This week's parsha begins with an account of the death and burial of Sarah. We are told, "And Sarah died in Kiryas - Arba, which is Chevron, in the land of Cana'an ; and Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to cry over her" (Bereishis 23:2). Where did Avraham come from? There are two opinions in the Midrash Rabbah (Bereishis, 58:5). Rabbi Levi said that he came from burying his father Terach. Rabbi Yosi challenges this opinion, asking, didn't Terach die two years before ? Rather, Avraham came from Mt. Moriah, from the akeidah, an event during which he almost sacrificed his son Yitzchok. Sarah, says Rabbi Yosi, died from the pain she experienced from the akeidah, and as a result Avraham came to eulogize her and cry over her. This dispute needs to be understood. Obviously, Rabbi Levi was aware that Avraham buried Terach two years before Sarah died, and that the event of the akeidah intervened. The dispute, then, was not over the facts, but over the psychological elements involved, namely, which of the two events dominated Avraham's thoughts as he arrived to mourn over Sarah. To understand the dispute on this level more clearly, we first need to be aware of some additional midrashim.
The midrash, as cited by Rashi at the end of parshas Noach, tells us that the Torah records Terach's death at that point, even though he didn't die until much later, so that people would not get the impression that when God told Avraham to leave his father's house, he was thereby neglecting his duty of honoring his father. The Midrash further says that God exempted Avraham from the duty to honor his father. Presumably, this was due to the fact that Terach was an idolater. At the end of his life, we learn in another midrash, Terach gave up his idol worship, and thus died in a state of repentance. Therefore Avraham came to bury him. Rav Kook writes that one of the purposes of the akeidah was to infuse enthusiasm into Avraham's service of God. Idolaters are full of excitement when they perform their service, because what they basically do is worship forces within themselves. When Avraham introduced the belief in the one God, who is both transcendant and imminent, that feeling of proximity and consequent enthusiasm in worship was lowered. Through the akeidah, and Avraham's enthusiasm and alacrity in fulfilling God's command to bring his son to the mountain, this element was introduced into the worship of the one God. Perhaps, then, after Avraham buried his father, who died in a state of repentance, he had two years to think over what he could learn from his father's life, and he brought the results with him to the akeidah.
The Midrash Rabbah following the one with which we began our remarks, commenting on the verse " And Avraham rose up from the presence of his dead" (Bereishis 23:3) says that Avraham saw the angel of death inciting him. The commentators on the midrash explain that the angel of death, or the evil inclination, was trying to get Avraham to express regret over the akeidah, since it led to Sarah's death. Rabbi Henoch Leibovits, in his Chidushei Lev, writes that this is why Avraham eulogized Sarah before crying over her, which is the reverse of the usual practice, and actually in conflict with human nature. Avraham needed to explain, to himself and to others, the messages of the akeidah, and its importance in teaching one how to serve God properly. This had to precede any personal expression of grief. A personal expression of grief before such a eulogy could have the effect of further strengthening the argument of the angel of death, which, I believe, was actually the inner struggle that Avraham was grappling with. Only after he internalized all of the messages of the akeidah and taught them to others could he then express, through crying, his grief over Sarah's death.
To return to the dispute between Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Yosi, then, it would seem that what was at issue was which factor was uppermost in Avraham's mind when he came to bury Sarah. Was it the infusion of enthusiasm into one's service of God, that he had adopted from the former idolatrous practices of his father who had died in repentance, as Rabbi Levi avers, or was it the fact that Sarah had died as a result of the akeidah, as Rabbi Yosi maintains? In either case, Avraham needed to express, in his eulogy over Sarah, the message of the akeidah, which was, in part, the need to serve God with at least the same level of enthusiasm that his repentant father, Terach, had formerly used in worshiping his idols. Interestingly, Terach's memory has been preserved over the generations in popular Jewish culture. The Yiddish writer Shalom Rabinovitch, better known by his pseudonym Shalom Aleichem, used another pseudonym in some of his stories - Terach's an Ainikel, or Terach's grandson. Moreover, the late Rosh Yeshivah of Kerem B'Yavneh, Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht, zt'l, used to tell his students of a minyan in the Meah Shearim section of Yerushalayim that was known as Terach's minyan, because it started very early, just as Terach came earlier in history than did Avraham. Following our explanation of the midrash based on Rav Kook's view of the akeidah, it is in fact not inappropriate to preserve the memory of Terach, because Avraham utilized his memory to enhance his service of God.
Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) at the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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