It is a great time that we are living in — and yet, it is such a strange and insecure time. It is so very difficult to know if we are in the time just before “the great era of peace” or if we are being fooled and lulled into complacency and a false sense of well-being while our enemies are planning our coming destruction. I know that we all want to believe that peace has its own momentum and that once it is “launched” it will continue out of “perpetuum mobile,” which is perpetual motion — but that may just not be so! In a world that sees the laws of nature reexamined and found to be lacking -- how can one believe in an empirical rule for human behavior? I can tell you from my own personal experience what you probably know from yours — that just when you think you have things all figured out, they turn out to be the exact opposite of what you had concluded them to be! This is true of simple, “normal” people — so, how much more so for people who are not exactly “normal” — or possibly what I am trying to say is that our “norm” is, in fact, the exception, and the normal is irrational and dysfunctional.

Peace with Jordan — O.K., we have been expecting it since 1951. Then, in 1967 we got to see on T.V. the famous “kiss of brothers” of Nasser and King Hussein -- just before the Arab confrontation states, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, resolved to reverse the “shame of 1947” — which, as we all know, brought about the Six Day war, and Israeli occupation of the Golan, Judea, Samaria, the Gaza strip and the Sinai. Dreams were shattered... New dreams replaced them. Suddenly, Israel was a power to be reckoned with -- or so we thought. We were sure that peace would soon arrive, in fact we sued for peace! The Arab nations responded with the Khartoum declaration: NO recognition of Israel, NO negotiations and NO peace! How dearly we paid for our miscalculations! The terror war waged against Jews around the world, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur war of ’73, the Lebanon wars of the 1980’s.

In 1977 Anwar Sa’adat came to Jerusalem. We sat glued to the T.V. screens, and we spoke of “the days of Messiah.” It was finally happening! Once Egypt signed a peace treaty, we reasoned, the others would fall in line to do the same... Instead, Sa’adat was assassinated (by Moslem true-believers), and the peace with Egypt turned colder that Siberia. Begin retired, the Palestinians began the Intifada, blood was once again being spilled in the Holy land... The Gulf war pitted Arab against Arab, showed the world that Arabs and Moslems are not committed to each other’s well being — and Israel was the only nation that was not allowed to protect itself against Scud attacks from Iraq. The only way I can explain the fact that Israel did not suffer many casualties is by invoking Divine intervention! New elections two years ago brought Rabin and Peres to the helm of the Israeli ship of state — and, as the saying goes, “the rest is history.” Oslo, Rabat, Cairo, and Washington. Handshakes with people we swore we would never speak with. Now, Rabin, Peres and Arafat are recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize — proof positive that politics makes strange bedfellows!

Have things changed? People talk about how Israel maliciously plowed-under the settlements in Sinai before evacuation — forgetting that they only did it because that is what the Egyptians wanted. They insisted that every vestige of the Israeli presence in Sinai had to be eradicated. They got what they wanted — and Israel got the bad name. On the day the peace agreement with Jordan was signed, a million Palestinian Arabs went on strike to protest the signing — an action called for by Hamas, a Moslem religious movement. President Assad wants Israel to vacate and disassemble settlements on the Golan... Tomorrow it will be time to remove all settlements from Judea and Samaria -- Arafat is already making hints about it. The world has never recognized our rights to D.C. — David’s capital, that is! Jerusalem, before long, will become contested territory, and the world will ask the Jews to be flexible, to compromise, to give-in... What will remain? a truncated Israel, with indefensible borders, with enemies all around — welcome to the new Jewish ghetto, along the borders of the Green line -- twelve miles across at its waiste, in the most populated area of metropolitan Tel-Aviv... Waiting for the day when the Arabs are strong enough, and the Jews are weak enough — Ho chi min said it... We can wait ten years, fifty years, even a hundred years — but in the end we will bury you! Sarajevo, here we come?! Rabin repeats again and again, “no more war, no more killing.” Yet, few remember that more Arabs were killed in Hama, Syria, than in all the wars on the Arabs against Israel. More Palestinians were kills by Jordanians in “black September” and by Syrians in Lebanon tan by Israelis in war and in the Intifada... What will it take to make them safe — and how safe can we, as Jews, despised by their religious principle, ever be? As I said, I am not too sure of how safe this world is for small groups of people — especially ones who speak the tongue of the prophets and who garb themselves in a prayer-shawl of Prophets’ ethics. No one likes a goody two shoes who preaches to the world. Conform or perish! We have been told that in Greek and in Latin, in Spanish and in Portuguese, in Ukrainian and in Lithuanian. We were spared the indignity by the German language — maybe because the tongue of Goethe was also the tongue of the Jew, Heine — they didn’t ask us to conform — just to perish. As for me, I choose to remain — remain alive, remain a Jew — remain on guard!

