Parashat Chayyei Sarah, the fifth Parashah in the Torah, opens with the death of Sarah in the year 2085 since Creation (1675 B.C.E.), and concludes with the death of Ishmael 86 years later in the year 2171 (1589 B.C.E.).
Parashat Chayyei Sarah records the two most critical events in the formation of the Hebrew nation: the first is Abraham’s purchasing the field containing the Machpelah Cave, which constitutes the beginning of the Jewish national holding in the Land of Israel.
The second is Abraham’s sending his servant to Aram Naharaim to find a wife for his son Isaac, where he met Rebecca, who accompanied him back to Canaan and married Isaac, thus founding the Hebrew family.
The amount of text that the Torah devotes to these events indicates how crucial they were.
Recording Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah, the Torah relates the transaction between Abraham and the Hittites (Genesis 23:3-20) in minute detail.
And recording the events which would culminate in Isaac and Rebecca’s marriage, the Torah relates in equal detail the precise words of the conversation between Abraham and his servant (24:2-9), the servant’s detailed prayer to God asking for exact signs of a suitable wife (verses 12-14), Rebecca’s ancestry (verse 15), her interaction with Abraham’s servant (verses 17-28), the servant’s actions and words in Bethuel’s house (verses 32-49), and the family’s decision to allow Rebecca to travel to Canaan (verses 50-60).
Indeed, the entire sequence of events that led to Isaac’s and Rebecca’s marriage takes up no fewer than 67 verses – more than 60 percent of this Parashah, and well over 4% of the entire Book of Genesis!
Clearly, the Torah imputes tremendous importance to Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave and to Rebecca’s joining the future Nation of Israel by marrying into the family.
Parashat Chayyei Sarah is the story of the genesis of the Hebrew Nation.
And so it is remarkable that there is no direct Divine intervention, there are no open miracles, anywhere in the whole of Parashat Chayyei Sarah. This Parashah records only seemingly natural events.
Parashat Chayyei Sarah is the first parashah in the entire Torah, and one of only five outside of the Book of Deuteronomy, in which G-d never addresses anyone directly. Phrases like “G-d spoke to…”, “G-d said…”, “G-d appeared to…” are conspicuously absent throughout Parashat Chayyei Sarah.
As though to emphasise G-d’s perceived absence, the Midrash poignantly describes the desolation that Sarah’s death left: “Throughout the time that Sarah yet lived, there was a cloud perpetually fixed over the entrance to her tent; when she died, the cloud was no longer there… Throughout the time that Sarah yet lived, the doors were wide open [to receive wanderers in the desert]; when she died, the wideness was no longer there… Throughout the time that Sarah yet lived, a blessing was sent upon her dough; when she died, the blessing ceased… Throughout the time that Sarah yet lived, the candle would burn from the eve of Shabbat to the eve of [the next] Shabbat; when she died, the candle ceased” (Genesis Rabbah 60:16; Yalkut Shimoni, Genesis 109; see Rashi to Genesis 24:67).
That is to say, the tangible and visible blessings which G-d bestowed upon Abraham’s family’s tent ceased when Sarah died.
Many commentators have noted that G-d never again appeared to Abraham after the Akeidah (the Binding of Isaac); perhaps it is more apposite to note that He never again appeared to Abraham after Sarah died (although the Midrash continues by saying that when Rebecca entered the tent, all those blessings were restored).
To be sure, G-d’s providence is clearly at work in this parashah, ensuring that Abraham’s servant would meet the right girl, and that she would give him the precise responses that would indicate to him that she was the right girl. But this is still far from G-d’s directly addressing the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, or Adam, or Cain, or Noah, or Hagar, or Moshe, or the entire nation of Israel.
In the founding moments of the Jewish Nation, G-d remains hidden in the background, directing events by inspiring people to make certain decisions; He addresses no one directly, He performs no open miracles.
The Torah teaches us a profound lesson here: the Jewish nation is not founded on miracles, its identity is not predicated upon the supernatural. The ultimate good that is the Nation of Israel begins with complete banality. No heavenly voice booming out of a thunder-storm, no burning bush which is not consumed, no churning sea which is split, no miracles of any kind.
Jewish history begins not with a bang but a whisper.
