| Unconditional love
Click for PDF The Mishnah at the beginning of Tractate Kiddushin teaches us the ways in which a woman is betrothed to her husband: through money, a document, or intimacy. The source for betrothal with money is found in our parasha: the Torah says, “When a man takes a wife,” and “taking” (קיחה) means with money, as it says regarding the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah: “I have given the money for the field; take it from me.” It is understandable why the source for the sanctification of marriage appears specifically in the story of the first Jewish couple — Avraham and Sarah. Yet from the same place arises a question: that story tells of the end of their relationship, as Avraham buries Sarah. Why, then, should a young man in Israel who seeks to marry a woman recall the purchase of a burial plot that Avraham bought for Sarah? In the same way, we may ask: why was the first acquisition of land in Eretz Yisrael made through burial? Wouldn’t it have been more fitting for Avraham to inaugurate his ownership in the Land by founding a settlement, not a grave? And why did he choose Hebron for this first purchase, given that, as Rashi (based on the Midrash) notes on the verse “Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt,” Hebron was the least fertile part of the Land — “to show you the praise of the Land of Israel: there is no stonier land in Eretz Yisrael than Hebron, and yet it was chosen for burial, whereas Egypt is the most fertile of lands.” The answer to all these questions lies in the deep Jewish understanding that the bond between a person and his land, and between a man and his wife, is not utilitarian but essential — a sacred connection rooted above natural life itself. Life in this world is but the expression and revelation of that higher origin. The connection between Avraham and Sarah did not begin or end with physical beauty or even character (indeed, Chazal say Avraham did not even recognize her beauty). Its root was in a pure, intrinsic love — ahava she’eina teluya badavar — love not dependent on anything external. Such love does not arise from a worldly condition and therefore does not end with death. When Avraham buries Sarah, he demonstrates that their union continues beyond mortal life. This is why the Torah teaches every man about to marry — through the symbol of kesef (money) — the depth of the unique bond that the Torah expects between husband and wife: a love that is whole, absolute, and unconditional — “even death shall not part them.” Just as this intrinsic bond defines the relationship between husband and wife, so too it defines the bond between Am Yisrael and its Land. Hebron, whose name derives from the root chibur (connection), teaches us not to focus on material abundance but on the inner, eternal dimension. The Cave of Machpelah stands at the gateway to Gan Eden — it represents the meeting point of two worlds. Precisely in Hebron, amid its rocky, barren exterior, is revealed the intersection between the eternal, unconditional world and the lower, dependent reality. Rav Kook explains in Orot that the connection between Israel and its Land is essential and organic, unlike other nations who choose their lands for pragmatic reasons: “The Land of Israel is not an external possession of the nation, not merely a means for collective organization or material or even spiritual survival. The Land of Israel is an essential unit bound by a living connection with the nation, united with it in inner qualities of being. Therefore, it is impossible to grasp the sanctity of the Land or bring forth the depth of its love through any rational human understanding, but only through the Divine power upon the nation as a whole.” Now we can understand why the first encounter with the acquisition of the Land of Israel occurs through burial — which portrays death not as an end, but as an intensification of life, as reflected in the parasha’s title, Chayei Sarah (“The Life of Sarah”). In these days, when the people of Israel are fighting for the return of our fallen and kidnapped — ready to struggle mightily to bring them to burial in the soil of our Land — once again the unique national soul of Israel is revealed, something incomprehensible to the nations of the world. Thus we are commanded to cling to the Land of Israel unconditionally and to sustain in it the rebirth of our redemption. And may the words of the verse cited at the beginning of the Midrash to our parasha be fulfilled in us: “The Lord knows the days of the wholehearted, and their inheritance shall be forever.”
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