Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. In the cycle of Torah reading,
we come to the portion called chye Sarah in Hebrew,
it means the life of Sarah. Ironically, the portion is
really about the death of Sarah. At one h twenty
(00:22):
seven years old, Abraham's dear wife Sarah dies, and part
of the portion tells us about the lengths to which
Abraham goes to find a proper burial place for his
wife Sarah. Abraham approaches Efrone the Hittite and begins to
engage in a conversation with him to secure a proper
(00:43):
burial plot for her. Efrone the Hittite, out of consideration
and kindness, apparently says to Abraham, take any place for you.
Recognizing Abraham's goodness his stature, he offers him a place
for his wife's burial at no cost. Take anything that
(01:04):
you want, but Abraham insists. The conversation goes on and
on until Abraham ultimately earns the right to pay a
full price for the burial place for his wife Sarah.
The commentators offer many interpretations, and over the years, as
(01:25):
I've studied this portion, learned it from myself and taught
it to others. It's helped me recognize that there is
an enduring value in the Jewish community. It has to
do with cemeteries and plots and more. But first we
begin by understanding that when Abraham paid a full price
(01:46):
for the burial plot for his wife Sarah, he was
committing himself to laying his wife to rest in the earth.
For the Tora also says from dust we come, to dust,
we shall return. And for paying a full price, it
would never come back to haunt Abraham, so to speak,
(02:07):
that the price wasn't full, that the plot for her
wasn't all his, or that it wouldn't endure in perpetuity.
And therein lies something very important to Jewish communities to
this very day. You see when a Jewish community organizes itself,
for example, moving from one place to another, as many
(02:30):
Jews millions came to America first in the late nineteenth century,
in the early part of the twentieth century, and ever since.
Wherever they made their home and a community was organized,
you might think that they built a synagogue first, a
place for gathering. You would be wrong. In most cases.
(02:53):
The first thing they did was to secure a sacred
burial space, not one space, but a plot of land
where they could have it platted for many burials in
the future. Why would they do this Well, First of all,
as life cycle of ends go, there are many that
we can prepare for. There is birth and bar Mitzvah
(03:14):
and weddings and many other celebrations and occasions that Jewish
families and communities come together to observe. But death is uncertain.
Death can happen at any time, so one of the
first things the Jewish community does is to prepare for
the inevitable. The only thing that is sure, we are taught,
(03:36):
are death and taxes. And so death is prepared for
by the community by securing a place, a sacred ground
that is sanctified through ritual and prayer and set up
to abide by the governance rules of the synagogue and
the Jewish community, typically to mean that the only burials
that would be permitted in that plot of land would
(03:57):
be Jewish burials. In some Jews cemeteries today, because of
the a number of interfaith families that still raise Jewish children,
very often husband and wife partners are still buried in
the Jewish cemetery, even if one is Jewish and one
is not. Even so, only Jewish ceremonies and rituals are
(04:18):
conducted in a Jewish cemetery, but that Jewish cemetery allows
for the Jewish community to get on with all that
it needs to do, to grow, to build, and to be,
while they also pay proper respect honor do the dead
when death comes, and so part of the ritual is conducted.
(04:40):
The observances are maintained. But so also is a promise.
Like Abraham made a promise to his wife and paid
a full price. By the way, scholars went back and
determined that the high price in shekels that Abraham paid
in current dollars or current currency was significant. It was
an extraord ordinary amount of money that he paid. And
(05:02):
so even today, though prices of plots in any cemetery
can feel high, the value that Chow's place in the
cemetery is a promise to maintain a value called kibud hamet,
that is, to bring honor to the dead by maintaining
(05:23):
in perpetuity the cemetery. And so there are many synagogues
in this country. My own, which was organized in eighteen
fifty four, actually organized a cemetery first in eighteen forty four,
ten years before, and then began to secure the money
and the setting for a small synagogue. And of course,
(05:44):
almost one hundred and seventy two years later, the oldest
synagogue in Texas maintains two cemeteries and a beautiful building
for worship and education and community gathering. The perpetuity of
a cemetery's maintenance and upkeep becomes the commitment and obligation
of each generation, and we make that promise not only
(06:07):
to the generation that we accompany to their final resting place,
but to all those who were laid to rest long
before us. When I enter a Jewish cemetery, it's remarkable
not only to read the stone, the honorifics, the Hebrew
psalms and proverbs that are inscribed on the stone, but
of course to read the dates, the date of birth
(06:29):
and the date of death. It's really meaningful when you see,
certainly in olden days, the lifespan of most people was
maybe forty fifty sixty if they live long. Today, people
live well into their eighties, nineties and even one hundred
and relatively good health and well being. But cemeteries tell
(06:49):
stories and part of the story they tell is the
enduring promise of the Jewish community that maintains them true.
