Shabbat Chaye Sara
Written by Marc Neiger Thursday, 01 November 2007
Parashat Chaye Sarah is fascinating on many grounds but I will specifically focus on its handling of dialogues and speeches. Whereas the bible text is often not very verbose in describing the details of personal interactions, Chaye Sarah contains an significant amount of speech, therefore opening for us a window into the characters' personal and social lives.
Chapter 23 recounts how after the death of Sarah, Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah in order to bury her. He first approaches the people of the land, seeking their approval, before going on with the proper negotiation to acquire a burial ground. It is impossible not to take note of the overt near eastern politeness:
לֹֽא־אֲדֹנִי שְׁמָעֵנִי הַשָּׂדֶה נָתַתִּי לָךְ וְהַמְּעָרָה אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ לְךָ נְתַתִּיהָ
"No, my lord, listen to me. The field, I give it to you, as I give you the cave that is in it…"
אֲדֹנִי שְׁמָעֵנִי אֶרֶץ אַרְבַּע מֵאֹת שֶֽׁקֶל־כֶּסֶף בֵּינִי וּבֵֽינְךָ מַה־הִוא וְאֶת־מֵֽתְךָ קְבֹֽר
"My lord! Listen to me. A piece of land worth 400 Shekel of silver. What is this between me and you, bury your dead."
We can consider it exaggerated or even farcical, accept it as a cultural artefact or take it as a complex legalistic ritual, but we can not deny the power of this lively account on our imagination. Of course this text has a clear agenda of making Abraham's ownership of a first piece of land unquestionable and this may explain the focus on procedural and legal details but even this agenda would not need that level of dialogues.
Then chapter 24 opens with a curious scene where Abraham entrusts his senior servant to get a wife for his son Isaac. Although there is again quite a high level of detail, the mood and tone are very different than in the previous chapter. Here we're not even told the name of the senior servant; I think this thus emphases his role as Abraham's proxy rather than an independent agent. Since he will indeed perform his task dutifully, why is the servant questioning Abraham and why is it necessary for Abraham to go beyond a fixed set of instructions, mainly that Isaac is not to leave the land, and justify them not only by referencing God's promise but by actually quoting it:
וַֽאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר־לִי וַֽאֲשֶׁר נִֽשְׁבַּֽע־לִי לֵאמֹר לְזַרְעֲךָ אֶתֵּן אֶת־הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת
“… who told me and promised me: ‘I will give this land to your offspring.”’ It is almost as if Abraham was speaking to himself and needed to reassert God's promise.
The remainder of this rather long chapter tells us about the journey of the senior servant to Nahor, his encounter with Rebekah at the well and his negotiations with her family to acquire the young woman as a bride for his young master Isaac. Here again several elements of the dialogue appear as superfluous, and thus enhance the formal aspect. Indeed the story of the meeting with Rebekah at the well is told four times, the first time as the servant prays and makes a vow to God asking for help in carrying out his mission, the second time for the actual encounter. The third and fourth times are echoes of the first two, as the servant reports the details of the meeting to Rebekah's family.
In these chapters, one piece of speech is not, literarily speaking, a dialogue. It is the prayer of the servant upon reaching the well of Nahor. The spontaneity of the prayer strengthens the contrast with the formality of the dialogues we have been exploring. As progressive Jews we often question and feel uncomfortable with the formal aspect of traditional communal prayer, and we would tend to long for the direct and personal spontaneity of the servant's prayer. However, I wonder at the same time how this can be achieved: if such mundane things as commercial negotiations and transactions do require some formal and ritual formulation, then prayer may also benefit the use a formal framework as tradition requires it.
Oddly enough, the petitionary prayer of the servant seems to be granted, Rebekah appears on the spot but her appearance is not formally linked to the servant's request, nor introduced as a result of a decision from God. Neither is there an explicit reply. Therefore the servant's prayer can not qualify as a dialogue; but should we aspire our prayers to be a dialogue in that sense? To what extent is our prayer constrained like our language and communication means? I am struggling myself to explore my own ways to pray and therefore will stop here for today, but I would gladly welcome any thoughts you may have and perhaps we too can enter into a dialogue.
