Parshat Chayei Sarah 27 Cheshvan 5761, 25 November 2000

by Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - These last several months in Israel have been a literal hell on - earth, especially for those Israeli citizens living in the settlements as well as for the residents of Gilo and the rest of Jerusalem. The roads and highways have turned into mortal danger zones, firebombs and gunshots threatening the lives of anyone in a moving vehicle; homes have ceased to be havens of safety as children are forced to fall asleep to the sound of whizzing bullets and the sight of incendiary bombs.

Strangely enough, three of the major targets are grave-sites, one of which is the major subject of this week's Torah portion. Early on in this round of violence, Joseph's Grave Site-Yeshiva in Shechem was the scene of a tragic shoot-out which claimed the life of one Israeli (who bled to death because the Palestinians wouldn't allow him to be evacuated), and, after it was taken over and desecrated by the Palestinians, another Israeli - Hillel Lieberman - was murdered when he attempted to rescue some of the holy books. Rachel's tomb in Bethelem is one of the hot points of Palestinian fire virtually every evening. And of course Hevron, and specifically the area surrounding the Ma'arat Ha Machpela (the cave of the couples: Adam and Eve as well as our Patriarchs and Matriarchs) is a spot of almost constant violence and attack.

The irony of all this is that a goodly part of this week's Torah portion deals with Abraham's purchase of the Hevron grave-site from the Hittites in order to bury his beloved wife Sarah. The Bible describes in painstaking detail how the patriarch requests to buy the grave, how the Hittites wish him to take it for free, and - when Efron the Hittite finally agrees to make it a purchase - he charges Abraham the inflated and outlandish sum of four hundred silver shekels (which some archeologists value at $200,000). The Midrash seems perplexed: Why expend so much ink and parchment - the entire chapter 23 of the Book of Genesis- over a Middle -Eastern souk sale? Moreover, what is the significance in the fact that the very first parcel of land in Israel acquired by a Jew happens to be a grave-site? And finally, how can we explain the irony of the present day Israeli-Palestinian struggle over grave-sites?

In order to understand our Biblical portion, it is important to remember that, throughout the ancient world, with the single exception of Athens, the only privilege accorded a citizen of a specific country was "of right" burial; every individual wanted his body to ultimately merge with the soil of his familial birthplace. Abraham insists that he is a stranger as well as a resident (ger toshav) of Het; he lives among, but is not one of the Hittites. Abraham is a proud Hebrew; he refuses "of right" burial but demands to pay - even if the price be exorbitant - for the establishment of a separate Hebrew cemetery. Sarah's separate grave-site symbolizes her separate and unique identity; she must die as a Hebrew and not a Hittite!

When I was a very young rabbi, one of the first "emergency" questions I received was from an older woman leaning on a young Roman Catholic Priest for support. She tearfully explained that her husband - who had died but a few hours before - was in need of a Jewish burial place. He had converted to Catholicism prior to having married her - and agreed that their children would be raised as Catholics; the Roman Catholic Priest was their son. She never met any member of his Jewish family. For the past thirty-five years of their married life together, they both lived as Catholics. But his final deathbed wish had been to buried in Jewish cemetery....

Permit me one more story.

My good and beloved friend, Zalman Bernstein z"l, asked me to find him a grave-site in the Mount of Olives cemetery - when he was still living in America and was only at the beginning of his return to Judaism. With the help of the Hevra Kadisha (Sacred Fellowship) of Jerusalem, we set aside a plot. When he inspected it, however, he was most disappointed; "You cannot see the Temple Mount," he shouted, in his typical fashion. I attempted to calmly explain that after 120 years, he wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. "You don't understand," he countered. "I made a mess of my life so far and did not communicate to my children the glories of Judaism. The grave is my future and my eternity. Perhaps, when my children come to visit me there, if they would be able to see the holiest place in the world, the Temple Mount, they will be inspired by the Temple and come to appreciate what I could not adequately communicate to them when I was alive..."

For an individual, his/her personal grave-site represents the future, the one place into which his/her physical remains will be united for eternity and from where one may be visited by family and friends even after one has died. For a nation, the grave-sites of its founders and leaders represent the past, the signposts which reveal the highs and lows in the course of the nation's history.

But both of these notions coalesce into one; for individual as well as nation, a grave is both past as well as future. Where and how individuals choose to be buried speak volumes about how they each lived their past lives and what their truest values were; and how a nation regards its grave-sites and respects its history will determine the quality of its future.

Indeed, the nation which chooses to forget its past has abdicated its future, because it has erased the tradition of continuity which it ought have transmitted to the future; the nation which does not properly respect the grave-sites of its founding parents will not have the privilege of hosting the lives of their children and grandchildren. Is it then any wonder that the first parcel of land in Israel purchased by the first Hebrew was a grave-site, and that the fiercest battles over ownership of the land of Israel surround the graves of our founding fathers and mothers?

Shabbat Shalom.

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