פרשת חיי שרה
The passuk in this week’s Parsha says ויבא אברהם לספד את שרה ולבכותה – And Abraham mourned Sarah and cried for her. It is more common for a verse to first mention crying and only then mention the eulogizing. It is interesting to note this anomaly to the normal way of writing, that here the eulogy is mentioned first and only then the crying. Similarly one could ask why is the כ is small in the word לבכותה?
Perhaps one could begin by explaining the fundamental difference between crying over deceased loved ones and eulogizing them. Crying is done to express the personal loss and pain that one feels in not having their loved one around any more. Whereas eulogizing is more a way of articulating the sadness that one feels on behalf of that person vis-à-vis how much that person could have continued to do, and expressing the loss that others feel via showing how virtuous that person was and how much they will be missed.
With this, we could explain why crying is normally put first in the verse. An average person’s normal response to loss is an overwhelming feeling of grief and sadness over losing their loved one. Only after that does a person begin to consider the impact of that person’s loss on the environment around him.
Regarding Avraham Avinu who is referred to as a pillar of chessed and lived a truly altruistic life, his own loss wasn’t nearly as devastating to him as was his empathetic grief toward the entire nation’s loss of Sara Imenu. This would also explain why the כ is small in the word לבכותה to symbolize that the grieving that he did for himself was minuscule in relationship to the crying that he did for the world’s loss. (In general a Jew is not allowed to express excessive grievance over a loss as he still has his father in heaven, and to grieve excessively would not be appropriate).
There is another aspect of Avraham’s righteousness which emerges from these series of events. We see that Avraham was more concerned with the world’s spiritual loss then with his own physical loss. It appears that to Avraham Avinu, the spiritual pursuits in his life were placed far above the physical ones.
We see this point further illustrated when Avraham sent his servant Eliezer to seek out a wife for his son. Avraham requested that Eliezer take a serious oath that he would only take a wife from his own family and not from the daughters of Canaan. Yet in the same verse, the Torah refers to Eliezer as the Executor of his entire estate. R’ Yaakov Noiman the Mashgiach of Losmzshe makes note that we don’t find anywhere in the verses that Avraham ever made Eliezer take an oath to become his chief executor, who had the power to conduct any transaction he desired with Avraham’s money, yet when it came to seeking a suitor for his son, he forced Eliezer to take this oath.
How can we explain this extraordinary importance that Avraham placed on seeking a mate for his son even over all of his possessions? The verse says that God blessed Avraham with everything which Rashi brings is the Gematriah “Bein” which means son. The question is obvious. Why couldn’t the passuk write the word “Bein” as opposed to only referring to the Gematriah? Perhaps one could answer that the Passuk is alluding to the fact that a person’s child should really be the focus of his entire life (בכל). One must raise his children with every ounce of strength, for his progeny is all that he leaves behind and only through them can he continue his spiritual legacy. This is another example of our obligation as Jews to place our sacred matters above our physical needs.
This is even more true by Avraham Avinu whose offspring was to be the continuation of the entire Jewish people.
The Passuk in Bereishes which discusses God’s creation of the heavenly bodies says that in addition to the spiritual purpose for their creation they also served a physical function. Rashi explains that although one may think that the heavenly bodies such as the sun and the moon are there only to keep us warm and give us light that is in fact not their primary role. Rather they serve as a sign for how we’re doing spiritually as the Gemorah says, “When the sun can’t be viewed fully, it is a bad sign for the world”, and by allowing us to set up the calendar based on them, and only as a tertiary role do they give off light and heat.
From here we see that every aspect of God’s creation, as mundane as it may seem, must be viewed and recognized for it’s spiritual value.
Rav Aryeh Leib Shteinman says that when it comes to a person’s Hishtadlus in mundane matters, one shouldn’t put in too much effort. To illustrate this he brings the Midrash which discusses Korach and Bnei Gad and how their wealth was removed from the world because it didn’t originate from heaven. How can we explain this bizarre statement as we know that all monies that we receive are rationed out to us by God on every Rosh Hashana? He explains that this Midrash means to say if a person has to do too much Hishtadlus in any given act, God will not allow that act to be a source of blessing for him in the long run. On the other hand in a person’s spiritual matters, there is no end to the amount of care and deliberation that he should take to ensure that they come out right.
May we merit to place all of our might in our spiritual endeavors!