Dear Friends,
This week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, carries a surprising name. It means “The Life of Sarah,” yet it opens not with Sarah’s life, but with her death:
“Sarah’s lifetime, the span of Sarah’s life, came to one hundred and twenty-seven years. Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.”
Abraham grieves deeply for his beloved partner. But soon after, he gathers his strength and turns toward the future. First, he seeks an appropriate burial place for Sarah, entering into a negotiation with the Hittites for the Cave of Machpelah. Although they offer to give him the land, he insists on purchasing it at full value so that the ownership will be unmistakably clear:
“Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns… at the full price, for a burial site in your midst.”
Only once that painful obligation is fulfilled does Abraham address the next challenge. Isaac is still unmarried, and Abraham understands that unless Isaac builds a family of his own, the future of their line and the covenant remains uncertain. So he sends his trusted servant, traditionally identified as Eliezer, on a journey to find a partner for Isaac:
“Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by Adonai, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites … but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
The rest, as they say, is Biblical history.
At its core, Chayei Sarah is a portion about transition: the passing of one generation to the next; the movement from grief to purpose; the shift from promise held to promise renewed.
In just a few verses, Abraham must bury Sarah, honor her life, and then take concrete steps to secure what comes after him. By purchasing the Cave of Machpelah, he creates not only a burial place but a foothold for the family’s future. By sending Eliezer to find a partner for Isaac, he ensures that life, blessing, and covenant will continue beyond his own lifetime.
It is a remarkable portrait of someone who, rather than clinging to what was, chooses to lift his eyes toward what might yet be and takes the steps necessary to help make that future real.
In many ways, that’s exactly where I find myself as we read Chayei Sarah this year.
After more than three decades of walking this sacred journey with all of you—growing, celebrating, grieving, learning, and building together—I am stepping into my own season of transition. In just over seven months, I will retire from the congregational rabbinate, and Rabbi Klein will become the next Senior Rabbi of TSTI.
There’s another line in the portion that resonates deeply with me. Just before Abraham sends Eliezer on his mission, the Torah states:
“Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and God had blessed Abraham in all things.”
It’s striking. Abraham is grieving the loss of the love of his life, and yet the Torah still describes him as “blessed in all things.” That phrase cannot mean his life was perfect. Far from it. Instead, perhaps it suggests that even through sorrow, Abraham could look back and recognize the fullness of his journey—the joys and heartbreaks, the successes and struggles, the holiness and the challenges—all woven together into a meaningful whole.
In Judaism, endings are never only endings. They are invitations to renewal. The Torah concludes with Moses gazing into the Promised Land—and in the very next breath, we begin again with Bereishit, “In the beginning.” That’s what we do as Jews: we begin again, again and again.
And that’s what we are doing now.
Together we are preparing for a new beginning—rooted in gratitude, grounded in love, and filled with faith that what we have built will continue to thrive.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel M. Cohen