Shalom Chaverim,
This week’s Torah portion is entitled Chayei Sarah – “The Life of Sarah.” We are told, however, about her death rather than about her life. In addition, the parasha recounts the last years of Sarah’s husband, Abraham, before the portion concludes with the story of his passing.
So where exactly is all the “life” in this portion?!
From the literal reading of the Hebrew, we might notice a hint from the very start: “Sarah’s lifetime – the span of Sara’s life – was a hundred year, and twenty year, and seven years.” In other words, she lived for 127 years. Why describe it as “100 year (singular) + 20 year (singular) + 7 years (plural)”?
One answer may be to convey that the first 100 years felt like a single year, which is why “year” is in the singular. It is similar with regard to the next 20-year period, which are also lumped all together and called a singular “year”. This odd way of relating Sarah’s age seems to express the experience of a phenomenon I pay greater and greater attention to as I myself age:
As I get older the time seems to go more quickly. My memory of the years long past seem to organize by blocks of time in eras and phases rather than as a continuity of specific moments I recall.
Intriguing, then, why the last seven years of Sarah’s life are in the plural, “years”. The Talmud suggests that the righteous ones and scholars grow wiser as they grow older. Perhaps Sarah’s last years were the most meaningful with family and purpose and understanding. Sarah continued to grow and evolve as she aged – each of her last years was distinctly profound in and of itself. As she aged, she sensed each year building on the previous year – building on her lifetime of experience and acquired wisdom – so that each separate year stood out for Sarah in her experience of the passing time’s quality, the joy and meaning it contained, and the fulfillment each year gave her. Her later years were not a stage of life whose days all blurred into one another. Each year (perhaps each day?!) was noticeable and thoroughly seized.
Perhaps similarly, the Torah here describes the aging Abraham as “an old man, advanced in days”. It sounds as if Abraham’s “aging” was a cumulative of making each day count, of taking care to choose good and make each single day full and fulfilling.
My all-time favorite cartoon, which I’ve shared here before but which is worth sharing again, expresses the way I picture an ideal Abraham and Sarah – the way I hope to picture an ideal ‘me’ – living their last years:
Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson, July 15, 1993
May all of us continue to grow into full use of our days for good and for kindness, for joy and for fulfillment!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Michael Schwartz