Dvar Torah Parshat Chaye Sara 5760 by Jonathan Baker To the memory of the soul of Aharon Eli ben Yaakov, Arthur Korpus, on the Shabbat following his shloshim. May his soul ascend in the merit of our study. Since Arthur was an accountant, I chose to learn some mishnayot dealing with business law, namely Tractate Baba Metzia. Some of the mishnayot resonated well with him, and also with this week's parsha, so let's go into it. One of the topics discussed in this tractate is the issue of kinyan, acquisition. A Jewish purchase involves three parts: giving the money, taking the money, and formally acquiring the object. For movable objects, it involves moving the object a predefined distance, or lifting it.. For non-movable objects, it involves using the object so as to demonstrate ownership: changing the locks on a new house, fencing in a new field, etc. The first portion of this week's parsha deals with Avraham's acquisition of land on which to bury Sarah. Since this is precisely what my brother-in-law was doing all day Simchas Torah, calling all over New Jersey to buy a burial plot for his father, it caught my eye. This passage also bears on the idea of acquisition of real property. Let's analyze it from two perspectives, from the view of the Canaanite legal system and the view of Halacha. We will see that it fits very nicely into both systems. The Canaanite analysis is based on parsha sheets from Prof. Ze'ev Safrai of Bar Ilan University and from Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom of Los Angeles, via torah.org. Avraham is living amongst the bnei Cheit, the Hittites, at the time Sarah dies, and wants to buy a burial cave from them. He approaches the tribal elders: "I am an immigrant and a resident among you," he said. "Sell me property for a burial place with you so that I can bury my dead, [and not have her here] right in front of me." Why does he call himself an immigrant and a foreigner? Why does he approach the tribal elders, rather than an individual propertyowner? In Canaanite societies, strangers, non-tribe- members, were forbidden to own land. (Sound familiar?) Now consider, there are two types of ownership in the Torah: mikneh and achuzah. Mikneh reverts to the original owner or his heirs in the Jubilee year, achuzah is that which one owns in perpetuity, such that it reverts to him during the Jubilee. Avraham wanted the field as an achuzah, a holding, a permanent, heritable property. He felt that by appealing to the leadership as a whole, he would be more likely to be granted a variance. Their initial reaction? No. You may be a Prince of God, but you cannot own our land. We would be glad to lend you a tomb, but you can't own a tomb. Abraham tries again, approaching an individual, Ephron, and is again rebuffed: I'll give you the field and the cave as a lease, a mikneh. Avraham looks stuck. But wait: in Mesopotamia, in a town called Nuzi, laws have been found indicating the possibility of adoption-sale. That is, someone pays a fee to a tribe, and is adopted into the tribe, and then can own land in that tribe. Avraham, coming from Mesopotamia, may have offered this to Ephron: what will it take? 400 shekels of silver, then what is a field between us (beini uveinecha)? Many have commented that 400 shekels seems an exorbitant price for a field and a burial cave. But if we see it as the tribal adoption fee, it becomes more reasonable. No longer is Avraham the "Thou", the "Prince of God", now he is "one of us", and can buy the field. So Avraham acquires the field, buries Sarah, and the field is described as an "achuzah" (v. 20) for Avraham. That's all well & good for the Canaanite legal system. The Torah is consistent in the historical context in this instance, at least. What about halacha? We know that Avraham lived according to halacha. The Kedushat Levi explains how: each mitzvah nourishes one of the bones or organs of the body, the 248 positive mitzvot corresponding to the 248 bones, the 365 negative mitzvot corresponding to the 365 organs. Avraham, being on a high spiritual plane, was able to tell, with a highly tuned body sensitivity, what action, what mitzvah, would best nourish each part of his body. By way of analogy, highly developed yogis can control their body's autonomic functions: pulse rate, temperature, etc. Avraham was the same, only more so. This sale must fit into the halachic system as well. How so? The laws of selling a field are discussed in the Shulchan Aruch, section Choshen Mishpat, chapters 190-195. How is a field sold? Four ways: money, contract, use, formalized kinyan. It's very similar to the methods for contracting a betrothal (money, contract, sexual