This week’s parsha opens with a loss. Rashi (Bereishit 23:2) explains that the Torah places Sarah’s passing right after the Akeida because of the news she heard: her son had been made ready for slaughter and was almost slaughtered, and פָּרְחָה נִשְׁמָתָהּ, her soul left her.
Yet the parsha is not named for Sarah’s death. It is named Chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah. This Shabbat is also Shabbat Mevarchim, when we bless the coming month of Kislev and ask Hashem for חַיִּים, life, eleven times in one short tefillah. So let’s look at how the Torah counts a life.
וַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה׃
“Sarah lived 100 years, 20 years, and 7 years: Sarah’s years of life.” (Bereishit 23:1)
Two questions. Why does the Torah split the number into three parts, with the word “year” written each time, instead of simply saying 127? And once the number is given, why add שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, “the years of Sarah’s life”? We already know whose years they were.
Rashi’s well-known answer is that each number is learned on its own: at 100 Sarah was as free of sin as she was at 20, and at 20 she was as beautiful as she was at 7. כֻּלָּן שָׁוִין לְטוֹבָה, all her years were equal for good.
Ramban – The Lesson Is in the Last Words
The Ramban (Bereishit 23:1) offers a precise reading of the pasuk. Writing “year” next to each number is simply the way the Torah writes a number. It does the same for Yishmael (25:17), yet Yishmael’s years were not all equal in good: he was a rasha (wicked person) at first and did teshuva only at the end. So the lesson cannot come from the word shana. Instead, it comes from the extra words at the end of the pasuk. When the Torah repeats שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, it gathers all her years into one and makes them equal, שֶׁכְּלָלָן וְהִשְׁוָה אוֹתָן.
The Torah’s last word on Sarah Imeinu is a single total: one life, and all of it good.
The Or HaChaim HaKadosh – Who Gives Life to Whom?
The Or HaChaim HaKadosh (Bereishit 23:1) notices that the Torah does not use the usual word וַיְחִי, “and he lived,” that it uses for other tzaddikim. It says וַיִּהְיוּ, which he calls לְשׁוֹן צַעַר, a word of pain, a hint that her life ended through the news of the Akeida.
Then he explains the words חַיֵּי שָׂרָה with one short line: הַצַּדִּיקִים מְחַיִּים יְמֵיהֶם, וְהָרְשָׁעִים יְמֵיהֶם מְחַיִּים אוֹתָם, the tzaddikim give life to their days, and the wicked are given life by their days. A rasha (wicked person) is carried along by time. The days pass over him and keep him going. A tzaddik does the opposite. He puts life into each day with Torah, tefillah, and chesed. That is why the Torah can call these years “the life of Sarah.” The life in them was hers. She brought it into her years.
Malbim – A Life Is Known at the End
The Malbim (Bereishit 23:1) explains what this “life” is. The main life of a person is חַיֵּי הַשֵּׂכֶל וְהָעֲבוֹדָה, the life of the mind and the service of Hashem, not the life of the senses, which an animal also has. And a person’s life can only be summed up when it ends. As long as he is alive he is never sure of himself, since he could still spoil his deeds and lose even what he did before.
That is why the Torah gives the total only now, at Sarah’s passing. Now it is known that all 127 years were the years of a tzaddeket.
Kli Yakar – Coming Into the Days
A few pesukim later the Torah says about Avraham: וְאַבְרָהָם זָקֵן בָּא בַּיָּמִים, “Avraham was old, coming into his days” (24:1). The Kli Yakar (Bereishit 24:1) asks: an old man seems to be leaving his days. Why does the Torah say he “came into” them?
He answers that for the wicked, youth is daytime. Those years are bright to them, because they are good for bodily pleasure, which is all they live for. Old age is night, because they can no longer enjoy any of it. So they go out of the days and into the nights. For tzaddikim it is the reverse. They come out of the nights and into the days, because old age is the best time to acquire chochmah (wisdom).
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch – Bringing Our Days Along
Rav Hirsch (Bereishit 23:1) goes back to our first question. The Torah splits the 127 into three numbers because they stand for the three stages of every life: childhood, the years of growing into an adult, and old age. A whole life, he says, is one where a person is truly a child in childhood, truly an adult in his prime, and truly a zaken in old age. And the one who really lives takes the best of each stage with him into the next one.
That, says Rav Hirsch, is what בָּא בַּיָּמִים means. Avraham did not leave his days behind him, used up. He came with them. Whatever he had gained in his earlier years stayed his, and the passing years could not take it from him. In the same way, Sarah carried the beauty of her childhood into her adult life, and the purity of her youth with her to the end.
He adds a point on the closing words. All 127 years are called חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, and every moment of them was life. Yet the Torah calls them only שְׁנֵי חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, “years of Sarah’s life,” one part of a life that does not end with her passing. As the Gemara says, צַדִּיקִים שֶׁבְּמִיתָתָן נִקְרְאוּ חַיִּים, tzaddikim are called living even in their death (Berachot 18a).
Giving Life to Our Days
Now we can answer our questions. The Torah breaks Sarah’s years into parts so that we can see each part was as good as the others (Rashi). Then it gathers them together into one whole (Ramban). They could be gathered because she filled every one of them with life (Or HaChaim), the life of the mind and of avodah (Malbim). And Avraham Avinu, in his old age, was not running out of days. He was coming into them (Kli Yakar), bringing every earlier stage of his life along with him (Rav Hirsch).
That is why a parsha that begins with Sarah’s death is called Chayei Sarah. The real question is not how many days we are given but what we put into them.
We strive as individuals to rise above the mundane. Are we motivated by the understanding that Hashem put us here on earth for more than the required “basics”? In the spectrum of our lives, we can always say “we should have done this, or that” to be a better version of ourselves. But the Torah is teaching us that we have the option to do that now and strive for better for our future selves.
Shabbat Mevarchim – Eleven Times “Chaim”
The tefillah we say this Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh comes from the prayer Rav said after he finished his tefillah (Berachot 16b). Notice how it is built. We ask for חַיִּים אֲרוּכִּים, long life, only once. Then ten more times we ask for life “of” something: חַיִּים שֶׁל שָׁלוֹם, חַיִּים שֶׁל טוֹבָה, חַיִּים שֶׁל בְּרָכָה … חַיִּים שֶׁיֵּשׁ בָּהֶם יִרְאַת שָׁמַיִם וְיִרְאַת חֵטְא … חַיִּים שֶׁתְּהֵא בָנוּ אַהֲבַת תּוֹרָה וְיִרְאַת שָׁמַיִם. Length comes first, but almost all of the request is about what fills the days. And the last line ends with the word לְטוֹבָה, “for good,” the same word Rashi used for Sarah: כֻּלָּן שָׁוִין לְטוֹבָה.
A new month is a new set of days that Hashem hands us. Rosh Chodesh Kislev falls this Tuesday and Wednesday. Each day of it can be one that carries us, or one that we bring to life.
May Hashem renew the month of Kislev for us לְטוֹבָה וְלִבְרָכָה, and may we be zocheh (merit) to give life to our days, so that our years, like the years of Sarah Imeinu, are all equal for good.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,
Moshe
MarCheshvan 5787