It's a Plot

By Rabbi Joshua ( arguably known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

The first part of this week's parsha describes , at length, how Avraham, after deciding to bury Sarah in the same burial pollot, the Mearas HaMachpeilah, in which Adam and Chava had been buried, purchased the plot from Efron the Hittite, in front of the Hittites, after a considrable amount of argument over the price. Rashi, in one of his explanations, says the the cave is called Mearas Machpeilah, meaning the double-cave, because four couples, Adam and Chava andf the three patriarchs with their wives, are buried there. There is an intersting midrash, cited by Rabbi Yoel Rappel in his volume talks of the parssh,which says that when Adam and Chava saw that Avraham was planning to bury Sarah there, they tried to leave, because they didn't feel worthy of being buried there with such a righteous person, and because they felt that the sin they committed would now stand out even more. Avraham, however, insisted that they remain there, and even dragged Adam back in. Why was it so important for Adam and Chava to be buried in the Mearas Ha Machpeilah? Isn't it seen mainly as the burial place of our patriarchs and matriarchs? Rabbi Rappel, in fact, says that the main purpose of having an ancestral burial place is to prevent the assimilation of subsequent geenerations,by providing them with an opportunity to visit the graves of their r forebears and contemplate their values and lifestyles. This, he says is what ties the first part of our parsha to the later part, in which Avraham oversees the process of finding his son a wife, in a way that he will not assimilate through the influence of a woman who does not adhere to his value system or his ethical traits. Rabbi Rappel, does not at all discuss the reason for Avraham's insistence, as described in the midrash he cites, that Adam and Chava be included among the couples buried in this plot !I would like to suggest some explanations,based on both universal and particularistic themes.

Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his Torah commentary, writes simply that Adam and Chava are the parents of mankind ,in a physical sense, while the patriarchs and matriarchs , the avos and imahos, are the sprtitual parents of mankind. To expand on this idea, we may add that Avraham, in praticular, but the other avos and imahos, as well. each in their own way, strived to spread knowledge and acceptance of the one,true God throughout the world. to all mankind.Since mankind began, as Rav Hirsch points out, with Adam and Chava, this burial plot included them, because it has meaning and significance for alll people.Even Yaakov, who, according to the Ramban, focused on spreading knowledge of God mostl within his own family, evoked, on his death bed, the declaration of the first sentence o fSheman from his children. The message in this sentence, according to Rashi in parshas Vaeschanan, is t the hope that .y on God, who is now recognized as the one , true God, only by Yisroel, will, ine future, be accepted as such by all people. The message of the avos, then, on one level, is as message to all of mankind, and it is hus fitting that Adam and Chava, the parents of mnmankind, should be buried in the same burial plot as the patriarchsa and matriarchs.

There is, in addition, a more particularistic theme t5hat can be derived from the inclusion of Adam and Chava in the Mearas HaMachpeilah. The Ramban writes, in parshas Bereishis, that Adam and Chava, before they sinned by eating from the Eitz HaDda'as,did not have an inherent inclination to act against God's commands,Their nature was to do God's will. although they did have free will,,and were capable of sinning,and, in fact, did so, the drive to sin came from outside therselves, without an internal struggle between various different drives. The sin of adam and chava changed that nature, and, since then, the Ramban says in his commentary to Vayeilech, man's goal is to 'go back to the garden,' meaning, to return to the spirtual state that they were in before the sin, having a natural, internal drive to folow God's desire for man to do His will. This goal is reserved for Yisroel, and in this sense the burial of Adam and Chava in the Mearas HaMachpeilah has a particularistic message to the Jewish people, reminding them of their ultimate goal,as taught by the avos and imahos.