relations). How does this fit our story? Certainly there is a giving and receiving of money. No contract is mentioned, but little is done by contract in the Torah. Use: there certainly is use, he buries Sarah in it, and thus it is "established" as an achuzah for him. It would appear that this is the acquisition: the use. But wait: Ephron is a non-Jew, and the halacha is that sale of land involving a non-Jew is only accomplished through shtar, through a contract. Where is the contract? It should be noted, that there is an implication that use may confer acquisition in such a sale: if one pays a non-Jew for a field, and fails to use it, and the non-Jew sells it to someone else, the later party gets the field, since you didn't have a contract to show. This implies, that if you pay and then use the field, it does become yours. So that may be one way to solve the dilemma. I think, however, that there is a contract. Let's look at verses 17-20: Ephron's field in Makhpelah adjoining Mamre thus became uncontested property: the field, its cave, and every tree within its circumference; [as] Abraham's purchase with all the children of Heth who came to the city gate as eyewitnesses. Abraham then buried his wife Sarah in the cave of Makhpelah Field, which adjoins Mamre (also known as Hebron), in the land of Canaan. This is how the field and its cave became the uncontested property of Abraham as a burial site, purchased from the children of Heth. Some commentators (Mendelssohn, at least) see the first two verses as one long sentence. Consider, then, the structure of this passage. We have bracketing statements at the beginning and the end, a description of the property, and a statement describing the use of the property which established Abraham's ownership. "Ephron's field...became Abraham's uncontested property" .the field, its cave, and every tree within its border .witnessed by the [elders of] the Hittites "Abraham then buried...Sarah in the cave of Machpelah Field .which adjoins Mamre, or Hebron, in the land of Canaan" "This is how the field and its cave became the uncontested property of Abraham .as a burial site .purchased from the Hittites. I think this is the shtar, the contract of sale. It has the feel of a formal document. It brackets itself with a declaration of intent: how the field became Avraham's achuzah. It delineates the borders of the property, the use for the property, the purchaser and seller, the witnesses to the sale, and the acquisition by use; all transcribed in the Torah. So Avraham did the right thing, both by Canaanite law which applied in the surrounding society, and by halacha, which would apply in the future to the Jews, but which at that time only applied to him. In a way, we can see this bracketing form as prefiguring the Torah. The Torah is bracketed by the history of God and the Jewish people discovering each other and establishing a relationship. In Bereshit we establish the relationship, with the covenant between the halves, and with Abraham discovering God. In between, God delineates the boundaries of the relationship with the mitzvot, with the halachot. Certain actions happen which establish the existence and permanence of the relationship: the Exodus and the Stand at Sinai. In Deuteronomy, the history is repeated, along with some of the mitzvot. So the Torah is the contract of the relationship between God and the Jewish People, how God is our Yerushah, our inheritance. Slightly tongue-in-cheek: God isn't a person, so he certainly isn't a Jew. We thus can only establish our relationship with Him through a written contract. The Torah is our shtar. How can this have meaning for us today? Let us see what the Rav Soloveitchik tells us about covenants and about how we fit into society, as Avraham fit into his society. Rabbi Hecht spoke this morning about our special relationship with Eretz Yisrael, largely started by this purchase of the first piece of it for our eternal ownership. Let us examine the relationship between the Jew and Eretz Yisrael. The whole Eretz Yisrael experience, including that of the state and the political pressures that it faces, cannot be explained in normal historical mechanistic terms. Rather it is a covenant event. The commitment of the Jew to the land is not based on events that happened in the past as much as on a promise of a miraculous future when the divine promise will be fulfilled. In covenant history, the future is responsible for the past. Covenant events cannot be explained in terms of normal historical categories. You cannot explain in normal psychological terms the commitment of the Jew to Eretz Yisrael. It is an irrational yet