It is a consistent theme that the Torah does not place much store by open miracles: after all, even Pharaoh’s magicians were able to duplicate some of Moshe’s miracles (Exodus 7:11-12, 7:22, 8:3). The Torah recognises that a false prophet can have the power to perform what looks like a miracle – and therefore warns against following a prophet – any prophet – on the basis of miracles (Deuteronomy 13:2-6).
Indeed, the Rambam takes this so far as to say that “Israel believed in Moshe our Master not because of the miracles that he performed, because one who believes as a result of miracles will always have some doubt that the ‘miracle’ might have been done by conjuring or witchcraft. Rather, all the miracles which Moshe performed in the desert, he performed for specific needs, not in order to prove his prophecy.
When it was necessary to drown the Egyptians, he split the Red Sea; when we needed food, he brought down the manna for us; when they were thirsty, he cleft the rock [to bring forth water]” (Hilchot Yesodei ha-Torah/Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 8:1).
The miracles in the desert were functional – just as functional as the timing of Rebecca’s coming to the spring just as Eliezer happened to be there (Genesis 24:11-18). For sure, the Splitting of the Sea, the manna, and Moshe’s other miracles in the desert were more dramatic – but that is not a basis for faith.
Many of our commentators have grappled with the concept of miracles. Following the Ramban (synthesising his commentary to Genesis 17:1, 46:15, Exodus 6:2, Leviticus 26:11), miracles fall into two categories: one is the extremely rare open and revealed miracle, such as the Ten Plagues, the Splitting of the Red Sea, or the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The other, infinitely more common, is the hidden miracle, the seemingly natural sequence of events which lead to the conclusion which G-d has ordained.
The Midrash relates that “a Roman noble-woman asked Rabbi Yossi bar Halafta:… After creating the world, what does your G-d do ever since then? He told her: He arranges marriages – a specific woman with a specific man, one man’s daughter with another man… She said to him: That’s all?! Even I could do that! I have several slaves and several maidservants, and I can pair them all off in an hour!
He said to her: It may seem simple to you, but it is as difficult for G-d as the Splitting of the Red Sea. He left her, and what did she do? – She had a thousand slaves and a thousand maidservants brought, stood them in rows, and told them: This man will marry this woman, this man will marry this woman. She paired them all off in a single night. In the morning they came to her – one was injured in his head, one had his eye poked out, one had his elbow broken, one had his knee shattered…
She immediately sent for Rabbi Yossi bar Halafta and said to him: Rabbi…, everything you said is true. He said to her: Didn’t I say to you that though it may seem simple to you, it is as difficult for G-d as the Splitting of the Red Sea?” (Leviticus Rabbah 8:1).
Introducing a man and a woman such that they get married is a miracle (albeit a hidden miracle) no less impressive than the Splitting of the Sea – and, indeed, even more necessary for the continuation of the Jewish nation.
When Abraham sent his servant Eliezer to find a bride for his son Isaac and thus build the Jewish nation’s spiritual foundations, he was entrusting him with an intricate task. The sequence of events which led Eliezer to meet Rebecca was so smooth as to indicate G-d’s intervention in introducing the two; nevertheless, though this meeting may have been “as difficult for G-d as the Splitting of the Red Sea”, it happened without fanfare, without any world-changing events, without any revealed miracles, even without any excitement.
And when Abraham our father purchased the Machpelah Cave, thus building the Jewish nation’s physical foundations in the Land of Israel, that, too, happened without fanfare, without any world-changing events, without any revealed miracles, even without any excitement.
This is the paradigm for Jewish belief and for Jewish action: recognise G-d’s providence in all events, even the most pedestrian; and always strive to fulfil His will in the world, even when doing so is not particularly exciting and thrilling.
The holiest of our actions, the most important of our actions, can also be the most banal of our actions.
Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave from the devious Ephron, Eliezer’s seemingly chance encounter with Isaac’s future wife – these are our guides for all time.
Of course G-d directs and controls events: of course the Jew who meets his future bride (and the Jewess who meets her future husband) are the direct beneficiaries of G-d’s control over the world and its events.
The holiest of our actions, the most important of our actions, can also be the most banal of our actions. Buying a plot of land in Israel, a seemingly chance encounter between two people, travelling to the Machpelah Cave in Hebron – this is the banality of ultimate good.