Parashat Chayey Sarah | On Leadership, Loss, and Transition
- ziva139
- 29 באוק׳ 2021
- זמן קריאה 4 דקות
This week we read the Torah portion Chayey Sarah. At the beginning of the read we have to deal with the death of Sarah and the search for a burial place for her. Then we learn about how a servant of Abraham is sent to find a wife for Isaac and find Rebekah from the place Abraham came from.” I wrote these words in a sermon I delivered over fifty years ago. I found copy of this short sermon, handwritten by a young high-schooler, inside Sefer HaAggada, which I received as a gift back in September 1970. In it a handwritten dedication says “To Reuven, with thanks and appreciation from all of us, the congregation of progressive Judaism, Netanya”. Yes, at that time the congregation “Natan Ya” did not have the name it is known by today.
Both volumes of Sefer HaAggad were arranged and explained by Bialik and Ravnitski, and published by the Dvir Publication House that was founded back in 1901 by them and a group of others. After receiving this gift, I used it many times, reading a passage or two. I thought it would be a nice tribute to repeat this by taking these books out of my library and sharing some content from time to time. Maybe this will connect us to the congregation’s past and also build a congregation future, hopefully so that someday, fifty years from now, the person standing than before you will be able to speak of a one-hundred-year history.
The reading this week end with the death of Abraham. “These are all the years of Abraham’s life that he lived, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people. Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth; there Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah.[1]”
From Sefer HaAggada we shall read two passages, one discussing the death of Sarah, the other about the death of Abraham. “When Isaac was being offered on the altar Satan when to visit Sarah and appeared to her in the image of Isaac. When she saw him she asked: ‘My Son! What has your father done to you?’ He told her: ‘My father took me up mountains and down valleys, until he brought me to the top of one high and steep hill, he built an altar, prepared the wood and hog-tied me onto the altar, then he took a butcher’s knife to slaughter me – had it not been for God all mighty who called to him ‘Do not reach out your hand’ I would have been slaughtered. He did not get to finish his story and she died.[2]”
This is what Sefer HaAggada says, among others, about the death of Abraham, “So said rabbi Hanan bar Rava, so said Rav: On that day when Abraham died all the leaders of the world stood in line and said: poor is the world that lost its leader! Poor is the ship that lost its captain![3]” A few thousands of years later Walt Whitman wrote about another captain, another Abraham, Lincoln, these words “But O heart! heart! heart! / O the bleeding drops of red, / Where on the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead.[4]” Abraham, the father of our nation had died peacefully, at an old age, while Abraham, a pillar president of the United States of America, was murdered while attending a play in the theater.
The great people of every nation, people to whom we owe much of the design of our history as a nation and as a people, were there and are no more. They may find their fate in one way or another, earlier or later. The interesting thing is that even if it may seem, for a short or long period of time, as if the world will not be able to continue without their presence, history has shown time and time again that this is not the case. The loss, great as it may be, is never a loss that deprives us from returning to live. The story of Sarah and Abraham continues with that of Isaac and Rebekah, followed by the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel. The USA endured the murder of its President, and endured it one hundred years later when President J.F. Kennedy was assassinated.
The important takeaway is that we should never lose our senses when we lose a leader, a captain. The lesson is that we must prepare the next generation leaders so that when it is necessary to replace this can be performed smoothly. The thought that there exists an irreplaceable leader is false. The problem is that a leader who thinks this way does not bother to prepare his or her replacement and that is an unimaginably higher risk. That way in every role, father or mother, manager or leader, we must prepare a person or persons who can replace us. We must always be forward thinkers ready for the challenges of the future.
Shabbat Shalom and wishes for Good Health.
Reuven Marko, 29 October 2021, 24 Mar-Khesvan, 5782
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