5758

How many times have you been told not to jump to conclusions? I know that this was a lesson I was taught again and again by my parents and teachers in my childhood. Nothing is worse than a knee-jerk reaction. So often you can be proved wrong. In fact, human nature, of course, is to come to quick conclusions based on first impressions that are never well founded. A perfect example of this is the preconceived ideas people had about the late prime minister of Israel, Menakhem Begin. It was "common knowledge" that he would never give away even an inch of ground that Israel had in her hands. Yet, of course, it was none other than Begin that made the Camp David accord with president Saadat of Egypt, with the attendant return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

This week we read in the Torah the portion of Kha'yey Sarah. It begins with the twenty third chapter of Beresheet, which reads, "Va'yihyu kha'yey Sarah me'a shana ve'esrim shana vsheva shanim... Sarah lived one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; this was the length of Sarah's life. And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her." [Gen. 23:1,2] First impression: Sarah was old and she died. Second impression: This story of her demise is told right after the story of the Akeda, the binding of Yitzkhak, her son. Conclusion: there must be a connection between the two stories. The dean of commentators, Rashi, tells us that the reason for the strange account of her age is that "at one hundred she was as young and pretty as a twenty year old, and at twenty she was as sin-less and innocent as a seven year old." Then, on the text, "to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her," Rashi says, "and there is a connection between the binding of Yitzkhak and the death of Sarah, by means of the fact that she was informed that her son was brought to the slaughter, and while he was on the edge of the knife her soul left her and she died."

Based on this commentary, and the conclusion we jump to, thinking that Sarah was terribly upset by the fact that her son was taken and offered on the altar. We assume that she was angry with Abraham, enough so that he did not return from Moriah to her but rather went to live in Beer Sheva for the remainder of Sarah's life. We further attribute to Sarah an anger toward the God that would ask Abraham to take her son, the one she yearned for all the years she suffered the pain of a barren woman, a God who would not leave this child, who brought a smile to her lips and laughter to her heart in her old age, to be with her to make her last days happy ones. "Her soul left her," says Rashi -- in the Hebrew "parkha nishmata."

Now consider where I started my dissertation, the exhortation of parents and teachers "not to jump to conclusions." Think well, think long of our matriarch Sarah -- what do we know about her? Is she not the one that Rashi himself told us was God inspired from early age? Is she not a perfect example for the people she would be the root of. Would the words of the prophet Jeremiah not be fit for Abraham to eulogize her? "Zakharti lakh khesed ne'ura'yikh, ahavat klulota'yikh, lekhtekh akhara'y bamidbar be'eretz lo zru'a -- I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown." [Jeremiah 2:2] She is the one who willingly supported Abraham by telling Pharaoh that she was a sister and not a wife to her man. She was the one who told Abraham to send Yishma'el away, an act that God Himself supported her in. Does it make any sense to interpret her death as a sign of weakness, lack of faith, or, God forbid, apostasy?

