Chayei Sarah: Avraham and Sara's Long and Happy Lives

I once read Anthony Hecht’s translation of the Chorus of Oedipus at Colonos:

What is unwisdom but the lusting after
Longevity: to be old and full of days!
For the vast and unremitting tide of years
Casts up to view more sorrowful things than joyful.

It has been pointed out that Avraham's life would seem to be an example of this sorrowful poem.  How hard Avraham’s life was, even though he was the Yedid Hashem, the Av Hamon Goyim!  Among the ten nisyonos mentioned in Avos 5:3 (according to Rabbeinu Yonah, while according the Rambam this is not separate from the Akeidah itself) is that he came back from the Akeidah joyously and found that Sara died alone while he and his children were away from home.  Then, despite having been promised the whole land, when Sara died, and while she waited in an Aron, Avraham had to start bargaining to get a place to bury her. So anyone who thinks that being beloved by Hashem means having an easy life had better think again. 

And even so, when it comes to our Tzadikim, Sophocles is wrong.  We find that Avraham died “zakein ve’savei’ah.”  Despite all his trials, he felt that he lived a full and satisfying life, because he knew that whatever happened he tried to do his best, and whatever he experienced was right and good for him.   The basic difference is whether you live as an eved Hashem, trying to emulate the 13 Middos by doing what you can for Hashem and for other people, or you live for what you can enjoy and accumulate for yourself.

The image that I have is of an airplane; Dinner has just been served, and the pilot's voice comes over the intercom, and he says, I'm sorry to inform you that we've lost both engines: we're going to try to glide to a soft landing on the water, but I have to tell you that we're in a pretty desperate situation.  Good luck and goodbye.  Some people will react by trying to finish their meal as fast as they can.  People whose existence is so self centered focus exclusively on what they can ingest and accumulate, and ultimately are not really living a true life at all.

Chayei Sara, Breishis 23:10. Efron Sat Among His People: The Median can be the Cardinal Point

23:10.  Efron sat “be’soch bnei Chais” Rashi says that this day he had been appointed as a ‘sar’ of his people.  Rabbi David Zupnick Z'l told me that Heidenheim, in his pirush on Rashi, asks what made Rashi say this, and he answers that in all of Tanach this expression of ‘besoch’ of a people means being a master, and that in Melachim II 3:14, this is what the Isha Hashunamis meant when she told Eliahu that there was nothing she needed because she was "besoch ami'.

יג וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אֱמָרנָא אֵלֶיהָ הִנֵּה חָרַדְתְּ אֵלֵינוּ אֶת כָּל הַחֲרָדָה הַזֹּאת מֶה לַעֲשׂוֹת לָךְ הֲיֵשׁ לְדַבֶּר לָךְ אֶל הַמֶּלֶךְ אוֹ אֶל שַׂר הַצָּבָא;  וַתֹּאמֶר בְּתוֹךְ עַמִּי אָנֹכִי יֹשָׁבֶת.

she did not need his help in any material things.

I later realized that the same idea is evident in the Gemara in Bava Kamma 88a, where the Gemara darshens the passuk “mikerev achecha” to mean that only “muvchar she'bi’achecha” can be a king, and not an eved meshuchrar or even a geir.  Kerev and toch not only mean the same thing but also carry the same connotation.

Why?  Why does a word that means common also connote uncommon?  Wy does 'undistinguished' or median also connote greatness?  This Zohar about the Shunamite woman is interesting, and has some potential to explain the Gemara in Bava Kamma, but it does nothing to explain Efron:

ועל דא תנינן דלא איצטריך ליה לבר נש לאיתפרשא מכללא דסגיאין בגין דלא יתרשים איהו בלחודוי
ולא יקטרגון עליה לעילא דכתיב בשונמית ותאמר בתוך עמי אנוכי יושבת לא בעינא לאפקי גרמי
מכללא דסגיאין בתוך עמי יתיבנא עד יומא דאובתוך עמי בכללא חדא.

Chayei Sarah; Avraham Avinu and His Servant Eliezer

24:1,2. VeHashem Beirach es Avrohom bakol..., avdo...hamosheil bechol asher lo. Avrohom was granted all he could possibly have, and Eliezer, his servant, ruled all that was Avrohom’s.

