This
week’s Torah portion is called “Chayei Sarah, The Life of Sarah.“ In western
culture titles describe the content of the work that is to follow. Thus we
would expect a portion entitled, “The Life of Sarah” to tell the story of her
life. In the Hebrew Bible titles are created from the first significant words
of the book or portion. So the weekly Torah portion is titled “The Life of
Sarah” because it opens with the sentence, “The length of Sarah’s life was a
hundred and twenty and seven. Sarah died in Kiriat Arba, now Hebron, in the
land of Canaan.” The portion continues to
describe Abraham’s mourning for Sarah and the steps he takes to bury her in
Hebron.
The wording of the opening phase attracted the attention of the ancient rabbis. Sarah is the only woman in the Hebrew Bible whose age at the time of her death is mentioned by the text. This is an expression of her status.
Not only does the text tell us Sarah’s age, it tells us her age in an unusual way. The Torah portion describes Sarah as “Mai’ah Shana V’Esrim Shana, Sheva Shanim, One hundred years, and twenty years and seven years.” Rather than simply saying 127 years. We could say it is written this way for emphasis. The rabbis see more. They say that the text is written this way to teach us that at the time of her death Sarah was as innocent as a seven year old girl, as beautiful as a twenty year old young woman and as wise as a woman of one hundred. Sarah, the mother of our people, was an extraordinary woman. As her descendants we can aspire to follow her example.
