Mt. Sinai, and again at the Tent of Meeting. The tent is where God visits Sarah, revealing prophecy to her. Prophecy is an extreme state of spiritual elevation – achieved only through years of meditation and perfection of character and mind.
Sarah was not sitting in the tent baking cookies (only).
She was learning – from God, His Torah. In other words, He was revealing to her the secrets of the universe. As of course, was happening for Avraham in his way, at the door of the tent with the Angels, as the verses explicitly describe. But let’s push the question further. Why does she always have to be the hidden one?
There are two different senses of self within our psychic world. There is how we see ourselves – how we feel about ourselves inside, and then there is the “us” that we hope others see - that we try to make others see. The more these differ from each other the weaker we are as people.
Sarah is the personification of the Torah concept tocho k’baro, the inside is like the outside - or in modern terms “what you see is what you get.” She has no hidden agendas because she has power over her hidden world. She knows who she is, so strongly, that there is nothing she ever has to prove to anyone. Her modesty has given her the freedom to be completely herself, a true representation of her beliefs, a strong minded and strong willed person. Ayn Rand has nothing on Sarah Emainu.
Our inner sense of self is not only equal in importance to how we interact with the “real world,” but is in fact is a pre-requisite to being able to be real. As the Sages say: All my life I’ve grown up among the Sages, and I’ve found nothing better for a person than silence.”
How we see ourselves is rooted in our earliest childhood, as well as what we’ve done with ourselves since. Our early childhood years were under the care of our own personal matriarch, our Mom.
The Hebrew word for mother, “Aim,” is the root of the word for faith, “Emunah.” This provides a beautiful metaphor. The baby in it’s mothers womb is totally protected and nourished in every way. The heartbeat of mother, her emotions, her voice, are all familiar to the unborn soul. At the moment of it’s forceful entry into this world all of these things are momentarily lost, and the newly independent infant is held up cold and wet for what must seem to it an awfully long time, until is brought warmly wrapped back to mommy, and baby hears again the familiar heartbeat, smells again the familiar smell, feels the loving presence of mother, and begins nursing and is nourished again – but with one critical difference, this time it must complete the attachment by latching on with it’s very will to live.
It was this power of emunah, faithfulness, that Sarah embodied as well as her husband. Avraham and Sarah’s attachment to each other, and together as a couple their attachment to God, provided the basis for a new dawn for humanity. And so, at the ripe ages of 100 and 90, after a long lifetime of mutual love and respect, Sarah and Avraham’s spiritual unity was finally reflected physically in a miracle babe, the perfect Isaac.
To sum up: Blessings flow in a home when the spouses are mutual partners in each other’s success, and where the power that anchors the home internally outweighs even the value of influencing the world outside. Or in other words, in a home where the feminine power of reflection, consideration and decision do not play second fiddle to the masculine power of external influence and domination.
1 Bava Basra 58
2 Gen 12:17
3 Gen 21:12
4 Gen 12:11