The Torah, before conveying the news of Sarah’s passing, celebrates her life: “These are the years of the life of Sarah, they were 127.” Then peculiarly, the Torah repeats itself, “These are the years of the life of Sarah.”
What is behind this apparent repetition? Rabbi Yaacov Kamentzky o.b.m. explains that our Sages teach us how Sarah’s death came about. Sarah was worried because her husband Avraham and her son Yitzchok went on a trip to an undisclosed destination for an unknown purpose and they had not returned. She asked the great giant Og to look far in the distances to locate them. Og looked in all directions and finally saw something occurring on a mountain in the Jerusalem district. He began to describe the scene. “I see your husband holding a knife while your son Yitzchok is bound to an altar.” Og continued, “He is just about to slaughter Yitzchok….” And before Og conveyed to Sarah that, “Avraham suddenly stopped and did not slaughter your son,” Sarah had passed away.
It appears that Sarah passed away from the shock of hearing the report of her son about to be slaughtered. We might think that had Sarah not have been told about the binding of her son Yitzchok, she would have lived longer. Comes along the Torah in the same verse that informed us of the length of her years, and repeats itself, “These are the years of the life of Sarah,” to teach us that these were the predestined years that were allotted to Sarah. Sarah was supposed to die at that time; the news of the binding was only the vehicle through which she died; it did not hasten her death.
Reb Yaacov points out that by the death of Adam and Avraham the Torah adds the words, “That they lived,” which implies that their lives were cut short.
The Torah tells us that Adam lived for 930 years. Our Sages teach us that Adam was destined to live for 1000 years. With his Divine inspiration, Adam saw that eventually a boy by the name of David the son of Yishai will be born and live for only a few hours. Adam donated 70 years of his life to David, so that he would be able to develop into our beloved King David.
The Torah relates in this week’s Parsha that our forefather Avraham passed away at the age of 175. Our Sages tell us that Avraham was destined to live for 180 years – the same age as his son Yitzchok. However, G-d deducted five years from Avraham’s life so that he would not see his grandson Aisav go off on his wicked ways and cause him pain.
G-d had promised Avraham that he would pass from the world satisfied with a good old age. Had Aisav’s true evil personality become apparent during the end of Avraham’s life, the fulfillment of G-d promise would be lacking. Because of this, G-d sped up Avraham’s death by five years.
It is interesting that Avraham’s son Yishmael who was wayward during most of Avraham’s life, actually returned to a righteous path before Avraham died.
An interesting question is posed. Why didn’t G-d push off Aisav’s wicked and wayward ways for five years and allow Avraham to live his intended lifespan?
An intriguing answer is offered: The Talmud teaches us. “Everything is determined and controlled by the Almighty with the exception of one’s fear of Heaven.” G-d empowers each of us to use our intellect, upbringing, strengths, teachings, experiences and pursuits to formulate the sense of a fear of Heaven. It is up to the individual to choose to fear and revere G-d or not.
Therefore, when Aisav, who shared the same womb as his twin brother Yaacov and was raised in the same household, decided at the age of 15 to go off and commit five major sins which among them were, adultery, robbery and idolatry, G-d had to take Avraham, for G-d was not in control over Aisav’s decision to ignore G-d and commit such horrific sins.
So what happened to those five missing years of Avraham’s life during which he could have served G-d and performed so many Mitzvos and accumulated so many more merits for his eternal reward?
Or Hachaim explains that G-d took that into consideration and duly rewarded him in his eternal existence for what he could have accomplished during that time.
Rashi explains the aforementioned seemingly repetitious, “These are the years of the life of Sarah,” to mean that Sarah’s entire life was equally good. The question is, is that so? Wasn’t Sarah barren for many years? Wasn’t she kidnapped twice by the leaders of two nations because of her beauty? And didn’t she suffer from her maidservant Hagar and her son Yishmael? How can Rashi say they all her years were for the good?
An answer offered is that yes, Sarah certainly had challenges during the course of her lifetime, however, she looked at and approached them with the mindset that since they were presented to her by the Almighty, there was an ultimate good purpose for it. The Torah encapsulates the years of Sarah’s to convey to us that because of her outlook that G-d’s runs the world she saw everything as good and optimistic!
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Almost twenty-five years ago, in February of 1995, I began writing insights on the weekly Torah portion. My inspiration to take on such an endeavor came from Rabbi Kalman Packouz of Aish Hatorah in Miami. I never met Rabbi Packouz, however, along with some tens of thousands of readers, I began receiving a weekly Torah message via fax from him. I then figured that I too, could write a D’var Torah for our local community. I began by sending it out through a fax as he did, and then switched to email and a website when those technologies became available. This gave me the ability to expand our base exponentially. Sadly, this past week Rabbi Packouz passed away after a rather brief illness. May his memory be a blessing to all the thousands of people who he inspired and educated through his creativity and insightful words each week.
