Parashat Chayei Sarah: The Lives That Beat Within a Life

This week’s Parashah opens with a statement that, far from being a biographical detail, is an existential manifesto: “And the life (the lives) of Sarah was: one hundred years, twenty years, and seven years—these were the years of Sarah’s life.” The Torah repeats “the life of Sarah” at the end of the very first verse, almost as if to remind us that her death is not the end—that her presence keeps pulsing in those who remember her, who speak her name, who walk in the path she carved.

The rabbis noticed something striking: in Hebrew, the word for “life,” chayim, is in the plural. Perhaps the Torah is hinting that no human being ever lives just one life. Like Sarah, each of us carries within ourselves many selves across time: the little girl she once was, the woman brave enough to leave her land, the wife who walked beside Abraham, the mother who waited ninety long years to cradle a child, the quiet leader who sustained the journey.

Sarah’s life was woven out of laughter and silence, bold decisions, exiles and returns, faith and human error. But above all, it was woven out of choices—choices about how to respond to what life gave her and to what life withheld. And in that capacity to keep choosing—even in the face of adversity—her true greatness is revealed.

The sages observed that this Parashah bears her name, yet it begins with her death. No details. No warm description of her final days. And that forces us to pause over what the Torah does not say. We come straight from the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. The biblical narrative ends by saying that Abraham “returned”—alone. Isaac did not come down the mountain with him. And Sarah never sees her husband return, nor, it seems, does she see her son. Into that uncomfortable silence, the midrash enters—daring, as always, to listen to the whispers the official text leaves unspoken.

According to Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, Sarah dies when she learns—through the angel Samael—that Abraham had nearly sacrificed their son. Her soul, says the midrash, departs from her with cries and sobs shaped like the very notes of the shofar.

“When Abraham returned safely from Mount Moriah, Samael’s anger flared, for he saw that his desire to thwart the sacrifice had not prevailed. What did he do? He went and said to Sarah: ‘Do you not know what has happened in the world?’She replied: ‘No.’He said: ‘Your husband Abraham has taken Isaac, sacrificed him, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the altar.’Sarah began to weep and to cry three times, like the three sustained blasts of the shofar, and she wailed three short cries, like the broken notes of the shofar; her soul fled, and she died.” (Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 32:8)

Abraham returns after binding his son to the wood, only to be halted by an angel who stops him from killing his own child in the name of faith.And yet the midrash dares to say he “returned in peace.” One almost needs to hear that line with irony. How could he possibly return in peace after such an event?

Who is Samael?

In Talmudic and post-Talmudic literature, he appears as a demon-like figure or angel of death. Remember: one angel stops Abraham’s hand and shows him the ram. And now another angel appears—one who knows what Isaac endured and, perhaps exasperated at Abraham’s “calm return,” tells Sarah what she was never told. No one thought to include her in the test her husband underwent— a test whose cost fell upon the very child she had longed for all her life.

Sarah cries, screams, and dies of sheer despair. She cannot bear the image of that father, that knife… but she also cannot bear the image of being left out, ignored at the very moment that most touched her soul.

We often say that the shofar on Rosh Hashanah recalls the ram’s horns that saved Isaac’s life. But maybe—just maybe—the sound of the shofar has even more to do with the hidden, suppressed cry of a woman whose pain never made it into the official record. Her cry is not remembered. And her death is mentioned in a brief, almost bland, line.

What kills her? Fear? Grief? Or being excluded from a decision that struck at the core of her being?

The canonized text silences her cry.The midrash preserves it.

And when we read it, we suddenly understand: when the Torah seems to tell only men’s stories, there are women’s stories dying behind the scenes with no one to name them. And yet, when we listen closely—even to the Torah’s silences—we sense that every word spoken and every word missing holds the weight and worth of the women whose lives shaped our people.

Sarah’s invisible, unheeded, half-muted scream forces us to face the voices that remain off the page today: mothers protecting children in war zones; women weathering hunger, exile, violence; women carrying homes shattered by decisions made at tables where they were never invited. The official story has its rhythm; but the cry of women has the rhythm of the shofar: a vibration that seeks no permission and pierces every generation.

