Parshas Chayei Sara begins the next
chapter in Jewish history, with the marriage of Yitzchak and Rivka. Avraham
sends his trusted servant, Eliezer, to Aram Naharayim to find Yitzchak a wife,
while giving him strict instructions on how to do so. Upon arrival at the well
outside the city, Eliezer davens to Hashem that He should send him the right girl.
Eliezer gives several conditions on how he will know it is the right one. All
of these conditions are filled and Eliezer finds Rivka immediately.
Eliezer goes with Rivka to
tell her family the news that he wants her to marry Yitzchak. He proceeds to
tell the story of his journey over to the family, beginning from when he got
his instructions from Avraham and his prayers to Hashem at the well, until he
found Rivka, telling them the exact actions he did during the entire period. In
fact, it is pretty much the previous thirty pesukim repeated verbatim! It is
very uncharacteristic of the Torah to repeat so many pesukim over again,
especially when there does not seem to be any special reason to telling the
story over to Rivka’s family.
Rashi asks this question and gives an
answer: “אמר רבי
אחא יפה שיחתן של עבדי אבות לפני המקום מתורתן של בנים” “Said Rabbi
Acha, we see that the conversations of the servants of our forefathers are
greater before Hashem than the Torah of their children (because this
conversation is recorded in the Torah and many fundamentals of the Torah are
learned through allusions)” (Bereishis
24:42). My first reaction when reading this Rashi is what exactly does that
mean? There are many laws that we only learn out from extra letters, similar
words, and other allusions, while this story is written out completely twice.
Why is this so? What is it about a simple story that could be more precious
than writing down the exact way to keep the Torah?
The answer is that there are some things
in life that can be learned from books and some things that cannot. Judaism is
a very hands-on religion; in order to know how to do it properly, you need someone
to show you; but learning out the Torah’s laws is different. Hashem taught
Moshe thirteen ways to derive different laws from the Torah, and we use each
one of those thirteen many times over in order to learn out every single detail
that we need to do the mitzvos perfectly. However, some things cannot be given
over through allusions. In order to know the proper way to act, to live, to
treat others, to actually perform the mitzvos, we need someone to tell
us and show us exactly how to do it. Therefore, in some cases, it was more
important to write down the stories of our forefathers that teach us how to act,
than to write the actual acts that we must perform.
So what act do we learn from the story
of Eliezer that the Torah needs to repeat it? Let’s take a look at the
placement of Rashi’s explanation. Rashi places his answer in pasuk 42, right in
the middle of Eliezer’s story. If he wanted to teach us how important this
story was, why didn’t he put his explanation at the beginning? Or, in order to
summarize this whole episode, why didn’t he place it at the end? The lesson we
are supposed to learn must be in that pasuk where Rashi comments.
The pasuk reads, “וָאָבֹא הַיּוֹם אֶל הָעָיִן וָאֹמַר
יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם אִם יֶשְׁךָ נָּא מַצְלִיחַ דַּרְכִּי אֲשֶׁר
אָנֹכִי הֹלֵךְ עָלֶיהָ” “So I came today
to the well, and I said, ‘Hashem, God of my master, Avraham, if you desire to
prosper my way upon which I am going” (ibid.). This pasuk describes when Eliezer
arrives at the well and begin davening to Hashem that He should help him find
the right girl. I believe that the connection here is obvious. The Torah is
teaching us that when you are in a time of need, there is one place you can
always turn to. Hashem is always waiting to hear your tefillos, no matter how difficult
and helpless the situation might seem.
Eliezer was sent to find Avraham’s
family and bring back a girl for Yitzchak to marry. He did not know who they
were and he didn’t even think they would be interested in coming with him! Furthermore,
how was he supposed to pick the right girl for the son of Avraham,
someone who was already a great person in his own right! How in the world was
he supposed to find the right girl? He did the only thing he knew to do, he did
what he had learned by living in Avraham’s house, in his time of need, he
turned to Hashem and davened that everything should go smoothly.
The connection to us is clear. We must
learn from Eliezer and realize that there is one line that is never
unavailable, it is our line to Hashem. Let us use this same tool that our Avos
used and through tefillah, connect to them and Hashem in ways other things
cannot compare.
Shabbat
Shalom!
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