Mindful Torah...and more

This week’s parashah /portion is Hayei Sarah , or the life of Sarah. It begins by telling the reader that Sarah dies at the age of 127. Abraham searches for a place to bury her and settles on the cave of Machpelah outside of Hebron. Isaac is in deep mourning for his mother, so Abraham sends his servant back to his homeland to find a wife for Isaac from among his kin. The servant meets Rebecca, Abraham’s niece, at a well, where she provides water for him and his camels. The servant tells Rebecca who he is and why is there. Sarah tells her father Bethuel and brother Laban that she is ready and willing to return to Abraham’s tent with the servant and to marry her cousin Isaac. Upon their return, Isaac and Rebecca meet. He then takes her to his mother’s tent, they marry, he loved her and found comfort with her after Sarah’s death. Sarah, after whom the parashah is named, and Rebecca oare really at the spiritual core of this story. This is true in spite of the fact that it is the men who...

This week's parashah is Hayyei Sarah ( Bereshit /Genesis 23:1-25:18). Though the name of the parashah means "life of Sarah," it actually begins by telling of her death at the age of 127. Our matriarchs,and other women in the Torah, often get forgotten as compared to their husbands and other men. For though many portions are named after a man, this is the only one named after a woman. And if only one woman were to have a parashah named after her, it is quite fitting that it be Sarah. Not only because she was one of the two first monotheists (and proto-Jews), but because looking at the character of Sarah as portrayed both in the Torah and the midrash (rabbinic exegetical tales) it is easy to se that she surely deserves recognition. Within the Torah, Sarah is a character who is strong, yet flexible. When she thinks that her son Isaac is being threatened by his brother Ishmael (even though this may not have been the case) she immediately protects him by insisting tha...