The Hidden Agenda

By Rabbi Joshua (hiddenly known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

Parshas Chayei Sarah begins with an account of Avraham’s purchase of the me’aras hamachpeilah as a burial place for Sarah. Why did he choose this particular place, in Chevron, for this purpose? The midrash (Pirkei deRabi Eliezer, chapter 31, brought in Yalkut Reuveni) says that when Avraham saw the three angels and thought that they were human beings, he ran to them to extend his hospitality. He went to get a calf to prepare for their meal, but the calf ran from him, until it reached the ma’aras hamachpeilah. Following it, Avraham entered the cave and saw Adam and Chavah, laying in their beds, with candles lit above them, and wonderful fragrance filling the area. He immediately desired me’aras hamachpeilah as a burial place. What is the message of this midrash? What does it tell us about the me’aras hamachpeilah?

One explanation we can give of this midrash is that Avraham’s act of chesed, loving kindness, in accommodating his guests, generated another chesed, the chesed involved in burying the dead. The chesed involved in burying the dead is known as “chesed shel emes,” as we find in parshas Vayechi, and is considered the highest form of chesed. The me’aras hamachpeilah, then, represents the importance of chesed.

On a further level, Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook, in an address he gave at a memorial for the holy victims of the 1929 Chevorn massacre, noted that the fact that Adam is buried there ties the Jewish people back to mankind in general, as well as to the patriarchs and matriarchs who are buried there. While, on the one hand, our connection to Chevron ties us to our national essence, which he identifies as the love of God, following the verse in Yeshaya referring to Avraham as “the seed who loved me,” through that connection to our essence we are equipped to carry out our mission to influence all of mankind to bring out the connection to divinity that they have by virtue of being created in God’s image. As Rav Chaim Druckman points out in a lengthy essay explicating Rav Kook’s address, in the daily prayer of aleinu, with which we complete each of our thrice daily prayers, there are two paragraphs. The first paragraph praises God for making us unique nation unlike all others, while the second paragraph expresses our mission to repair the world through the kingship of God. Rav Kook says that exactly through our unique national character, we can proceed to reach out to all humanity.

The Zohar says that the first place that moshiach will come to is Chevron, where our forebears are buried. Moshiach will herald in the era in which all of mankind recognizes God’s rulership and brings out its connection to Him. Chevron is the place that projects our role in bringing about that time.