Allow me to reverse the saying, and claim that "if the shoe does not fit -- do not wear it!" If you reach the conclusion that Sarah could not have reacted as we assumed she did, with our first impression, which is not a logical and acceptable reaction. Let us begin, instead, with the given fact that Sarah is a pious and faithful woman who raised her "kaddishle," her child that was to be her heritage and continuity to posterity -- raised him to love God and be ready to offer his life "al kiddush hashem" -- to sanctify God's name. That is what any good mother does, and what many Jewish mothers lived to witness their children do. So Sarah was not angry with Abraham or with God at all. In fact, she was grateful to both for allowing her Yitzkhak this chance. Rashi tells us, in the Hebrew "parkha nishmata." What if we are not looking at the words right? What if we give them our own bias, thinking that we would die if our child was bound upon an altar. Is there, then, another meaning to the Hebrew? Indeed, there is! "Perakh" is Hebrew for flower. "Parkha," thus, is 'bloomed.'

Now we can look at Sarah, our mother Sarah, as a good Jewish mother, who raised a child whom she taught to love his father and to worship his Father. She prepared him for nothing less than Kiddush Hashem -- offering his life for the sanctification of God's name. In years of living with Yitzkhak she made him aware of the many sacrifices her dear husband and she had to make for their faith. She told him that his time would come, too. She prepared him for the Akeda, she made sure that he would be a willing partner to his father when the time came. One fine fall day -- for we believe that the Akeda took place on Rosh Hashanah, at the time when God holds creation in judgement -- Abraham took Yitzkhak with him, and went away. He did not discuss the matter with Sarah because it was not necessary. She was God inspired, she knew before he was called that God would be calling him, and she lived in suspense. She knew what God wanted -- but she did not know what her husband, and her son would do!

And the word was brought to her, maybe by one of the 'boys' that was left by Abraham with the donkeys, who saw from afar how Abraham bound Yitzkhak upon the altar, and hurried to inform his mistress, thinking that she would run to stop the man from offering her son. However, much to the surprise of the messenger, what happened was that "parkha nishmata." No, she did not die! Her soul bloomed! She was filled with satisfaction that her labor had not been in vain. Her son passed the test. Now she could die in peace. Abraham went to Beer Sheva for that was the "good well," there was no split in the family. Sarah, like Abraham, heard the news that Rebecca was born, and she knew that her son's future is set. Therefore, in complete peace and faith in God's judgement, Sarah surrendered her spirit unto the God who gave it, and she died.

There are many times when things are not what they seem at first glance. We need to train ourselves and our progeny to avoid snap conclusions, to make our decisions based on close and careful examination of all the facts. Thus, and only thus, shall we find and live by the truth.

Amen

5760

This week we read in the Torah the portion of Kha’yey Sarah, which means ‘the life of Sarah.’ Actually, what we read is about the death of Sarah, but more than that, we read about the life of Abraham. The portion begins in the twenty third chapter of Beresheet, which reads, "Va’yihyu kha’yey Sarah me’a shana ve’esrim shana vsheva shanim... Sarah lived one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life. And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her." [Gen. 23:1,2]

How strange it is that we do not read Abraham’s eulogy for his dear wife and mother of the one by whom Abraham’s progeny will be known. Instead we read about his negotiations with the people of Hebron for a piece of ground to establish a cemetery in perpetuity for him and his descendants. The reason for the report of this negotiation, according to the commentators, is that it establishes Abraham, and his descendants forever after, as landowners in the promised land. This is a very important issue for our patriarch, and he delays burying his wife to make sure that the matter is taken care of totally correctly.

The text continues by informing us, "Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way." [Gen. 24:1] Yet the next chapter tells us that Abraham married again, "Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah." [Gen. 25:1,2] The commentators tell us that it is not necessary to think that the story is told in chronological order. It is possible that Abraham married Keturah even before Sarah died. It was not reported before because it was not pertinent to the story at hand. God had told Abraham "ki ve’yitzkhak yikare lekha zara – for in Yitzkhak shall your seed be named." [Gen 21:12] Any other children had no significance for the story of Abraham and his progeny that will continue in his covenant with God.

