klahr@csd2.UUCP (11/07/85)
WHEN THERE'S A WELL, THERE'S A WAY
or
PARSHAS CHAYAY SOROH
____________________________________________________________________________
This week's Parshah deals with two main themes: a) the death of
Sarah, Abraham's mourning for her, and his burial of Sarah. Also included is
the story of Abraham's purchase of the Me'oras haMachpelah (the "two-fold
cave") for Sarah's burial site. b) Abraham's instructions to his servant
Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac, Abraham's son, and the story of how Eliezer
accomplished this.
Although, to the casual observer, the stories in this Parshah may seem
to be full of apparently unimportant, trivial, and redundant details, our
sages view these stories from an entirely different perspective. Rashi,
commenting on Chapter 24, verse 42, in our Parshah, quotes the following
statement from the Talmud: Rabbi Acl!said: The ordinary talk of the
servants of our forefathers is more beautiful before G-d than the Torah of
their children, since the story of Eliezer is repeated in the Torah (once
when the story occurred, and once when Eliezer retells the story to the
family of Rebecca, the girl Eliezer "chose" to be Isaac's wife), while many
essential laws of the Torah are only derived by means of subtle hints and
allusions.
What are we to make of this radical-sounding statement? Certainly, it's
intent is not to denigrate the importance of any of the Torah's commandments.
Rather, Rabbi Acha is saying that, as essential as all the formal laws and
mitzvos of the Torah are, how these laws are to be implemented and practiced,
the art of translating the mitzvos and what they represent into the course of
the experiences of everyday life (as embodied by the lives and ethics of our
forefathers) are at least equally important. In fact, when the Torah's
tales of their lives are scrutinized, one can see that, just as in the rest
of the Torah, where "laws are derived by means of subtle hints and
allusions", no ink has been wasted here either. Every verse, every nuance
and shade of meaning in the stories of the Book of Genesis, can be combed for
many depths of meaning. This, in fact, is how the Rebbe of Kotzk interpreted
Rabbi Acha's statement directly. Literally, Rabbi Acha's words in Hebrew read
"the ordinary talk of the servants of our forefathers is beautiful FROM the
Torah of their children." Rather than translating the word FROM as "more
than", as would conventionally be done in this context, the Rebbe of Kotzk
takes the words at their face value. From the "Torah of the children", the
intensive analysis that later generations of Jews applied to these stories,
we can appreciate the beauty and importance of what superficially appear to
be quite unimportant details in the lives of the Avos and Eemahos, our
forefathers and foremothers.
With that preface, let us see what we can learn from some small details
in the story of Eliezer. After Abraham commands him to "go to my homeland
and choose a wife for my son Isaac", Eliezer travels to Aram Naharayim,
and devises
a plan to find a suitable mate for Isaac. Since he is looking
for a girl who is imbued with the character trait of kindness, the trait that
marked Abraham's approach to life, Eliezer proposes to go with his camels to
the town well in the city where Abraham's brother Nachor had lived, "And it
will be the girl whom I ask to pour me some water to drink, and she will say
'drink, and also your camels will I give water to drink', she is the one who
You G-d has chosen for your servant Isaac, and with this I will know that you
have done kindness with my master Abraham." Sure enough, as soon as Eliezer
finishes praying to G-d that his plan should succeed, Rebecca, a
granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nachor, comes to the well to fill a jug
with water, Eliezer asks her to give him some water, and she says "drink some
of my water, and also to your camels I will give water to drink". The rest,
as they say in Hollywood, was history.
That was a heartwarming little dramatic story. But let me ask what may
seem to be a picayune question. Why throughout the whole story is Eliezer
referred to as "the servant" ( and Abraham said to his servant...and the
servant swore to Abraham...and the servant took ten camels and
travelled...and the servant ran towards Rebecca and said "please let me sip a
little water from your jug), then when his plan "succeeds" and Rebecca does
the hoped for act of kindness, and turns out to be a member of Abraham's
family to boot, Eliezer is referred to as "the man" ( and the man was
astonished by her...and the man knelt, and he bowed to G-d ) ?
