chayei sarah

parashat chayei sarah, Genesis chapters 23—25

But is there one perfect mate for each of us, or are there multiple people that we could potentially have a good and happy life with? Maybe the answer is yes, and yes. Maybe the answer isn’t the same for everyone. Again, we each have our own path and the lessons our souls need in order to grow are individual.

It is possible to love more than once. Hearts expand—there’s always room for another to enter without pushing out someone who’s already taken up residence there. That’s the beautiful thing about love.

Sometimes, in one lifetime there are several people that you’re meant to be with, each of them another step on your journey, meant to bring certain things to your life in a particular time and to be released when that life chapter concludes.

Like I said, it’s not a formula set in stone. It’s different for each of us.

Sarah was the love of Abraham’s youth and he loved her with all his heart.

Hagar was Sarah’s maid, and as such he never gave her thought, but once Sarah gave Hagar to him, intimacy grew and Abraham fell in love with her, as well.

Life is challenging enough with one partner, and that, I imagine, was true even before polygamy was forbidden. It couldn’t possibly work with Sarah and Hagar as sister-wives. One of them had to go, and Sarah was his destiny…for that time. When Sarah died, Abraham grieved deeply. But, as my grandma used to say, life is for the living. After the time of mourning had passed, his heart was free to seek out Hagar, whom he’d never stopped loving.

Hagar/Keturah

Hagar also had her own path. Whether as an Egyptian princess or a slave, her life had never been her own. And, she was a pagan. For the sake of her own journey, she had to be cast out by Sarah.

When she was given to Abraham, she didn’t have a choice; didn’t have the agency to refuse. She was property and meant to be used as such. Perhaps this is why she hung on to her pagan ways—her religion was the last vestige of her old life as a princess in Egypt. But once on her own, free, she was free to explore, to learn, and to choose.

Once sent away, she was free to discover her own identity, to grow in ways she couldn’t possibly have done when under the control of others. By the next time we encounter her in the reading, she has found her strength and become her own person. No longer Hagar, she is now called Keturah. By the next time we meet her, she’d embraced the One God. She was not the same person she’d been, hence she needed to have a new name. She’d grown, become less selfish, less haughty. Through hardship, she discovered humility. She’d become a righteous person.

When Abraham returned to her after the death of Sarah, Keturah could have turned him down, but she didn’t. Just as he’d fallen in love with her, she’d also fallen in love with him during the time they’d spent together raising Ishmael. Through the passage of years, that hadn’t changed. This time, Keturah chose to marry Abraham. For her, it was a dream come true.

And for him, the opportunity to return to her was also a dream come true. She was the love of his old age. How wonderful to have been given the gift of a great love, twice!

So, what shall we eat?

There will only be two of us for Shabbat dinner this week, so I’m keeping it very simple…a nice challah and a one dish meal that is both soup and entrée. The color of love is pink. Beets turn everything pink, and their earthy sweetness is perfect for an autumn braise of root vegetables and health-giving cabbage. In keeping with the color scheme, there will be salmon. Two pieces in each dish, one for each of Abraham’s loves.

We’re going to borrow some ingredients from Thai cooking this week, to make a warm and comforting coconut milk stew—or is it a sauce—or a soup?—with braised vegetables and rice. I could have made it really easy and added the salmon right into the same pot and let it cook with the vegetables, but I love crispy salmon skin, so I’m making it separately in a pan and will add it on top before serving.

Those beautiful, red-veined, bright green leaves waving about at the top of your bunch of beets should not be maligned. Coarsely chopped and quickly sautéed in olive oil and garlic with a touch of salt, they are not only delicious, but also a nutritional powerhouse.

So, that’s our dish. I’m using individual pasta bowls to serve this extravaganza. First, the vegetables in their coconut milk, then the greens, and finally the salmon poached on top.

But what about the vegetarians? Simple. Instead of crispy salmon, I’m going for the opposite texture: Silken tofu is lovely in this soup/sauce. And we don’t need to sacrifice that pink color, thanks to a marinade of beet juice and herbs.

menu for chayei Sarah

golden shabbat challah

Pan Crisped Salmon or silken tofu over Garlicky beet Greens with Cabbage and root vegetables, Braised in Coconut Milk

steamed jasmin rice

candied pumpkin with crushed walnuts

sarah

I‘m a woman you think you know.

You reach back with your arm through the viscous matter of time

And pluck me out, pull me through, raise me up,

Exalt me, call me Mother, stand on my merit.

You should know, I made mistakes.

The yearning of my soul

for a child

blinded my reason,

Caused me to forget that a man will be a man.

And so when I offered my husband another

Woman—my maid—to act in my stead and

Give us a son (as is custom among my people),

I didn’t mean for her to please him, but she did.

I saw it in his face and in her face,

Her youthful and exotic face.

I saw it in the face of the child

That clung to her breast and to his leg.

She bore him for me, but he was not my son;

He was theirs.

And my heart broke a little every day

While my mouth kept silent.

Then strangers came.

I brought them food and while they ate

They spoke their prophesy and

I laughed.

I laughed for joy.

I laughed to think I would be exalted over

This slave who defied me.

I laughed because it was impossible,

Because just maybe it was possible.

And he returned to my bed, my husband did,

And my son, my good son, was born.

The years passed but there was no peace, it was

Unlivable, untenable.

I forced him to choose.

His God told him

“Do as Sarah says” and so he chose me;

He chose my son and me because

He chose his God.

But did he choose me because he wanted me? Perhaps.

I’d endured much through the years;

Her mockery and the mockery of her son,

His eye for her and her child, the name Sister

That he bestowed upon me.

And when she was gone

I knew he grieved,

But he was comforted by his invisible God, and

By my bed. He was a man.

We struggled as you struggle.

We’d had good years.

I remember when we first met

Under the terebinth, each consumed by

The fire of the other’s power.

Many good years.

So I endured.

But this thing, This I could not endure.

Not from him. Not from his invisible God.

He chose, and he chose his God.

Clearly he didn’t choose our son,

the promised one.

I’d listened to him argue - For fifty, for forty-five, for forty, he argued for twenty, for ten,

Ten righteous souls to save a city.

And now he did not argue for one.

He didn’t argue for his own righteous one.

There’s a rumor going around.

Do you really think I died from shock?

Do you think I didn’t know my son lived?

I was called High Priestess before

He called me “wife.”

I knew.

And even though his God spared my son

I could not spare him.

I couldn’t look at his face.

And so I Ieft.

And his God left him, too, I am told

Ever after speaking to him only through

The Messengers.

I died among my own.

It was under the terebinth while

I was resting for a moment and

I flew away among the birds

Who had been resting for a moment

On it’s branches, and then rose suddenly

As one.

And when I died, he came to weep for me,

To bury me and to mourn.

He grieved.

He went on.

He married again. More sons.

So I’m told—I’d stopped watching.

But when his time came at last to sleep in the dust,

To become dust

My son returned him to me;

Her son and mine laid him beside me.

My good son, whom you exalt with him

And with me.

I’m a woman you know.

You struggle as we struggled.

You stand on our merit as we rest upon yours.

We are your parents and we are your children.

We are one.

Our sinews are braided to yours across eons.

And together, from generation

To generation, we recreate ourselves

Again and again,

Uncountable

As the stars of the heavens,

As the seeds of the terebinth

As the dust of the earth, shimmering

Blue in the coldness of space.

chayei sarah

parashat chayei sarah, Genesis chapters 23—25

menu

and thoughts…

Chayei sarah

THE LIFE OF SARAH ?

All thoughts expressed here are strictly my own unless otherwise stated,

and are subject to sudden flights of fancy.