So, we ask, why is the story pertinent now, all of a sudden? If it Was not important to tell before, why is it being told now? The answer Can best be understood from the end of the portion, and also from the choice of reading from the prophets, the haftarah. The choice of this latter reading (for this week) is from the first book of Kings, the first chapter, verses 1-31. It tells of the events of the succession of Solomon to the throne of David’s kingdom. King David, Israel’s great and beloved sovereign, was old (when our reading begins), and he did not pay attention to what was happening in his realm. He had many sons, one of whom, Adoni’yahu, took matters in his own hands and usurped the authority of the sovereign.

The prophet Nathan, the priest Zadok, and Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, brought the matter up to the king and made him realize that he needs to pass the scepter and the authority to whomever he chose publicly and authoritatively, to avoid a devastating struggle for power that would follow his death. David swears that Solomon would rule after him, "And the king vowed, "As surely as the LORD lives, who has rescued me from every danger, today I decree that your son Solomon will be the next king and will sit on my throne, just as I swore to you before the LORD, the God of Israel."" [I Kings 1:29,30]

This account of the continuance of David’s line contrasts with events recounted in our Torah reading this Shabbat. "Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east." [Gen. 25:5,6] There is a very definite dissimilarity, one might even say a contrast, between Abraham’s action vis-a-vis his children and his plans for his spiritual posterity and that of king David, author of the Psalms. You would have thought that David, the first king of all Israel, who established the ‘safe kingdom’ free of encroachment for his people, would have a much better idea of the importance of establishing the proper tools of succession and of legitimacy of his continuing ‘line.’ That is not the case. Twice in his career as king, David faces a succession challenge: Absalom tries to usurp his seat prematurely while David is still young and vibrant enough to exercise his sovereign rights; Absalom’s brother, Adoni’yahu, makes his play in the winter of David’s life — as it turns out, also prematurely and unwisely.

Abraham is much more astute in the conduct of his leadership over his followers — possibly because it is a much smaller group, possibly because what is at stake, Abraham’s ‘heritage,’ is not a kingdom but merely a promise from God for a relationship with his seed. This promise, the covenant that ‘seals’ it, is not something one can "take to the bank" — as we like to say these days. However, we must also give Abraham, and Sarah, credit for planning ahead for their perpetuity. The expulsion of Yishma’el, at Sarah’s behest; the dismissal of the other children before Abraham loses his faculties — all help create the kind of circumstance that when "Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac" — there was no question, no argument. Yishma’el reconciled with his father and his brother, and came to bury Abraham when he died. He did not put in a claim for his father’s inheritance.

So the portion of the week that we read, which is named "Kha’yey Sarah," — ‘the life of Sarah’ — is indeed about the life of our matriarch, which she shared with her husband, our great founding father, Abraham. Together or separately with the wife Keturah and her children, with the ‘children of the concubines’ mentioned in our portion this week, Sarah and Abraham lived their lives for their purpose — to conserve, preserve and immortalize the covenant of the One God, their spiritual Father. Like Him, they sought to create both order and continuity. We remember them and praise them even as we love and praise God, our ultimate Father.

Shabbat Shalom

Amen!

5761

This week’s portion of the Torah speaks of the death of Sarah, the first, and possibly most important matriarch of the Jewish people. Her death came fast on the heel of the events of the Akeda, the binding of Yitakhak. Some commentators say that she died of shock at the news of Abraham’s departure to sacrifice her son, and of grief over the possibility of losing him. If this is true, it shows the humanity of our dear mother Sarah - but it also shows her lack of discernment, a loss of faith at the promise of God Almighty to carry the seed of Abraham through her son.