In true Jewish fashion, let's attempt to answer one question by asking
another one: In Parshas Lech Lecha ( that's right, only two weeks ago ), G-d
promises Abraham that He will reward him, whereupon Abraham replies that
since he is childless, who will inherit him? His servant Eliezer Damesek?
G-d then assures Abrahathat "this one will not inherit you, you will have a a
child who will inherit you".
Why is Abraham's servant Eliezer called Damesek, and what is Abraham's
apparent objection to Eliezer? Previously, Eliezer had taken part in
Abraham's miraculous defeat of the combined armies of the four kings who had
captured Abraham's cousin Lot. Is Abraham's resistance to the thought of
Eliezer succeeding him in his spiritual mission just another instance of the
father who wants his son to take over the business?
Rashi on the spot ( 15:2 ) gives three interpretations to the word
Damesek. The first is that Eliezer came from Damascus. The second is that
he is called Damesek because, in the war against the kings, he chased the
routed armies all the way from Israel to Damascus. But it is the third
explanation which seems most interesting. It is that Damesek is an acronym
for the Hebrew words "doleh umashkeh"- to draw up and to give water-, because
Eliezer was the one who "drew up and gave to drink" the teachings of Abraham
to others. This explanation strengthens the question we just asked before.
If Eliezer truly was the disseminator of Abraham's teachings, he would seem
to be the appropriate heir to succeed Abraham in the task of spreading G-d's
teachings to the world? How does Abraham use Eliezer's ability in this
regard as an argument AGAINST Eliezer becoming Abraham's successor?
The book, Wellsprings of Torah ( Ma'ayonos shel Torah ), quotes the
following answer from the Maharam of Piltz: Abraham was not voicing his own
selfish wish to have a child of his succeedm, he was pointing ou out
Eliezer's unsuitability for the job. It was true, and it was admirable, that
Eliezer was transmitting Abraham's teachings. But the problem was that
Eliezer was doing nothing other than transmitting Abraham's teachings. He
was unable to initiate and create any ideas of his own. Abraham realized
that fo the spiritual movement he began to survive him, it would need thhe
constant infusion of fresh ideas and approaches. For a movement to have
vitality, and not just remain a relic of the past, people have to do far more
than just go through the motions they have gone through before. Because if
they do just "go through the motions", perhaps inertia will sustain them, but
it will certainly not impel the next generation to carry on with their work.
Rather, if an idea is really "alive" to people, if it is really sensed as
being meaningful and relevant to them, they will quite naturally bring the
forces of each of their unique personalities to the idea, and renew and
propogate their beliefs with creative insights and approaches. If they do
not do so, it shows that their beliefs are sterile and static. They lack the
inner dynamism that is so essential for the continuation of their mission in
succeeding generations.
Abraham already could have sensed this problem among his followers. The
beginning of Lech Lecha speaks of "the souls he made in Charan", the converts
that Abraham attracted to his belief in G-d. What ever happened to these
people, where did they go? Why do they disappear from Jewish history? The
Talmud and Midrash say that these people were attracted to belief in G-d by
the force of Abraham's personality, and that they drifted away after Abraham
died. Although they were attracted by Abraham's beliefs, the fact that they
abandoned these beliefs after Abraham died showed that these beliefs had not
truly permeated them.
By contrast, Abraham's successor was his son Isaac. While Abraham's main
emphasis was on Chesed, the trait of kindness, Isaac's "midah" (principle
character trait) was Din, justice. Jacob, Isaac's son, emphasized Emes,
truth. Each of these spiritual and physical descendants of Abraham was able
to accept and fulfill the teachings and attitudes of his predecessor, while
at the same time relating to G-d in his own individual way. Abraham foresaw
that this type of growth and development was essential to the perpetuation of
Judaism, and he saw this ability lacking in Eliezer.