The Netziv here brings a Medrash on Bakol that says it means that Avraham was mosheil beyitzro, he ruled over all his human desires. He brings another Medrash that explains Eliezer's Hamosheil bechol asher lo the same way, that Eliezer ruled all his human desires. He asks, how can the Torah use the same praise for Avrohom and on Eliezer? If it is a shevach for Avrohom Ovinu, the one who thoroughly realized the truth of monotheism, the father of Klal Yisroel, the one who passed the ten nisyonos and called Eliezer a 'domeh lechamor,' how can the same thing be said of Eliezer? Does this imply parity or equivalence?

Harav Mordechai Eisenberg of Marlboro, New Jersey, added to the Netziv’s question: the Medrash says that when Eliezer came to see Lovon who said “bo beruch Hashem,” Lovon thought Eliezer was Avrohom because the klaster ponov, the glory of his appearance, seemed just like that of Avrohom.

The Netziv answers (with our hosofos) that the yeitzer of an Av Hamon Goyim is not the same as the yeitzer of an eved. The gadlus of being ‘shalit beyeitzer’ depends on how great that yeitzer is. An Av Hamon Goyim has to deal with all different kinds of people and he has enormous power. Both of these elements are corrupting influences, and threaten gadlus of middos. An eved, on the other hand, has a very circumscribed universe, and his yetzer hora and his control of it are on a much smaller scale. Avrohom ruled 'bakol'. Eliezer ruled 'bechol asher lo,' which is a far more circumscribed universe. Harav Eisenberg shtelled tzu the story about the Dubner Magid’s mussar to the Gaon, that if he had been more involved with people, he would have had a harder time being the Gaon. “Es iz nisht kein kuntz zayen a gaon in vinkaleh” (it is no trick to be a holy scholar if you stay isolated in your corner), to which the Gaon answered “Ich bin nisht kein kuntzmacher” (I am not a performer of tricks).

But Reb Mordechai asked an interesting question: how do Chazal they see from the word ‘Bakol’ that Hishlito beyitzro? So he said the following insight. This will help us understand the difference between the two shalitim be'yitzrom, and what Chazal mean when they say "bechol levovcho- bishtei yetzirecho."

The Rambam in Deiyos that says that the mesora of Avrohom is to serve Hashem in the derech hamemutza, the Golden Mean, the middle path. The Rambam adds that if a person who is fighting his bad middos finds himself going too far to one side, he should use his innate middos to pull himself back to the middle. We see that one can use the yetzer hora- the traits that are viewed as negative- in the service of good, such as when they are needed to temper excess in middos. So we can say that the difference between Avrohom and Eliezer was that Avrohom was at peace with his yetzer hora, he had enlisted it in avodas Hashem, he co-opted it. For Avrohom, beirach es Avrohom Bakol was a global brocho that enhanced all his traits- even the yetzer hora had a brocho— that it became more powerful, more effective. He was able to use his yetzer hora for avodas Hashem, so a brocho to the yetzer hora is a true brocho. Eliezer, on the other hand, reached the same madreiga through constant battle with the yetzer hora, a series of battles which never ended. So by Eliezer, it was not a brocho, it was hishlito. He did not co-opt his yeitzer hora, he vanquished it.

Also, the Rambam in the end of the first perek darshens derech hamemutza from the passuk “ki yedativ lema’an asher yetzaveh...”, so you see that Avrohom was a Rebbi in the derech hamemutza, and that was his great lesson in addressing the improvement of middos.

He looked in the Medrash, and by Avrohom it says “hishlito beyitzro;” by Eliezer Zkan Bayso, shehoyo domeh leAvrohom, and by Hamosheil bechol asher lo, shehoyo mosheil beyitzro kemoso.

On Chanukah 06/67, my shiur gave me the Tzofnas Pa’anei’ach ahl Hatorah, and I found a wonderful thing there that is precisely on point. See parshas Vayeishev, Breishis 39:2. He has a whole discussion about the two ways of becoming a tzadik; by making the yeitzer hora good, or by fighting and killing it. He brings the Yerushalmi Brochos 9:5 that says that Avrohom Ovinu made the yeitzer hora “tov.” But, the Yerushalmi says, Dovid Hamelech was not able “la’amod bo,” and so he killed his yeitzer hora– libi cholol b’kirbi. He says that Yosef, like Avrohom, ruled over his yeitzer hora, and was “sholeit” on it.