Distraught mothers have existed since Sarah, and probably even long before her. This Shabbat I want to read to you a letter I received by e.mail from a mother in Israel, and then my comments on some of the content of that letter. Here goes:

I am heavy hearted today. My body is cold and feels stiff with shock of today's terrorist attack in Khadera. I haven't recovered from the school bus attack Kfar Darom yet only two days ago. My heart is torn for this one mother whose three children were injured in the attack. Three children with severed and amputated limbs in one family. I watched the unfolding of the results of this bomb attack on the school bus and it hurts me deeply to know that even one person in this world hates someone enough to want to deliberately attack a school bus full of children. these children were on their way to school and were not on their way to rock throwing demonstrations. and yes I feel that the facts are misrepresented and the issues misrepresented and propaganda misrepresenting and that includes our side as well.

This is a small country. this is a country at war - not because we want a war but because we are not wanted. and there are many places around the world where we- are not wanted. it is not an I or me situation - it is a we situation. and yes, today I am feeling very sensitive to any kind of anti Jewish - anti Israeli feelings. I can't even say anti-Semitic as that word implies against all Semites in the middle east including the arab population.

I am a pacifist - I want a peaceful place to live. I don't want to have rocks thrown at me, or Molotov cocktails or scuds hurled at me, or people calling me names. I want to live in peace side by side whoever my neighbors are. I want my children to live in peace and grow into peace loving people. I want them to feel comfortable in their skins, in their bodies, in their life style where ever they go. I don't want my children to have to deal with shell shock, concussion blasts of heat, kidnaped friends, or have their husbands having to help young wounded children on a school bus get to hospitals in the hope that the medical doctors will have enough expertise to sew on the parts of their legs that were left dangling after the blast.

I don't want to get posts from clients whom I helped recover from a bomb blast 12 years ago, where they were severely burnt on a bus - a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the bus - and who in this last period were shot at, had their car stoned and another Molotov cocktail thrown at them.

The reports are slowly coming in and the facts of a new form of terrorism. The car bomb attack today on the Khadera bus was automated and activated by timer or by remote. There was no suicidal bomber inside.

41 people injured and 2 dead.

The feeling of people is one of desperation and terror. The older population is saying that since 1948 and the war of independence the situation in Israel has not been as horrific. The fear is of escalation beyond control and beyond hope.

40 minutes after the Khadera attack today, I sat with a couple. We talked about the attack. This is what was on their minds. This is what was on my mind. These are immigrants from north America. They came here in 1973 and survived that war. They lived through the northern bombings on the Lebanese and Syrian borders. Their daughter was involved in the bet lid bombing attack 5 years back and her boyfriend was injured there. Her other daughter is married to a man who was shot in Gaza. He was the last to be shot before Gaza was returned to the Palestinians. There is more that has happened in their lives and perhaps one day they will write up their own story.

And Ariel Sharon is standing in Zion square in Jerusalem as I write. This tragic 'episode' of rioting and fighting started following a visit of his to an Arab mosque just before the Jewish holidays. It was unnecessary for him to go there. It was a catalyst and our current tragic story unfolded. I am a little person here. I do my best to repair the damaged souls and hearts that I treat. I too, have a heavy heart and hurt and fear.

My personal story I have told you in part. amir has come back from his 14-day jail sentence. he told me his side of the story of how he ended up in shell shock and of the kidnaping of the three soldiers. when he gives me permission to tell his full story I will but for... Now he is back up north on another base and is coping well. So far there is nothing much happening on the northern border.

I worry about my daughter Naava, traveling back and forth from tel-Aviv to Jerusalem every day. My daughter Taal should be safe with my granddaughter down in the south.

I don't worry about me. But I am sad. It is all so very senseless and so very painful. There must be a better way to resolve this problem. Happiest of thanksgiving to all.

Fran

I read Fran's letter, and feel sad for her and for all the people in Israel. However, I wish someone would wake up all the people who feel as Fran does when she says, "> And Ariel Sharon is standing in Zion square in Jerusalem as I write. This tragic 'episode' of rioting and fighting started following a visit of his to an Arab mosque just before the Jewish holidays. It was unnecessary for him to go there. It was a catalyst and our current tragic story unfolded."