It is no coincidence that over twenty years ago the UN passed Resolution 1325, acknowledging the unequal impact of war on women and the need to include them in every peace negotiation. And yet, not a single country truly fulfills it. Women still cry off-camera, off-agenda, off-history. Sarah still cries. Again and again.

But this Parashah is not only about pain. Side by side with Sarah’s death, another luminous story unfolds: the encounter between Eliezer and Rebecca. And there, a quiet revolution takes place. For the first time, the Torah explicitly instructs: “Call the young woman and ask for her opinion.” Rebecca’s voice matters. Her consent is essential. Her freedom to choose shapes the future of our people.

In that moment, Sarah and Rebecca return to center stage. And standing beside them is the humble, extraordinary figure of Eliezer—not seeking glory, not manipulating like Laban, Rebecca’s father, but observing, discerning, asking, and listening. His role is vital: he represents those who sustain Jewish continuity through humility and sensitivity. The ones who run when the destiny of our people is at stake—not for honor, but out of commitment.

Everyone runs—Eliezer, Rebecca, Laban. What matters is not the speed of their running to perform their tasks, but the reason. Life also demands that we run: toward mitzvot, toward those in need, toward values worth defending… or toward empty pursuits that hollow our souls.Look into the eyes of the one who runs. There you’ll see the truth.

Let us return to Sarah, whose life the Torah breaks down into one hundred, twenty, and seven years. Some teachers read this as revealing two lives in one: the first shaped by waiting for the promised child; the second beginning at age ninety with Isaac’s birth—a new chapter marked by joy and presence. Two lives. Two existences in one biography.

Perhaps that is why some storytellers say that a person’s true lifespan is not measured by the calendar, but written in the “notebook of the soul”: moments of joy, connection, love, faith. When we rejoice, we write. And at the end, we add up the joy—that is the real life lived.

Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years. But the Torah quietly asks us: How much of that time became a life fully lived?

Today, in a world torn by war and geopolitical tension, we too carry our pain. We continue demanding the return of the remains of the three Israelis still held after the Hamas massacre. We continue waiting for justice to pierce through barbarity. And we continue insisting that true peace—the kind that protects both Israeli and Palestinian lives—cannot be built on denied pain or silenced cries for a different future.

Let me share a story—perhaps you’ve heard it before from me:

A man once walked through a forest and came upon an old cemetery. Weathered, crumbling stones made their inscriptions hard to read. Yet he managed to decipher names and ages—and to his shock, no one seemed to have lived beyond eleven years. Even stranger: each lifespan was measured in years, months, weeks, and days.

Moved, he assumed it was a children’s cemetery. He went to the nearby village to ask what tragedy had struck their youth.

“They’re not children,” an elder replied. “And there’s no tragedy here.”

He explained a tradition they kept for generations. When a boy or girl turned fifteen, they received a small booklet—like the one the elder carried around his neck. From that day on, whenever they experienced deep joy, they opened the booklet and wrote:

On the left: what the joy was.On the right: how long it lasted.

Falling in love—how long did that first overwhelming joy last? A week? Two? Three and a half?

The pregnancy or birth of a first child?A long-awaited journey?The reunion with a sibling after many years?

How long did they savor those moments? Days? Weeks?

And so they wrote—moment by moment, joy by joy.When someone died, it was their custom to open the booklet, add up all the joy, and inscribe that time on the tombstone. Because to them, that was the only time that truly counted as life.

Sarah lived 127 years—years of faith, courage, and passion.Two lives in one. Her youth shaped by the wisdom of adulthood as she endured the pain of childlessness; her later years charged with the fire of youth as she raised a child at an age when she might have been spoiling a grandchild.

Chayei Sarah is not about death. It is about lives that continue.Sarah lives in Isaac. Rebecca lives in us.And we walk, too, with the women who shaped our people even when history pushed them to the margins.

May Sarah's memory—her cry, and her strength—continue to inspire us to listen, to choose, and to live each day the Creator grants us with fullness and courage.

Shabbat Shalom ve Chodesh Tov

Have a meaningful Shabbat and a good new month of Kislev

Rabbi Gustavo Geier