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November 24, 2000/Heshvan 26, 5761, Vol. 53, No.9
Gravesite represents both past and future
Torah Study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Chaye Sarah/Genesis 23:1-25:18
These last several months in Israel have been a literal hell on earth, especially for Israeli citizens living in the settlements as well as for the residents of Gilo and the rest of Jerusalem.
The roads and highways have turned into mortal danger zones. Firebombs and gunshots threaten the lives of anyone in a moving vehicle. Homes have ceased to be havens of safety as children are forced to fall asleep to the sound of whizzing bullets and the sight of incendiary bombs.
Strangely enough, three of the major targets are gravesites, one of which is the major subject of this week's Torah portion. Early on in this round of violence, Joseph's gravesite-yeshiva in Shechem (Nablus) was the scene of a tragic shoot-out that claimed the life of one Israeli. After the site was taken over and desecrated by the Palestinians, another Israeli - Hillel Lieberman - was murdered when he tried to rescue some holy books.
Rachel's tomb in Bethlehem is a hot spot for Palestinian fire virtually every evening. And of course Hebron is a place of almost constant violence and attack.
The irony of all this is that a significant part of this week's Torah portion deals with Abraham's purchase of the Hebron gravesite from the Hittites so that he could bury his beloved wife Sarah. The Bible describes in painstaking detail how the patriarch requests to buy the grave, how the Hittites wish him to take it for free, and, when Efron the Hittite finally agrees to make it a purchase, he charges Abraham the inflated and outlandish sum of 400 silver shekels (which some archeologists value at $200,000).
The Midrash seems perplexed: Why expend so much ink and parchment - the entire Chapter 23 of the Book of Genesis - over a Middle Eastern marketplace transaction? Moreover, what is the significance in the fact that the very first parcel of land in Israel acquired by a Jew happens to be a gravesite? And finally, how can we explain the irony of the present day Israeli-Palestinian struggle over gravesites?
In order to understand the biblical portion, it is important to remember that, throughout the ancient world, with the single exception of Athens, the only privilege accorded a citizen of a specific country was "of right" burial; every individual wanted his body to ultimately merge with the soil of his familial birthplace. Abraham insists that he is a stranger as well as a resident of Het; he lives among, but is not one of the Hittites.
Abraham is a proud Hebrew; he refuses "of right" burial but demands to pay - even if the price be exorbitant - for the establishment of a separate Hebrew cemetery. Sarah's gravesite symbolizes her separate and unique identity; she must die as a Hebrew and not a Hittite.
For an individual, a personal gravesite represents the future, the one place into which the physical remains will be united for eternity, and where family and friends may visit family after one has died. For a nation, the gravesites of its founders and leaders represent the past, the signposts that reveal the highs and lows in the course of the nation's history.
Both of these notions coalesce into one. For the individual as well as the nation, a grave is past as well as future. Where and how individuals choose to be buried speak volumes about how they lived their past lives and what their truest values were. How a nation regards its gravesites and respects its history will determine the quality of its future.
Indeed, the nation that chooses to forget its past has abdicated its future, because it has erased the tradition of continuity that it ought have transmitted to the future. The nation that does not properly respect the gravesites of its founding parents will not have the privilege of hosting the lives of their children and grandchildren.
Is it then any wonder that the first parcel of land in Israel purchased by the first Hebrew was a gravesite, and that the fiercest battles over ownership of the land of Israel surround the graves of our founding fathers and mothers?
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
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