Must we add to the pain inflicted by our enemies with self denial and self abuse? Does Fran REALLY believe that Ariel Sharon started a riot for which the Arabs had been preparing for days before his ‘visit,’ for months of teaching children to HATE Jews and believe that they will best live their lives by becoming martyrs as they defy the laws of nations and of nature, hurling stones (that can kill) at young soldiers who stand guard over babies and school children and mothers and grandparents who in other times and other places would have been herded into gas chambers by impeccably uniformed Deathhead SS men feeling about their victims even as these hate-filled Palestinian stone throwers...

I am not living in Jerusalem because I made a choice to retire from the fight - and I do not feel I have a right to make political choices for those who do live there. I will not speak ill of Barak or Netanyahu, of Sharansky or Levy. I do feel, though, that I can observe and speak about FACTS that are dictated by logic and empirical observations.

FACT: There are less that FIVE million Jews in Israel.

FACT: There are more that ONE HUNDRED million Arabs around them.

FACT: The Jews want to remain alive. Ergo the Jews want peace.

FACT: The Arabs do not hold life as an end all. A martyred death is better that a miserable life. Ergo, the Arabs are taught to seek death in Jihad.

FACT: You make peace for peace - not for land, and not for A BALANCE OF TERROR, nor for political concessions. You don't say, "we'll give them land, so they will fear losing it and keep the peace..."

FACT: In May of 1967 Arabs ruled 100% of all the land area Arafat wants Israel to hand him - and there was no peace. In fact, Egypt, Syria and Jordan prepared to launch an attack against Israel.

FACT: On May 14, 1948, at 4:00 p.m. local time, in Tel-Aviv, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a state, and called on Arab nations to live in peace. There were very few Arab refugees, there was very little lost Arab property taken by the Jews. Yet, the armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon attacked the new-born Jewish state, promising to drive its people into the sea.

CONCLUSION: Stop blaming Israel, any and all of its citizens, and its many supporters around the world. Open your eyes to see that it is not the SIZE of Israel that is at question, it is it’s VERY BEING that is challenged. If you believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, look at the emblem of the P.L.O., with its MAP OF ISRAEL as their land of Palestine. SHALOM AKHSHAV - yes, I'm for it, but whom do we make peace with? Our executioner?

Hoping to find a partner for peace and bring about this desired state of existence for our beloved state.

Amen.

