ASBI Lunch and Learn: Chayei Sarah

Rabbi Dr. Wendy Zierler, "Parshat Chayei Sarah: Truth on the Mind"

"It is worth noting the centrality of the word hesed and its function as an organizing principle or leitmotif in this extremely long biblical chapter. Israeli journalist and scholar Yoel Rappel notes in his essay on Hayei Sarah in his book, Al haparashah; iyyunim vera’ayonot befarshat hashavua, that the story of the choice of Rebecca as wife for Isaac begins with a request for hesed from God and culminates with a request of hesed from the young woman’s family, suggesting the importance of acts of lovingkindness in the formation of this founding biblical family and the society meant to ensue from it. It is important to note, however, that when the servant apprehends that God has answered his request, he repeatedly thanks God not just for hesed but also for emet, thereby furnishing the first occasion of the word emet in the Bible"

Rabbi Dr. Wendy Zierler, "Parshat Chayei Sarah: Truth on the Mind"

To be sure, the word emet occurs in many places in the Bible, as do various other permutations of the root אמן, which classical exegetes and philologists alike believe to be the root of אמת. The first actual appearance of this verb root is in Genesis 15, where God promises progeny to the still childless Abram; Abram counters that he currently has no heir other than Eliezer of Damascus; God responds by showing Abram a vision of the stars as a measure of how many descendants he will eventually have, all of which is followed by the ambiguous line: והאמן בה'; ויחשבה לו צדקה-- And he believed in the Eternal; and God/he counted it to him for righteousness. I say ambiguous, because while it is clear from the text who is doing the believing, it is not at all clear who considers or counts all of this as righteousness -- God or Abram. In any case, the mention of Abraham’s servant Eliezer in this earlier scene establishes an interesting connection between Genesis 15, an early instance of Abraham yearning for descendants, and Genesis 24, where Abraham sends his servant off to secure these descendants by finding his son a wife. And it frames all of this under the sign of emet not as a kind of juridical or empirical fact but as form of faithfulness or steadfastness."

Rabbi Dr. Wendy Zierler, "Parshat Chayei Sarah: Truth on the Mind"

"What does one make of the fact that the first usages of the word “emet” in the Bible come in the form of faith rather than fact? In these truth-challenged times, does all of this muddy or clarify the well-waters of truth? Or does it establish a basic ground for all of our truths in the notion of a kind, loving, faithful God who rewards those willing to act faithfully on behalf of the dissemination and generational transmission of God’s truth?"

Rabbi Dr. Wendy Zierler, "Parshat Chayei Sarah: Truth on the Mind"

Our chapter, however, which introduces emet...restores love, all in the framework of seeking out the next mother in the Abrahamic line. Given all of this, it is worth calling attention to the relationship, as scholar Deena Aranoff observes, “between the most common meaning of the Hebrew root ‘amen [אמן] faithfulness and constancy, and its less common meaning: to rear or nurse a child.” If the Akeidah was a spiritual exercise of detachment from earthly, familial bonds in order to attach to an utterly transcendent inscrutable God, this chapter suggests a countervailing model of divine truth as fidelity and constancy that can be modeled and replicated within the interpersonally attached and committed context of family. As Aranoff argues, the linguistic “link between childcare and faithfulness recovers continuities between household life and the religious imagination and the ways in which maternal activity provided the vocabulary for more abstract theological concepts.” Our first encounter with divine truth occurs, then, in the context of imagining a God as parent and loving partner...In the Bible, at least, the notion of emet begins with constancy and fidelity: to God, our partners, our children, and our communities. From thence, I would argue, spring other notions and epistemologies of truth.