unconditionally strong commitment based on the covenant promise. The covenant has created a new concept of destiny. The word destiny conveys a notion of destination. The historical experience of the Jew is not based on the point of departure, but rather his destination towards which he is driving. The destination of the Jew is the ultimate eschatological redemption of the universe that will occur with the coming of Moshiach. The covenant is the force behind this destiny. However, historical destiny can also be characterized by another trait, which is the contradiction of our historical experience. There has never been a period in history where the Jew lived a completely covenant existence. From the beginning of our history, Jews have always lived among non-Jews. Abraham lived among the children of Ches, he dealt with them in economic matters. The modern Jew is certainly entangled and integrated into the general society. Consequently we also share the universal historical experience as well. We have no right to tell society that societal ills like pollution, famine and disease are problems owned by the rest of society. These problems apply to the Covenantal Community as well. The Jew as a member of humanity, as someone endowed with Tzelem Elokim, must contribute his part to the benefit of mankind, regardless of the terrible treatment accorded him throughout the ages. The patriarchs and matriarchs were buried together with Adam and Eve, the parents of all of society, in order to show that there is no gap between the Jew and the rest of society. There is no contradiction between laws based on human dignity of Tzelem Elokim, and laws based on the sanctity of the Covenantal Community. The Covenantal Community adds additional responsibilities to the Jew beyond those he already has based on his humanity. The non-Jewish world finds it difficult to understand this duality and therefore view us as an enigmatic people. For example, they view our commitment to Eretz Yisrael as irrational because they do not comprehend the nature of the covenantal commitment that is the foundation upon which this attachment is based. The extra commitment that the Jew has that they do not share or understand creates existential tension between the Jew and non-Jew. Abraham described this tension when he instructed Eliezer and Ishmael to sit here while he and Isaac travel on to another point. The Jew and non-Jew have common cause up to the point of Poh, "here". However the Jew has an additional commitment beyond that of society. He cannot remain "here" as Abraham said. He must go further, to Koh, to fulfill his additional covenantal commitment and destiny. This tension is worth enduring in order to be the maintainers of the destiny and legacy of Abraham. (Shiur date: sometime in the 1970's. Copyright 1998 Josh Rapps and Dr. Israel Rivkin) Avraham was fully integrated in both his society and in the life of Torah. So too should we strive to balance the two. On a totally irrelevant note, I'd like to share a particular mishnah with you, which resonates with my memories of Arthur Korpus, hk"m. We learn in Bava Metzia 4:10 (the whole chapter deals with fraud) about fraud, oppression in words. Just as there is fraud in business, there is fraud in words. One should not say, "How much is that item?" if one has no intention of purchasing it. One should not say to a penitent, "Remember your old bad deeds!" Nor should one say to a descendent of converts, "Remember the deeds of your ancestors!", as it says, (Ex. 22) "You shall not oppress a convert, nor cause him pain." Arthur Korpus was honest in word and work. Two stories: In his later years, Arthur had a handicapped parking tag for his cars. Whenever Debbie or her brothers would go shopping with their mother, she would try to use the parking tag to park in the handicapped space, so she wouldn't have to walk so far. While this may be theoretically doable, none of her children would let her take advantage of this: "None of us are handicapped, it won't kill us to walk from the regular parking spots." "Where did I get such honest children?" she would ask. It must have been their father's example. Arthur had a, well, sharp tongue. He was always pressing us to succeed, to improve. "Why don't you switch to a better paying job?" "You should buy a house." "You should leave that neighborhood." "You should get a job." But he never, in the ten years I knew him, of asking annoying things, brought up old bad deeds. He was always pushing for improvement, giving mussar for life as it were. There is a fine line between difficult questions and oppressive words, and he never crossed it. Good shabbos.