At home, my fiance paces back and forth, preparing for his exams in anaesthetics. In a week, he will be tested orally to see if he can become a consultant. He recites definitions of key medical terms, revises laws of physics, gives diagnoses of uncommon diseases.
One definition he has repeated so many times it is now imprinted in my mind too.
Death is the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness and loss of capacity for breathing.
At times, we have pondered over such terms together. On long walks, we have discussed medical ethics through Jewish lenses. We have debated whether and how modern medicine aligns with ancient wisdom.
Now is not the moment to challenge him on the medical definition of death. But the definition sticks with me, because this is an area where I do not think science and religion align.
While Laurence prepares for his exams, you will have to listen to my thoughts on what Judaism teaches about mortality.
Death is the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness and loss of capacity for breathing.
Is it? Is that what it means to die?
If it were, then would living simply be brain activity and breathing? Is that all we are?
Chayyei Sarah – the life of Sarah – is our portion. It opens with her death. By telling us about her life from her death, the Torah is telling us something about how life and death interact.
The parashah is a recounting of Sarah’s burial. It is a terse text, where the primary narrative concerns Abraham’s attempt to purchase a lot for internment.
So much is left unsaid. So many emotions are not expressed. In the silences and interstices, we are left to reconstruct our own imaginings of what Abraham was thinking. Let us try.
Abraham proceeded to cry and eulogise Sarah.
He held her hands, once so strong and firm. Those hands had kneaded bread for strangers at a moment’s notice. They had sewn garments for whole families. They had, at times, pointed accusations, separated children, raised objections… Strong hands. Determined hands. Strong, determined hands, that were now drained of all their vigour, and sat coldly in his own palms.
Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites.
Abraham sprang into action. Sarah had not died in the land of her own family in Egypt, nor of Abraham’s in Chaldea. They were in a strange place, far from their own homes, among Hittites in the hill-country of Canaan.
Abraham said: “Here I am, a stranger and a foreigner among you. Please sell me a piece of land so I can give my wife a proper burial.”
Sarah had left her father’s home in the palaces of Egypt, where she lived as a princess. She was an aristocrat in a great empire who gave it up to travel with a wandering man. Abraham claimed to have spoken with the One True God, and Sarah just followed him. She forsook luxury for a life on the road. Now, she lay dead on the road, and there would be no fine processions to pyramids to entomb her.
The Hittites replied to Abraham, “Listen, my lord, you are an honoured prince among us. Choose the finest of our tombs and bury her there. No one here will refuse to help you in this way.”
Sarah used to laugh with her whole belly. Her shoulders bounced up and down. She can find humour where nobody else could. Even when she struggled with infertility, she found ways of making jokes. Abraham would not hear her laugh again.
So Abraham bowed low before the Hittites and said, “Since you are willing to help me in this way, be so kind as to ask Ephron son of Zohar to let me buy his cave at Machpelah, down at the end of his field. I will pay the full price in the presence of witnesses, so I will have a permanent burial place for my family.”
Sarah had been so beautiful people tripped over themselves staring at her. On their wanders, every prince desired her. Sarah was as beautiful at 127 as she had been when they had first met. She was still just as honourable and God-fearing. Nobody would be as good and beautiful and true again.
Ephron was sitting there among the others, and he answered Abraham as the others listened, speaking publicly before all the Hittite elders of the town.
Sarah received no ennoblement or reward for marrying Abraham. Yet so much honour came to Abraham through her. She could see visions and speak with God.
“No, my lord,” he said to Abraham, “please listen to me. I will give you the field and the cave. Here in the presence of my people, I give it to you. Go and bury your dead.”
Abraham had bargained over everything. He had struck a deal with Avimelech to share water sources. He had even negotiated with God over the destruction of a city. This was a bargain he could not accept.
Abraham again bowed low before the citizens of the land, and he replied to Ephron as everyone listened.
“No, listen to me. I will buy it from you. Let me pay the full price for the field so I can bury my dead there.”
Abraham was ageing too. Who would bury him? He had cast out one son and tried to murder another.
Ephron answered Abraham, “My lord, please listen to me. The land is worth 400 pieces of silver, but what is that between friends?”
What is four hundred shekels between strangers? What is a price on the life of Sarah? What sort of burial could ever be enough for her?
Ephron said: “Go ahead and bury your dead.”
These are some words we may complete into the silences. They come from the other biblical stories and midrash, and they paint a fuller picture. In the spaces, we see that this is not a negotiation over a burial plot, but a negotiation over the nature of death.
Death is the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness and loss of capacity for breathing.
Is it? Is that what it means to die?
If it were, then would living simply be brain activity and breathing? Is that all we are?
Medically, scientifically… maybe.
Spiritually, Jewishly… no.
Death is as much a journey as life is.
For seven days, we eulogise, as the last imprint of a person leaves us. For thirty days, we mourn, as the shock and grief harrow us. For eleven months, we pray, as some part of the soul heads on its journey to Heaven.
Then, every year, we say the names of the dead, and some part of our loved ones returns to us. Their soul breaks through the gaps in Aramaic words and we feel them with us once more.
Thousands of years later, we still say Sarah’s name, and some part of her keeps living long after breath and consciousness.
We are more than what we exhale: we are the laughter and joy we bring to others. We are more than our own thoughts: we are the memories living on in others.
In memory, in prayer, in faith, we grasp something greater than the material world.
Trusting in You, Eternal God, we see life beyond death.
Amen.
Sim Lev 