By the way, someone pointed out to me that Eliezer was the son of Nimrod. He had the chance of having a life of immediate gratification of any conceivable lust or desire for power. He abandoned this life for the chance of being a slave of Avrohom; Avrohom trusted him to find a wife for Yitzchok. So we have to appreciate who he was and what he accomplished. The fact that he was called an “orrur” was a matter of fate and yichus.

UPDATE 1 14 25

I came across this article in Atlantic Magazine. I do not know if he has anything to offer, but I am putting it here for safekeeping until I get to read it.

Why a Bit of Restraint Can Do You a Lot of Good

An uninhibited quest for authenticity sounds great. But if that just means acting out, you’re unlikely to be so happy.

By Arthur C. Brooks

 

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has described our times as the “Age of Authenticity,” meaning an era when people are willing to publicize their secrets and indulge their urges, even if such a drive for personal truth involves transgressing traditional boundaries of self-control. Once, this type of exhibitionism was the preserve of a few celebrities, but now anybody can get in on the act: The quest for authenticity has spawned salacious memoirs, reality-TV shows of escalating disinhibition, and cathartic self-disclosure on social media.

Such revelations are supposed to be good for us, because suppressing our thoughts and desires is considered unhealthy and unnatural. In psychology, this way of thinking is sometimes called self-determination theory, according to which we are happiest when we obey our inner drives.

 

I would grant that living inauthentically and being repressed do not sound like a recipe for well-being. But the age of authenticity does not seem to have made us happier, either. Quite the reverse. Some scholars, such as Taylor and the historian and theologian Carl R. Trueman, have argued that American society has become far more expressively individualistic over the past few decades. Yet the average level of happiness has consistently fallen, even as reported levels of depression and anxiety have exploded.

One possible explanation for this paradox is that the lowering of self-control was an understandable but significant error in our collective thinking, and it took us in exactly the wrong direction where happiness is concerned. Although understanding how this happened won’t turn our whole culture around, it can help you be happier in your own life.

From a psychological perspective, a useful hypothesis of how self-management works is that two systems in the brain govern it: the behavioral activation system and the behavioral inhibition system. The first one excites the desire for rewards and other positive stimuli, and arouses your interest in doing things. The second one creates an aversion to punishment and negative consequences, and tells you not to do things.

Generally, you can think about each system in this way: If the activation system rises or the inhibition system falls, self-control may decrease. Alternatively, if the inhibition system rises or the activation system falls, self-control may increase. And what works for an individual also scales by analogy for the group or community.

So which combination makes us happier overall—more of the behavioral activation system and less of the behavioral inhibition system, or the other way around? The answer is that both combinations are effective. A team of eight psychologists showed this in a 2018 study on self-control in the Journal of Personality. The team fielded a series of undergraduate surveys. The researchers found that low levels of self-control were associated with the lowest levels of subjective well-being. Moving to a higher level of self-control increased the undergraduates’ happiness.

Interestingly, in a separate study within the paper, the researchers also found that low-to-moderate levels of self-control—that is, a slightly below-average level of self-control—were associated with the lowest levels of momentary well-being. Yet a complete lack of self-control was associated with slightly higher momentary well-being. This is no wonder: Letting completely loose is commonly associated with very short-term bouts of pleasure.

This implies that if you are a somewhat reserved, self-controlled person, you can raise your sense of well-being in one of two completely contrasting ways: by being more authentic and impulsive or by being more punctilious and modest. Given that choice, the former sounds a lot more fun. The idea that most people would choose disinhibition and that authenticity would become the spirit of the age makes intuitive sense.

The trouble is that the let-it-all-hang-out approach is restricted to momentary well-being, and has consequences for others. In 2011, scholars at Arizona State University studied the correlation of low self-control with irresponsible behavior that makes life worse for others. They found that low self-control, although potentially enjoyable to the one shedding inhibitions, is associated with criminal offending, academic fraud, binge drinking, drunk dialing, public profanity, and (weirdly) public flatulence. All of these behaviors have negative social consequences, some more serious than others, but any will affect the well-being of others.

I would hazard this as a partial explanation at least for our national happiness funk: American culture has gone the wrong way about getting happier—by encouraging each of us to relax self-control to get happier, the unfortunate result is that we have become unhappier as a whole, and are now stuck that way. By seeking the short-term mood payoff that comes from disinhibition, we have become unapologetic, drunk-dialing, cussing, farting fraudsters who make one another miserable.

