Last week’s Shabbat Schmooze, "Arguing Toward Trust," drew more positive and meaningful feedback than I would have expected. So many of you shared that the idea of differences uniting us rather than dividing us certainly struck a chord. As a result, and with my limited column space in this blog, I decided this week to continue the proverbial conversation.
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Parashat Chayei Sarah opens with our matriarch, Sarah’s death. Abraham mourns, purchases the Cave of Machpelah, and secures a wife for Isaac. Then Abraham himself dies, and we read a verse that is not often brought to our attention: “[Abraham’s] sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the Cave of Machpelah” (Genesis 25:9).
Let’s reflect for a moment on this verse. Isaac and Ishmael had every reason to stay away from this solemn occasion. Abraham sent Ishmael into the wilderness with bread and a skin of water. Abraham bound Isaac for sacrifice on Mount Moriah, and the Torah never records father and son speaking again. Each son carried a wound from the same father, and each could have let life maintain their distance. Yet both came home.
Notice, too, the irony of where and when this scene unfolds. It takes place in the parshah titled “the life of Sarah,” the matriarch whose insistence led to Ishmael’s expulsion, and who, the Midrash explains, could not forgive Abraham for leaving her uninformed about the Akedah. The woman at the center of the family’s deepest fractures gives her name to the very portion where that family begins to mend.
How does this happen? Because doing the right thing is bigger than any one person, no matter their status in life. Abraham’s failings were real. He lost touch with both of his sons. But he was also the man whose tent was open on every side, and that welcoming, open, and accepting value outlived his personal faults and weaknesses. It was big enough to bring Isaac and Ishmael home to the same grave, standing shoulder to shoulder at one of life’s most fragile moments.
This week, we voted here in the United States, and a week earlier Israelis voted in our Homeland too; each of us acting on our beliefs, ideologies, and passions. Now comes the harder work. We are all still neighbors, still family, still one people sharing one tent.
So, my challenge to us all is to reach out to the person(s) whose vote, view, or voice might have driven you apart, and connect. Not to argue, but to listen and to come closer.
The Torah, and certainly all of us, could have lived a happy existence without the specific references made in this one identifying verse. However, if Isaac and Ishmael could come together given their history, what excuse could we possibly have not to bring our differences together? Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom,
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