Dear Members and Friends of Congregation Beth Sholom:

 

      

In Genesis 23 we encounter the first death of an Adonai worshipper, Sarah. Abraham may have been the first to worship Adonai, but Sarah was the first to die as an Adonai Worshipper. Beyond the grief of his wife, Abraham is confronted with a problem. How do Adonai worshippers bury their loved ones? Thus Abraham must start what will be thousands of years of Jewish ritual practices around death. During the time of Abraham’s sojourn from the city of Ur to parts known and unknown, he is surrounded by something called ancestor cults - People who venerate their dead loved ones by worshipping them. There are objects used in Ancestor worship called Teraphs that are small carving or statues that represent a dead loved one, often they are prayed to as if a person is talking to the loved one it represents.  This is considered Idol worship by Adonai and so Abraham must discover a new practice, that is completely unprecedented from local traditions.

 

Unfortunately, Sarah died on Hittite land. Abraham has no choice but to bury her in the same land that she died, and the Torah provides us with a conversation between Abraham and the Hittite land owners. Abraham says, “I am a foreigner living among you; please give me a burial site on your land, so that I might bury my dead from before my face.” Now most ancient commentators have nothing to say about the “before my face” comment. But Modern commentators can’t stop talking about it.

 

The Hebrew is awkward and while ancient scholars have shrugged it off as just being unwieldly, modern scholars call this phrase a hidden polemic. Meaning Abraham is striving to say something that the Hittites will assumes refers to ancestor worship, but that Abraham doesn’t mean Ancestor Worship. He is saying that he will not see Sarah again, which is true, but what he also means is that he will not see Sarah as a Teraph. Which is perhaps a detail that the Hittites are meant to miss.

 

This narrative, that modern scholars offer, shows that Abraham must use some subterfuge in order to honor Adonai while not alienating himself from local customs. We know the Hittites don’t catch on because the conversation continues concerning the logistics of burying Sarah and not the lack of ancestor worship. What strikes me is how careful Abraham is to practice this new burial custom. Which will one day become the standard burial custom in Western Civilization. We don’t see Teraphs anymore. In fact this may be your first time hearing about them.

 

What I find so interesting is the way this lines up with the rest of the Torah. You might think of course it lines up, however just a few chapters earlier an angel of Adonai tells Hagar she needs to go back suffering by the hand of her mistress, the same Sarah. The Angel’s demand contradicts the book of Deuteronomy which says a slave who is mistreated must be protected and does not go back to their master.

 

Yet, the story of Abraham burying Sarah lines up perfectly with the rest of the Torah’s decree on not practicing ancestor worship. In Leviticus 19 it states “Do not turn to ghosts and do not inquire of familiar spirits, to be defiled by them: I Adonai, am your God.” In Deuteronomy 18 it states, “you shall declare before your God Adonai: I have not deposited any tithing with the dead.” In Isaiah it states, “The people who provoke My anger, who sit inside tombs and pass the night in secret places.”

 

All these Biblical quotes are referencing ancestor cult worship. And in all these quotes the Bible couldn’t be more clear - don’t do it. So, we have in Genesis 23 Abraham avoiding this practice as best he can among people who will not understand why he is avoiding it. But, the reason why our Bible says not do it so often, is because many Adonai worshippers were doing it. Abraham may have worked hard to start new rituals around the death of our loved ones, but it wasn’t enough to prevent all Adonai worshippers throughout history to stop. It turns out Ancestor Worship was a very influential practice that convinced many Adonai Worshipper into it.

 

Abraham modeled the appropriate behavior effectively, even utilizing a hidden polemic to follow it, and it didn’t work for some of our Jewish ancestors. I think this shows, we didn’t become Jewish all at once. We inherited a tradition that our ancestors often struggled with. I believe that the Judaism we experience today is a culmination of our ancestors trying and struggling with Judaism throughout history, and I also believe that Judaism is not done evolving.

 

I believe that if one grieving man on foreign land can change the course of death practices for all Western Civilization. Then a small Jewish congregation as far North as Alaska is capable of almost anything. It’s possible that our creativity and resolve for Judaism to thrive in Alaska can evolve Jewish practices for centuries to come. We can faithfully inherit the Jewish traditions given to us from Sinai while also making it our own. There is no better time for this than now as we open up from covid and remember the power that Jewish rituals and community have over our own healing.

 

 

Rabbi Abram Goodstein

Congregation Beth Sholom

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