CHAYEY SARAH 5781
Do You Have a Why in Your Life?
Last Shabbos, the Jewish people lost one of its true giants with the passing of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. He was truly one of the great Jews of our generation. In my library, I have many books written by Rabbi Sacks. His writings have had a profound affect upon my thinking and the thinking of countless others in the traditional Jewish world. Cheryl and I went to see him give a masterful speech in Jerusalem at the Great Synagogue, and I spent some time with him when he came to speak at a Jewish convention in Atlanta.
He truly was able to capture the essence of what it means to be both modern and traditional. His memory will long be remembered all over the world. Here in Shaarei Shamayim, it will be remembered every time we open a Machzor on the High Holy Days. We use the Koren Machzor translated by Rabbi Sacks along with his wonderful commentary. Truly his memory will be for a blessing.
I’d like to remember him today by sharing some of his Torah on this week’s Torah portion. But 1st the question of the week posed by my colleague Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg: What do Donald Trump and Joe Biden have in common? There has been so much written about the difference between these 2 men and how totally different they are in most every way. But there is something that they have in common. Both of them are living proof of the wisdom of the words of the late great senator from Illinois, Adele Stephenson whom himself was a candidate for president: “In America anyone can become president!”
Look at Trump and Biden and you’ll see how true this is. Donald Trump has had no military or political background. He had so many strikes against him in terms of his personal life. And yet, he became president of the United States—and over 72 million people voted for him last week!
Joe Biden began as a stutterer. He did not go to an Ivy League school. At the age of 30, he lost his wife and daughter in a horrible car accident. He was left a single parent of 2 boys—one of whom later died of cancer. Twice he ran for president and didn’t make it. And now he could very well be our next president.
What does this prove. It proves that both of them learned a lesson from Mother Sarah. The Torah portion begins telling us of the death of Sarah. It tell us that she lived 100 years and 20 years and 7 years. Rashi asks why not just say she was 127 years old? He responds: Kulan shavin l’tova (All her years were equally good). Rabbi Jonathan Sacks then asks: How could anyone say that the years of Sarah’s life were equally good? Twice, 1st in Egypt, then in Gerar, she was persuaded by Abraham to say that she was his sister rather than his wife, and then was taken into a royal harem, a situation fraught with moral hazard. There were the years when, despite Gd’s repeated promise of many children, she was infertile, unable to have even a single child. There was the time when she persuaded Abraham to take her handmaid, Hagar, and have a child by her, which caused her great strife of the spirit…How is it remotely plausible to say that all of Sarah’s years were equally good?
Rabbi Sacks suggests that it’s because she made them good. He calls his dvar Torah: “To Have a Why.” Abraham and Sarah had a true purpose in life. When they were challenged, they didn’t let anything stop them from striving to achieve it. Rabbi Sacks tells the story of Holocaust survivor Edith Eger, and quotes her book, The Choice. On her way to Auschwitz with her father, mother and sister, her mother said: “We don’t know where we are going, we don’t know what is going to happen, but nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind.”
This was SarahThis was Trump and this was Biden. And this is many people who don’t allow themselves to become victims—blaming, being pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving. These are people who have a “why,” a purpose in their life.
Remember the classic story of the Chassidic master Zusia of Anipoly who was crying at his deathbed? His students asked, “Why are you crying, Rebbe? Certainly your sins are so few, if any, compared to your great deeds. You’ll surely be admitted into the loftiest place in heaven.”
To which he replied, “I don’t fear that when I’m judged that the Court on High will ask me why I wasn’t like Abraham or Moses or Maimonides because I was not endowed with Abraham’s charisma or Moses’ leadership or Maimonides’ intellect. What worries me is if they ask: ‘Zusia, why weren’t you Zusia?’ Then I’ll have no answer for them.”
My friends, we may not be able to belike a Sarah or a Trump or a Biden. But if we give ourselves a “why” in life—a purpose where we can live up to our own best potential—then all our years will be good, no matter what life throws at us. Amen!