5763

This week we read in the Torah the portion of Kha'yey Sarah. It begins with the twenty third chapter of Beresheet, which reads, "Va'yihyu kha'yey Sarah me'a shana ve'esrim shana vsheva shanim... Sarah lived one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; this was the length of Sarah's life. And Sarah died at Kir'yat-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her." [Gen. 23:1,2] Many of us have been through the experience of losing a dear relative. Grandparents, parents, and maybe a husband or a wife. You know how very devastating it is to "go in and mourn" for our dear ones.
A good number of years ago there was a television news expose on the high cost of dying. An investigation brought out some sad facts of how unscrupulous business people, many with connection to organized crime, had created a situation that took advantage of hurting people at the worst possible moment in their grief and bereavement. Costs of grave sites, coffins, services and preparations for interment of the last remains of the dearly departed were inflated way beyond anything approaching reason. In fact, many times the grieving relatives did not even know what expenses they were "signing up" for.
As a result of this particular expose, and the scandal that followed, new laws were passed that regulated the undertaking business. Fees had to be explained and a statement rendered before the funeral. Choices of caskets and services had to be suggested to keep the cost down. Still, the matter is not fully resolved, and stress is piled on top of grief.
Well - things were no different in the days of our patriarch Abraham. We read in the text that Abraham said to the men of Hebron: "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you; give me possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." [Gen. 23:4] This was the beginning of negotiations. They replied that he could have any grave site he wished. Again he spoke, "If your mind is that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar. That he may give me the cave of Makhpelah, which he has, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me as a possession of a burying place amongst you." [ibid. 23:8,9]
The negotiations proceed, and they are very much like the television expose. It starts with Ephron son of Zohar offering the site for free. Of course, he does not mean it - abraham knows the procedure and continues to insist on paying. Ephron then asks for four hundred measures of silver, and when the deal is struck proceeds to ask for "four hundred shekels of silver, current money among the merchants."
We know that the proceedings were not done right by one little "hint" in the Hebrew text. Throughout the story of the negotiation the text spells out Ephron's name "Ayin," "Fey," "Resh," "Vav" and "Nun." However, in the conclusion, where we read, "and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, current money among the merchants" [ibid. 23:16] – the name of Ephron is spelled "Ayin," "Fey," "Resh" and "Nun" – without a vav! This spelling of Ephron without a vav appears twice more, in reference to the burial plot.
What is so special about this missing vav? Maybe it is just a little peculiarity – or maybe it is a message about the "bad-faith" deal of this Hitite man with Abraham. Consider: Ephron, with the vav, is just a name. Without the vav, it assumes the same spelling as when a noun is created out of a verb root. Milk is "khalav," and a milkman – "khalban." A lie is "sheker," and a lier – "shakran." "Aphar" is the word for "dust"or "clay" – and by connotation, "mud" and "dirt."
So what do you think "Ayin," "Fey," "Resh" and "Nun" would mean, if read "Afran?" It would mean "dirt-bag" or "mud-man!" Abraham took the insulting treatment without batting an eye – to keep the peace and bury his dead. However, he did not forget, nor forgive. The message of the taking advantage of a man when he is most vulnerable was left from age to age, from generation to generation, as a silent warning: watch out for bad dealings from the men of Hebron.
Jews have lived in Hebron ever since the purchase of the Cave of Makhpelah - with the exception of the years 1929 to 1967. Long before there was a Zionist state, or "occupied territories," or Arab refugees, the Arab inhabitants of Hebron and its neighboring villages practiced the craft of Jew-killing. The most notable events were the massacre of some sixty Jews, men, women and children, in 1929 – and the attack on the four villages of the Etzion block and the massacre of all but four of the defenders of the largest village, Kfar Etzion.
Abraham and Sarah, Yitzkhak and Rivka, Ya'akov and Leah are all buried in Hebron. Leah's sister, Rakhel, is buried some ten miles north, at the enterance to Bethlehem, birthplace of David, the shepherd boy who became king of all Israel, author of the Psalms, sovereign of Jerusalem. We have been forcibly removed from the hills of Judea and Hebron many times – but the hills have been a part of us, never to be forgotten. Dishonesty and wickedness forfeited the right of the ancient dwellers of Canaan – and it became the land of our ancestors, the promise of God for all the future generations of our people.
Amen