That is a broad statement, and not intended to be taken literally. But if you think the characterization is preposterously extreme, have you looked at your social-media feed lately?

For your own well-being, and everyone’s, increasing self-control might be much better than lowering it. To propose this at a societal level is nothing new; writers have been doing so for centuries. Benjamin Franklin, for example, exhorted “all well-bred people” to “forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.” But he had a broader vision, too, for how to realize greater collective happiness. “Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will,” he advised, “and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”

As Franklin suggests and the aforementioned research shows, even if others don’t mend their ways, controlling yourself more is a strategy that will raise your individual well-being. It can be hard to go against unfortunate social trends, so here are a couple of helpful things to keep in mind.

First, be aware of the forces around you that may lower the activity of the inhibition system in your brain and thus push you toward lower self-control. According to scholars at the University of Toronto and Northwestern University, three bad influences to watch out for are excess alcohol, anonymity, and social power. None of these necessarily leads to antisocial behavior, but they easily can—and so take you in the wrong direction for happiness. (For instance, have you ever come across someone who’s happy to have said or done something drunk that they would have been embarrassed to say or do sober?)

Similarly, who expects to find people being their best, most magnanimous selves when posting anonymously on social media? In fact, scholars who have studied anonymity on social media have found that although most users behave benignly, a small subset may demonstrate antisocial, even psychopathic, behavior. If you’re seeking to boost your self-control, shun any social media forum where your identity is hidden. Instead, accept responsibility for everything you say.

Social power—meaning, your capacity to influence others—is a trickier subject. If you possess, say, an ability to publish material that many other people will read, see, or hear, you should ask yourself whether your desire to attract and retain an audience is leading you to abandon your privacy. Does what you reveal about yourself evoke in people a frisson of interest but also lead them to hold a low opinion of your taste and manners? How much better to err on the side of self-control.

And consider the social influence we invest in leaders. We reduce our own well-being when we hand power to vulgarians. Just as it feels freeing to shed self-control but ultimately leads to negative consequences, so following leaders who act without constraints and break norms might feed our id but inevitably takes us individually and collectively down a dark path.

You might think that because I am arguing that the happiest path is one in which we sublimate our true feelings and desires through greater self-control, I am advocating in effect for inauthenticity. But that’s not my intention; rather, I am arguing for authentic self-improvement. The choice to act in a particular way boils down to a choice of who we will be as people—the famous “As If Principle” in psychology shows that we become a certain way by acting as if you already are that way.

 

This is what Aristotle meant when he wrote that “virtues are formed in a man by his doing the actions.” One important choice we have is to behave with either controlled grace or uncontrolled entitlement. Neither option is in reality more authentic than the other because, in becoming who we are through our choices, both paths are equally authentic; both embody who we’ve chosen to be as people. But only one path, that of controlled grace, leads to greater happiness for one and all. So the beautiful truth is that we can elect to become authentically better than we were—and happier to boot.

 

 About the Author

Arthur C. Brooks (Not Jewish.)

Arthur C. Brooks is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the host of the How to Build a Happy Life podcast. To receive his weekly column “How to Build a Life” in your inbox, sign up here.

 

 

 

Chayei Sarah: The Purchase of the Machpeilah Cave. Sheva Brachos #4

On the purchase of the Me’oras Hamachpeiloh, the double cave Avraham purchased to bury Sarah.

One of the most famous exegeses in the Gemora states that the laws of effecting a state of marriage are similar to those of executing a land purchase contract. This "gzeira shava" is called “kicho kicho misdei Efron,” which connects and equates the two areas of law on the basis of a word match.

It has been pointed out that deriving the laws of marriage from the purchase of a burial plot is incongruous, ironic, and bizarre. (If you don't think so, I offer you my condolences.) However, upon reflection, several interesting observations may be extracted from this association. (Unfortunately, the morbid aspect makes these observations utterly useless for a Sheva Brochos, although I have heard worse things at Sheva Brochos parties. If you have any good stories of chasanim discussing pesach pasu'ach or mekach to'us or meis oviv shel chosson, send them in.)

