Let him grant me the Cave of Machpelah, which belongs to him and is located at the edge of his field. Let him sell it to me for its full price, in your presence, so I can make it into a family burial ground.” - Bresheet 23:9
At the onset of this week’s Parashah, “Chayei Sarah,” (the life of Sarah), we are told about the death of Sarah, Avraham’s wife, in Hevron. Pursuent to her passing, Avraham purchases the Cave of Machpelah and the surrounding field in Hevron, from its owner, Ephron, the Hittite and buries her there.
One of the questions that is begging to be asked, upon reading these verses, is, if G-d has already promised the Land of Yisrael to Avraham and his descendents (“To your offspring I will give this land,” Bresheet 12:7), why must Avraham purchase a burial site, at Machpelah, for Sarah?
G-d’s promise to Avraham and his posterity gives the land spiritual legitimacy. Avraham’s purchase gives it political legitimacy. In order to establish sovereignty. Both are needed. The Divine Covenant establishes eternal rights. Avraham’s actions and deeds establish worldly recognition. Divine promises do not replace human action.
Furthermore, Avraham insists upon paying “full price” for the land, as the verse above points out, despite the offer to accept it as a gift. He wants an indisputable legal claim to ensure that no one could later challenge Jewish presence as illegitimate or dependent on any foreign entities. He knows that a Divine promise carries spiritual authority, but not necessarily a recognition in the human legal system. He understands that sovereignty is established through moral and lawful means. By paying “full price,” Avraham secures a deed that no one can contest. The negotiations with Ephron become the first legal translation of Jewish lawful ownership setting a precedent for the Jewish People’s historic and moral claim in the Promised Land.
Avraham’s insistence on paying full price, refusing a gift, parallels other, later, key biblical passages. In 2 Samuel 24:24, king David explicitly purchases land with money, land that is connected to the legitimate ownership and future sanctity of the site he was about to procure. There, he says to Araunah, the Jebosite who offers it to him for free, " 'No, I will buy it from you for a price;I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my G-d that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the Oxen for fifty shekels of silver.” This site, as we later find out, becomes the future Temple Mount in Yerushalayim, “Then David said,’Here shall be the house of the Lord G-d and here the altar of burnt offering for Yisrael.’” 1Chronicles 22:1. Both these pieces of land, Sarah's burial sites and the Temple Mount were legally purchased for eternal possession, thus fulfilling the Divine promise to Avraham and his descendents.
One of the most striking and meaningful features of Parashat Chayei Sarah, (the Life of Sarah), is its paradoxical title which opens with Sarah’s death yet gives us no further details about her life. What, on the surface, seems like a contradiction preoccupied our sages. Many of them, however, view it not as a contradiction but rather as a deep truth about life's legacy and continuity.
Midrash Rabbah expands on this idea. “Why is it written, ‘After the life of Sarah?’ To teach us that the righteous are called alive even after death.” (Bresheet Rabbah 58:1). Sarah’s legacy and her spiritual influence continue beyond her physical existence.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch reads the name Chayei Sarah as a theological statement. The life of Sarah, he believes, is the life that Sarah set in motion. Her death sets off Avraham’s first act of acquiring land in Canaan. Until that point Avraham is a resident alien, a ger vetoshav toshav, promised the land by G-d but not yet owning even a small piece of it. Sarah’s death gives birth to the first foothold of the Jewish nation in its promised land. Her burial place becomes a national symbol and a spiritual anchor linking future generations to the patriarchs and matriarchs buried there.
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks builds on the same concept. In his essay Chayei Sarah (Covenant and Conversation) Sacks offers a beautiful and deeply philosophical insight into the paradoxical title of Parashat Chayei Sarah. His assertion is that in order to understand a death, one has to understand a life. In the Torah, believes Sacks, life and death are not opposites. Those who live a life of faith, whose values and influence last beyond their days, never die. Sarah’s life, as Sacks sees it, continues through the continuity of the Covenant. Her legacy gives life to the Jewish People.
To praphrase the interpretations of our sage, Sarah’s death forces the promise of DivineInheritance, the guiding principle that dictated the journey of her life, to translate into human and legal reality.
Her death, in this sense, becomes the womb of Jewish rootedness, out of which arises Jewish life and permanence.
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