Kha'yey Sara 5764

This week we read in the Torah the portion of Kha'yey Sarah. It begins with the twenty third chapter of Beresheet, which reads, "Va'yihyu kha'yey Sarah me'a shana ve'esrim shana vsheva shanim... Sarah lived one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; this was the length of Sarah's life. And Sarah died at Kir'yat-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her." [Gen. 23:1,2]
Immediately after this information about the death of the first matriarch of the Jewish people, we read, as you would expect, that her husband of many years, Abraham came to mourn for her. And the text informs us of his negotiations to purchase a burial plot: "Ger v'toshav anokhi imakhem – I am a stranger and a sojourner with you; give me possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." [Ibid 23:4] This is a very strange and perplexing statement that Father Abraham makes – and yet one that described the "Jewish condition" for more than two thousand years of our history.
"A stranger and a sojourner " – seemingly a contradiction in terms. The Hebrew "ger v'toshav " is even more puzzling. "Ger" is the word for one who joins the family of Judaism – a convert, a newcomer, if you please. "Toshav" is the word for ‘resident' or one who is well established. Thus, one came say that the two terms are opposites of one another. How can one be both? However, what seems logically contradictory is sometimes what one finds existing in "the real world."
I have been away from the congregation for one shabbat and the two weeks that passed from Lekh-Lekha to this shabbat of Kha'yey Sarah. During this time away from you I have traveled far, spending a week in my homeland, Israel, and three days in Bulgaria. It was in Bulgaria that I saw the contradiction of Abraham demonstrated clearly in the facts of life.
Bulgaria is a mountainous country in the middle of the Balkans. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some fifty thousand Jews lived there, almost all of them Sepharadim who had lived there since the Spanish Inquisition made life in the Iberian peninsula first difficult and later impossible. The Jews were welcomed in Bulgaria and given fair treatment by the government and by the people. The most amazing thing happened during the second world war. There was a fascist government in the land, and it cooperated and collaborated with the Nazis – with one exception. When they were asked by Germany to collect their Jews and ship them off to "resettlement" in the death camps, they responded with the claim, "there are no Jews in Bulgaria – only Bulgarians!"
Thus, Bulgarian Jewry came out of the second world war with the same number that it had before the war. Alone in all of Europe, more resolute even than the Danes who transferred their Jews to Sweden for safety, the Bulgarian people and their government chose to protect their citizens of the Jewish faith. It is very interesting to contemplate this behavior in relation to the passage in the Torah this week: here was a small group of people, refugees from another land where they were persecuted by the state and the church, arrived in this land that had a national identity of hundreds of years – and yet was not averse to accepting the tempest tossed remnant, opening their land and their hearts to them. The Jews, as in the days of Abraham, found themselves "ger v'toshav" – both strangers and newly settled inhabitants in this land. They came to know the land and its people and they became a part of them, even as they kept themselves slightly apart as a Jewish community in a land that had a Christian majority and a large Moslem minority.
Sepharadic Jews were imbued with a yearning for a return to Zion from the time of their residence in the Iberian peninsula. Yehuda Halevi (1080-1141), one of the great Sepharadic poets, wrote a poem, one of whose lines read, "libi bamizrakh, v'anokhi bsof ma'arav – my heart is in the East (Jerusalem), and I am at the end of the west..." Bulgarian Jews had a thirst to return to their roots, to the Promised Land of ancient glory. When the State of Israel came into being, they arose, almost as one, to leave their adoptive and adopting homeland and move to where their heart was.
Forty-five thousand Jews moved from Sophia and other towns in Bulgaria to Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and other towns in Israel. That is ninety percent of Bulgarian Jewry leaving the land where they made a home for some five hundred years. When these Jews came to the border, they descended their trains, stood facing their former habitation, and with tears in their eyes at the thought of leaving, sang the Bulgarian national anthem one land time. Then they turned around, to face their destination, and with love in their heart sang "Hatikvah," the Song of Hope, the Jewish national hymn. Only some five thousand Jews remained in the heart of the Balkans.
This small group of Jews was stuck in a country that turn communistic and whose economy went nowhere for close to half a century. We went there, members of a mission of the Jewish federation of Jacksonville, because we have undertaken to help this community. We found a wonderful group of Jews dedicated to maintaining a Jewish community and raising new generations of Jews. After the fall of communism, the Jews reclaimed their old synagogue, the largest in the Balkans, as well as other buildings belonging to the community before the war. They established a Hebrew school, a community center, and other communal organization. Because of the failure of communism, the community is very poor and struggling to provide help for young and old alike. The JDC, the Lauder foundation, and ORT have done a great job in providing education and extra curricular activities to the young, and help with dignity to the old.
The Jewish community in Bulgaria is growing, thanks to the indomitable spirit of a people who are at one and the same time "ger v'toshav – stranger and a sojourner" in a land where they found shelter and respite from the storm that raged around them. We shall continue to keep them in our heart, in our prayers, and among the people who deserve a helping hand.

Amen