Now let us turn back to Eliezer in our Parshah. Throughout the initial
part of the story, Eliezer is referred to as ha-eved, the servant. What is a
servant? A servant is not his own boss, he is, to some extent, in someone
else's possession. "Whatever a servant acquires, his master acquires", the
Talmud states. As we said before, this applied to Eliezer not just in the
legal realm, but in the spiritual and personal realm as well. True, Eliezer
had been righteous, but everything he had accomplished had been done
"following orders", from his dispensing the teachings of Abraham to others to
his role in the miraculous war against the armies of the four kings. Not
that this was an accomplishment to be disparaged- how many of us even attain
the level of "doing everything right, but on someone else's orders"? But
still, Eliezer had not realized the full potential he was capable of.
But here, Eliezer was confronted with an entirely different type of
mission. Abraham gave Eliezer the objective of finding Isaac a wife, but he
did not tell Eliezer how to go about doing it. For the first time, we see
Eliezer being placed out "on his own". Eliezer had to use his own initiative
in devising a stategy to accomplish this. When Eliezer prayed to G-d for his
mission to succeed, and then saw G-d's providence in allowing his plan to
work out so well,he was for the first time encountering G-d in his ownn
individual way. That is why, as soon as Eliezer saw his plan succeeding, the
Torah calls Eliezer "ha-ish", the man. Ish means more than just "man", ish
means someone who is independent, someone who is a master(as seen in the
verse in the Shirah, the song sung by the Jews after the miraculous splitting
of the Red Sea- G-d is called "ish milchama", a "man of war", which Rashi
explains as G-d being the ultimate master and controller of all war-"baal
milchama").
With this idea, one other statement of the Medrash can be seen to fit
into place. When Laban, Rebecca's brother, invites Eliezer into their house,
he says "Bo burooch Hashem", come in, you who is blessed by G-d. The Medrash
states that even though Eliezer was descended from Cham, Noah's youngest son
whom Noah had cursed, Eliezer became "one who is blessed" because of the fact
that he associated with Abraham. But why does the Torah tell us this fact
right here in particular? Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, in his Nefesh haChayim,
explains that the word "borooch" does not mean "bless". After all, what does
the word bless mean anyway? And what does it mean when we say "borooch ahtah
Hashem", "blessed" are you Hashem? Are we bestowing good wishes on G-d, Who
is omnipotent? Rather, he says, borooch is related to the word braichah, a
stream or resovoir, and means an increase, a growing. When we make
blessings, we are really saying that, by our act of recognizing some aspect
of G-d's manifestation to us(as evidenced by our making a blessing in prayer,
before or after eating food, or other occasions on which blessings are made),
there should be an increase in our perception of G-d as "You"- as someone we
can be intimately related to, as connoted, by the use of the second person
form "you", not as a distantly perceived abstraction.
Similarly, not until our Parshah, in which Eliezer first experiences his
own personal brand of spiritual perception, growth, and development, is
Eliezer referred to as a "borooch", one who is blessed, or in Rav Chayim of
Volozhin's terminology, one who has "increased" his personality and his
relationship with G-d.
(It is interesting to note that all the topics we have discussed above
are connected by the motif of water, which is so frequently used as a symbol
of Torah, life, and growth throughout the Bible and Rabbinic literature- the
metaphor of Eliezer drawing up and "watering" others with Abraham's
teachings, Eliezer's "test" of Rebecca's willingness to provide water at the
well, and the relation of the word for blessed, borooch, to the word
resovoir).
Thus, among other insights we can glean from this Parshah, we are able to
view the story of Eliezer at the well as a study in the growth and
development of a person- something we can relate to all aspects of our lives,
in which we can strive not only to do what is right, but to do so in a way
that becomes personally meaningful to ourselves.
Good Shabbos.
Pinchus Klahr {allegra,ihnp4} !cmcl2!csd2!klahr