Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18)
OVERVIEW
Chayei Sarah - the "life of Sarah"- begins with Sarah's death. Abraham negotiates with Ephron the Hitite to purchase the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron as a place to bury her. Abraham then sends Eliezer, his trusted servant, to Aram Naharayim, to find a wife for his son Isaac. When Eliezer arrives at his destination, he rests by a well, and there he devises a test so that he will know the appropriate woman. Rebecca, Isaac's first cousin once removed, passes the test, and Eliezer presents her with gifts. The servant then goes to meet her family, who agree to the match, but only after confirming Rebecca's own agreement. Before she departs, Rebecca's family bless her, and then Eliezer brings her to Canaan. Isaac and Rebecca fall immediately in love, and are married. We are then told that, in his old ages, Abraham is married again to Keturah (some say she was Hagar) and has 6 more sons. At the end of the portion we are told of Abraham's death and that his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, bury him together in the Cave of Machpelah. As a postscript, we are also told of the descendants of Ishmael, and of his death.
IN FOCUS
They called Rebecca and said to her, "Will you go with this man?" And she said, "I will." (Genesis 24:58)
PSHAT
After securing her family's consent for Rebecca's marriage to Isaac, Abraham's servant (identified in the tradition as Eliezer) goes through the protocols of presenting gifts and sharing a meal. But the next morning, as he is preparing for the journey back to Canaan, Rebecca's mother Milcah and brother Laban approach Eliezer and ask for time for Rebecca to prepare herself for the nuptials. Eliezer objects to the delay, as he was bidden by Abraham his master to return promptly. The family then call upon Rebecca herself to decide if she will go. Rebecca replies simply and clearly that she will go. The family then sends her off with a blessing.
DRASH
Looked at within its historical and social context, this is really a remarkable passage. A girl being able to give her own consent to marriage?! [Especially since according to the Midrash Rebecca was only 3 years old! ed.] Unheard of at this time, and for many millennia to come, when marriages were commonly arranged and girls were told who and when they would marry. But, of course, our patriarchal and matriarchal stories are anything but common....
So what is really going on? The family's request for the girl to remain some time for preparation was not a usual request. The Mishna records that, "an engaged virgin is to be granted twelve months to prepare herself" (Mishna Ket. 5:2), and, as Rabbi Gunther Plaut notes in his commentary, surely the servant would not have refused a delay of a mere twelve days. According to Rashi, the phrase yamim - literally "days" - actually means ten months or a year, perhaps a common period for a bride to prepare her trousseau, but longer then Eliezer could have waited. The midrash draws from this the idea that her family's blessing prior to her departure was her entire dowry; with no time to prepare, they could give her nothing but words (Genesis Rabbah 40:13).
But why then did they bother to ask her own permission? Rashi sees this as a precedent. "From this we may infer," he writes, "that a woman should not be given in marriage except with her own consent." This notion of a young bride's own consent seems quite revolutionary, but, in fact, it may be part of an older pre-Israelite tradition. Documents uncovered in Nuzi, a Hurrian centre, indicate a pre-existing similar practise. The Nuzi Tablets -a group of around 4000 cuneiform tablets, written in Akkadian, were discovered in the ancient city of Nuzi in modern Iraq. They have been dated at around 1500-1400 B.C.E., which means that they probably originated sometime during the patriarchal period of the Bible. These tablets fascinate archeologists and Bible scholars because many of the customs and situations found there greatly resemble customs and situations found in the Bible. There, woman are shown to have a rare status for the ancient world; they could inherit, own property, and gave their own consent for marriage. It has been suggested that the reason that all the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah) all came from the "old home town" in Haran, was because of this distinctive status, so different from the "Daughters of Canaan." Perhaps this was why Abraham was so insistent that Eliezer seek a bride for Isaac from this area.
But there is another perspective as well, and this has to do with the personality of Rebecca's brother, Laban. Laban is well known later as the one who tricked Jacob into marrying his older daughter Leah in place of his younger daughter Rachel, whom Jacob loved. Laban is already known as a seedy character, not to be trusted. Eliezer senses this when Laban asks for the delay. Perhaps, by asking Rebecca for her consent, Laban was not honouring Rebecca's individual rights, but rather up to something much more malicious. Some think he was hoping she'd refuse, so he could exact a higher bride price, or so that she would remain to care for her mother. Either way, it smells something like a scam.
In the end, the tradition credits Rebecca with the realization of the true sense of Kiddushin - "holiness" and the name for marriage - of this divinely induced situation. When her mother and brother ask her, "Will you go?" they are not seeking consent. Rather, the question is expressed with a tone of shock and surprise. And Rebecca's simple one word response - 'alekh - "I will go" - speaks volumes. As the midrash elaborates : "I will go, in spite of you, whether you wish it or not" (Genesis Rabbah 40:12). Rebecca, a strong and distinct woman, does not give her consent to the marriage. Rather, she declares that she will follow the path of holiness.
DAVAR AHER
In her modern Woman's commentary on the Torah, The Five Books of Miriam, Ellen Frankel presents an interesting warning from the blessing of Rebecca's family:
Our Mother's Teach: Few women in the Bible receive a special blessing; none but rebecca receive a blessing from her mother. And what a blessing it is:
O sister! May you grow into thousands of myriads; May your offspring seize the gates of their foes.
Hagar The Banished One interjects: It's true that Rebecca's descendants - the Children of Israel - eventually do grow into a mighty nation that seizes its enemies' gates. But so do her other descendants, the Children of Esau - first Edom, whom Jewish tradition identifies as the Roman Empire, and Edom's descendants, the Christian nations of the world.
Huldah The Preacher Adds: We should therefore be careful how we bless each other, since blessings, like children, eventually take on a life of their own.
