Acquisition and Coexistence: The significance of the burial site Abraham purchased in order to bury Sarah
This week’s Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah opens with the death of our first Jewish matriarch, Sarah, at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven (Genesis 23:1). Towards the end of the portion, our first patriarch, Abraham, dies at the age of one hundred and forty-three (Gen. 25:8). And so, the parashah records the passing of a generation.
We learn at the beginning of Chayyei Sarah that as soon as Sarah died, and he had mourned for her, Abraham went about finding a place to bury her (Gen. 23:3-18). Sarah had died, as the text tells us, ‘in Kiryat Arba – the same is Hebron – in the land of Canaan’ (:2), so Abraham had to go about purchasing a burial plot from the people who lived there; the Hittites. The Torah relates a negotiation involving payment for the Cave of Machpelah and the field and trees around it that runs to fifteen verses.
The negotiation begins with Abraham expressing his request (:4):
I am a sojourner and resident with you; give me possession of a burial place with you that I may bury my dead from before me.
Geir v’toshav anokhi immachem; t’nu li achuzat kever immachem v’ekb’tah meiti mil’fanai.
The purchase of the cave of Machpelah by Abraham ensured the ownership of a burial place not only for Sarah and for himself, but also for the subsequent generations of their family. Today, Hebron, is the most contested place in the midst of a contested area of a contested land. For Jewish fundamentalists, the purchase of the cave secured for all time Israel’s exclusive ownership of what they describe as the biblical regions of ‘Judea and Samaria’. For those, including Jews, who believe that the ‘green line’ established at the end of the 1948-1949 war, marks the eastern border of Israel, the West Bank of the River Jordan is ‘occupied territory’, occupied by Israel following its victory in the June 1967 war. Indeed, for decades, the West Bank has been regarded – together with Gaza – as the territory of a future State of Palestine.
There is no time to rehearse all the arguments about a two-state solution, versus a one-state solution that would see, either, Israel, or, Palestine – depending on one’s political position – occupy the whole area from the Mediterranean to the western border of Jordan. As we read Chayyei Sarah, it is our task to read carefully. When Abraham made his request, apart from identifying himself as a resident sojourner, he repeated one key word – that translates into two in English: immachem, ‘with you’. Let us remind ourselves of how Abraham worded his request:
Geir v’toshav anokhi immachem; t’nu li achuzat kever immachem v’ekb’tah meiti mil’fanai.
I am a sojourner and resident with you; give me possession of a burial place with you that I may bury my dead from before me.
Abraham added the word, immachem, ‘with you’ to his request, suggesting that he did not regard his purchase of the Cave of Machpelah as, simply, an acquisition, but rather as a demonstration of coexistence.
I’ve mentioned the binary two-state solution versus one-state solution contest. In recent years, a number of Israelis and Palestinians have been working together on a more complex solution: ‘A Land for All – Two States, One Homeland’ (https://www.2s1h.org/en) in which the establishment of a State of Palestine on the West Bank and in Gaza, would not preclude, citizens of Israel and Palestine, respectively, living where they choose to live. And so, Jewish citizens of Israel, who are currently ‘settlers’, could continue to live as residents in Hebron in the State of Palestine, and Palestinians, who currently live under occupation, would continue to live in Hebron as citizens of the State of Palestine.
There is another detail in today’s Torah portion which has much to teach us. When Abraham died, we read that his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, came together to bury him in the cave of Machpelah (Gen.25:9-10):
And Abraham expired, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years], and was gathered to his people. / Then Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Efron the son of Zohar, the Hittie, which is before Mamre; / the field which Abraham purchased from the Hittites, there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
What can we learn from this reunion of two brothers, who had been separated when Ishmael was expelled from the family home with his mother, Hagar (Gen. 21:14)? We learn that the two brothers who had not been seen each other since they had played around together, as brothers do (Gen. 21:9), were able to meet again as adults to perform the sacred duty of burying their father. We also learn that sometimes it takes enormous suffering and grief before a reunion between those have been divided from one another is possible.
And further, we learn that broken people can develop enormous resilience to enable them to go on living and thriving. Significantly, the accounts of Sarah’s and Abraham’s deaths both begin with recounting the years that they had both lived. Our parashah begins (Gen. 23:1):
The life of Sarah was one hundred and twenty-seven years. These were the years of the life of Sarah.
Va-yih’yu chayyei Sarah, mei’ah shanah, v’esrim shanah, v’sheva shanim; sh’nei chayyei Sarah.
Similarly, we read of Abraham (Gen. 25:7): ‘These are the days of the years of the life of Abraham which he lived … V’eileh y’mei sh’nei chayyei Avraham asher chai…’ Sarah and Abraham lived. They lived long lives. And then, the penultimate verse of the parashah states, echoing the language of Abraham’s passing: ‘And these are the years of the life of Ishmael – V’eileh sh’nei chayyei Yishma’eil – one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he expired and died; and was gathered to his people’ (25:17).
Like Sarah, like his father, Abraham, Ishmael lived a long and full life before he died. Surely, the time has come when the two peoples who inhabit the land can live and thrive alongside one another, so that it is no longer the case that generation after generation, so many Israelis and Palestinians die before their time, in violent hate-driven circumstances?
1033 words