A. Both sides of the deal won. Attributed by some to the Bobover Rebbe. A friend once told me that most business transactions have a winner and a loser. Each side thinks that they are getting more than they are giving. The winner is the one who sees the real value and the loser is the one who doesn’t see it. Sometimes the buyer is the visionary, who sees that the value is greater than the price he is paying, and sometimes the seller is the one with vision who knows that it’s worth less than the price he is being offered. But in the case of Sdei Efron, they both got more than they gave away and they were both winners. Efron got far more than market price. The Gemora in the end of Bechoros talks about how much he got for the land, that ‘over lasocher’ means that it was far more than face value. When Efron came home, he told everyone how delighted he was at the sale, that he had gotten far more than he had given away. For Avrohom, he got something that was priceless– the M’oras Hamachpeiloh, the burial place of Odom and Chavoh. This was insignificant to anyone but a person that is fit to be buried there or a person that can perceive its holiness. For Efron, the land was only a useless rocky headache. For Avrohom, every inch was a treasure. Both sides came away knowing that they had gotten the best deal they could have dreamed of. This is the feeling we hope people have when they make a shidduch. Each side should feel that they got more than they gave, that the other side is better than they are.
To describe how little value the land had to Efron, I was reminded of something General Norman Schwartzkopf said. He said that "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." For Efron, the land was as useful as an accordion on a deer hunt.

B. The price of love is grief. I think that a truer answer is along the lines of what Queen Elizabeth said at her daughter-in-law’s funeral, that the price of love is grief. The Torah is connecting the most joyous of events and the inevitable concomitant of loving dedication to another human being. You can live a life of indifference. But if you commit to another person, if you love another person, there is a cost. The idea is that the gzeira shoveh between love and bereavement is appropriate because the two events are part of the same idea, one doesn’t exist without the other, it’s two sides of the same coin. And even though loving someone means that you will mourn their departure, the benefit of love far outweighs the eventual cost. Like the epitaph someone wrote on a relative’s grave, “Here lie the bones of Amelia Jones, for her life held no terrors. Alone she lived, alone she died, no hits, no runs, no errors.” An unpleasant observation, but with some truth.
An anonymous reader, m, sent in a comment, that he heard the Stuchiner Rebbe say this thought on the passuk in Shir HaShirim 8:6,

שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה.

On the words כי עזה כמות אהבה Rashi says

כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה. הָאַהֲבָה שֶׁאֲהַבְתִּיךָ עָלַי כְּנֶגֶד מִיתָתִי שֶׁאֲנִי נֶהֱרֶגֶת עָלֶיךָ:

Still, it is a strange way to describe love - that it is like death? Pshat is that the greater the love, the greater the suffering when it is taken away. The price of love is grief: great love ultimately causes terrible suffering. Of course, it is worth the price. How empty life would be without choosing to love.

C. Marriage is the creation of a perfect neshomoh. A friend showed me that in Ma’ayonei Hayeshu’ah or something, R’ Wolfson of Torah Vodaas says, in a much more Ari Zal style, that whenever a man is mekadeish a woman, he aspires to the state of perfection symbolized and realized by the residents of the M’oroh. It is there that the perfect neshomos, which were intertwined from the moment of their creation, and who, through marriage, formed a perfect whole, are buried.  See here in Emunas Itecha closer to D.  See also here, in his Tzion v'Areha, his Maamar on Moriah uMachpeila,  much closer to what I have from him here; and also here on page 90.

D. Marriage is not just for a lifetime, it is for an eternity. Every person should realize that their marriage is not limited to their time on Earth. Their marriage transcends death, and they will be together in life, in death, and in life after death. So the idea of kiddushin being tied to the burial of Soroh takes on a positive light– that their marriage did not end with her death, and that Avrohom took steps to ensure that they would be together in death just as they were in life. Marriage is not just for a lifetime, it is for all eternity. “U’b’mosom lo nifrodu.”

E. Avrohom was negotiating for something he was fated to get anyway. Rabbi Yosaif Osher Weiss, Rosh Yeshiva and Artscroll author and editor, said that Avrohom was negotiating for the land, and we have no proof that he even knew who was buried there. We don’t even know whether he knew how significant the land was and that he was fated to be buried there, along with Soroh and the others. So, he was negotiating for the land, while all along he was fated to be buried there. He was working and negotiating to get something that he was going to get one way or another anyway. It’s like he was negotiating to get the land, and the land was negotiating to get him. This is like the shidduch process– people go through a lot of effort to get what is bashert for them in the first place.