Parshat Chayei Sarah
by Rabbi Avi Billet
Sarah dies. Avraham approaches the local Hittites and asks to speak to Ephron ben Tzochar.
23:9 – that he should give to me the Machpela cave at the edge of his field, for its full price, [to be used as] a burial plot.
Ephron responds.
23:11 – I’ll give it you for free! In front of everyone! It’s yours! Bury your dead!
Avraham is appreciative. However
23:13 – I’m giving you the money. Take it from me. Then I will bury my dead.
Ephron thinks it over:
23:15 – Alright. A land of 400 silver shekels – between us friends, not such a big deal, right? – and then you can bury your dead.
The following verse should say that Avraham paid the money and buried his dead. After all, those two points were raised in every verse up until now: Payment and burial.
But the Torah takes 3 verses to describe the giving over of the money and the fact that the land, the field, the cave have all been transferred to Avraham’s ownership. The Torah goes into much detail about how to identify this space, presumably to make clear that this was a big purchase, made by Avraham for his family to have an eternal burial spot. This was a purchase and transfer of property for all time.
After the purchase is made and the property transferred, in a manner that is clear and that everyone understands, then, and only then, does Avraham bury his wife. And, when he buries her, the Torah again gives geographical markers to let us know where this is taking place, “Near Mamre, which is Hevron, in the land of Canaan.”
There are many attitudes ascribed to Ephron, mostly negative, in his turning from “free” to an exorbitant sum, in his wheeler dealer negotiations, in his offering much but giving little, in his greediness, or in his faux friendship.
But I think there’s a much simpler lesson that comes out in light of the tragic events that emerged last Shabbos in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.
The Ephrons of the world are very happy to give away free land to dead Jews. It’s a very small price to pay for a particularly heinous and dastardly goal. Ephron’s hesitation at selling land to Avraham meant that he’d be giving Avraham a place to call his own, one that he and his descendants could point to and see, “We own it because we paid for it. It is ours.”
And that is why the Torah doesn’t just describe a small burial cave as the purchase, but a field and a cave and all the trees around it, around the complete border of the property – all of it now belonged to Avraham.
A friend of mine, who is involved in education in NYC, shared this story from his Monday morning commute. “Just took the crosstown bus and a ‘nice older white gentleman’ sits next to me and is reading the paper. I tell him that I am getting off at the next stop and he nods. As I get up to pass him, he says, ‘That synagogue deserved to get shot up... have a wonderful day.’”
I know and recognize that an individual bigot and racist is not necessarily endemic or exemplar of an entire society. Most people who saw what happened were horrified and condemned the act of violence. Some used it to score political points, some used it to talk about gun-control.
But the fact is that the shooter wasn’t just a crazed loon who wanted to kill people. He shouted “All Jews must die!” And he walked into a synagogue to perpetrate his evil actions. There is nothing more anti-Semitic than that, especially when attached to an active firearm.
And the fact that some random gross person will cowardly articulate that to my friend as he’s getting off the bus and has no chance to respond, goes to show how evil-in-the-mind some seemingly normal people might be.
And as much as we enjoy life in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the fact is that Jew-hatred is all around us. The ADL’s count of incidents of anti-Semitic attacks rises every year. The anti-Israel movement in academia and on college-campuses and beyond would make no sense and would not happen if Israel were not a Jewish country. Owing to the reality of the state being Jewish it still makes no sense, but it happens because many people have an unexplainable Jew-button in their mind that makes them become completely irrational when it comes to Jewish people, Jewish institutions, Jewish activities, and a Jewish state.
Last week a well-known media personality, Mika Brzezinski, reacted to Ivanka Trump’s celebrating her 9th anniversary on Twitter, which included pictures with her husband Jared wearing a kippah, writing “We don’t want to see that today. Or any day… this is icky.” Most normal people responded to her saying something to the effect of even if you don’t like Trump & Kushner, their celebration of their marriage is acceptable and admirable! She eventually deleted her “tweet,” but screenshots last forever.
A friend of mine noted, from personal experience, that Mika has a strange reaction to kippahs. Considering the house in which she was raised, I wonder why.
But that’s just a small snapshot of a much larger issue. If this country is tolerant – and I believe institutionally it is, and that most people don’t care enough to hate Jews – then the Ephrons of the world need to be outshouted and overpowered by those who believe Jews are allowed to live and thrive.
It would be naïve to suggest all ideological differences between Jews will disappear. Some will never go away. But the blame-game for evil acts goes squarely on those who commit evil acts, or when it comes to Jews, who dehumanize Jews. Which is why even some Jews in the media who throw the blame for this particular evil act on a mainstream American political party or the President are absolutely in the wrong. (Honestly, one side embraces more anti-Semites, but I’m not allotting space for that much larger discussion.)
Ephron’s attitude is like that of the anti-Semites who followed him in history, that “the only good Jew is a dead Jew.”
Anyone who rejects that statement, as all good people should, must take a strong stand that anti-Semitism has no place in the modern world.
May God eradicate evil from the face of the earth. And may the Pittsburgh Jewish community feel the love being sent to them from around the world, and with God’s help, may they eventually find healing.
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