For Christians, Catholic churches that have cemeteries on their grounds,
and so many others, the place to which we return
to pay our respects. For those who like to return
to a cemetery to pay their respects, is a place
(07:11):
that we need to come and find in good shade,
well maintained to always honor and respect those who have
gone from life. And so that value is really traced
back to the commitment that Abraham made to his wife,
the full price that he paid, and the expectation that
that plot of land would endure. And in fact, Sarah
(07:35):
was buried in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron or
Hebron today, and one can go and visit that place.
That enduring, perpetual place of burial is still exists, and
according to the Torah, a full price was paid. And
so today we might think of the legacy of those
(07:58):
who have gone from life as a means of going
to the cemetery and visiting their plot. But there's also
another way to appreciate the legacy of a human being.
In Judaism, there's certainly the plot in the cemetery, but
we also say that a good name endures beyond the grave.
What is it that we take with us? What do
(08:19):
we retrieve from death? What continues to live on after
the life of a person has ended. A good name,
a shem tove we call it in Hebrew, is what
endures because we can take it with us. All the
goods and riches and wealth and things that we've done
remain behind, But what truly continues to live on is
(08:40):
the good name. So when your name is mentioned, when
my name is mentioned, long after we're gone, we hope
that our name would be remembered for good, for honor,
for respect, for the difference that we made. That's a
perpetual and enduring legacy, like the said military plot, a
(09:01):
good name. But what's more are our deeds. I've taught
you before, and I'll share again that our teachings explain
that if one's wisdom exceeds one's deeds, then wisdom won't endure.
But if our deeds exceed our wisdom, then our wisdom
will endure. Wisdom is valued, but it all depends on
(09:23):
our deeds to make a difference in this world. And
to be remembered for the good difference that we made
is a treat It's the greatest prize. And very often
when I visit someone at the end of their life,
they want to know, they want to be validated by
me because I'm their Rabbi, that their life was for good.
(09:44):
They were faithful to their family, they were faithful to
their friends, they were faithful to work and their community,
and they were faithful to their God in all the
ways they imagine God in their faith tradition means so
much to them. And very often at the end of
that conversation I might have with a person on their deathbed,
(10:06):
they say Amen or thank you. It's a gift to
help them appreciate that the long life that they aim
to live right was imperfect, because nobody's is. But to
know that they did the best that they could and
that their legacy would endure means the world to them.
Why Because there is a part of each of us,
(10:28):
though we know that death is part of life, that
wishes for some immortality, and that shred of immortality is
our good name, and the memories that others have of us,
that we were loved, that we were liked, that we
did the best we could, and even when we didn't,
we made amends and tried again to do better. We
(10:52):
have to think about our legacy and what we want
others to remember about us. Is not too soon, but
it sometimes can be too late. Not too late to
make a difference, but sometimes too late to think about
the difference that we want to make, because death can
happen at any moment, and that's why Jewish communities organize
(11:13):
the cemetery long before they thought they might be needed,
because death happens sometimes when we least expected. So what
will your legacy be? Will it be only wealth and
monetary gains or will it be a good name? Will
it be an accumulation of deeds? Will it be lessons
(11:34):
that you taught your children or grandchildren, or lessons that
you modeled with them, even if you didn't use your words.
Will it be love and affection? Will it be forgiveness
and renewal? Will it be faithfulness that you can lend
to future generations to find in faith what you found
in faith? Or is it something else? Sometimes when I
(11:57):
meet with seniors in high school and teach them, they
know and I do that they're leaving for college and
when they think about what they're packing, they think of
their clothes and all kinds of things that will make
their small dorm room feel more like home. But then
I ask them, what about Jewish ritual what about Jewish memory?
(12:18):
What about your Jewish family life of heritage and culture?
What part of that will you pack with you? The
conversation goes on and on. They talk about holidays and rituals,
and occasions and vacations and memories. Those are the things
they take with them do and those are the things
that they will replicate and duplicate because they were part
(12:38):
of the rhythm of the life that they were raised in.
That's part of the enduring legacy. So even as you
contemplate what will be part of your enduring memory that
you leave to others, what will you prepare for them
to duplicate, to replicate when they make their own homes,
when they raise their own children, when they teach their grandchildren.
(13:01):
It doesn't have to be everything. Everybody has to go
into the life that they're given. But what small measure,
what souvenir of your life would you like others to
know about you? Sometimes we call it an ethical will
rather than a living will or a monetary will. What
ethic teaching will be so important that you would like
(13:24):
others to have it? I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation
Beth Israel in Houston. To listen again or share this
message with others, please find it my podcast called Heart
to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon. You can find it
at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
These are days when we think about what is most important.
(13:47):
When some values, some traditions, and rituals are discarded or denied,
we know in our heart and soul that long ago
we were treated to the gifts of previous generations. We
love them, we remember them. So what do we want
to preserve and cause to endure in the future too.
(14:09):
We can't bury everything in the ground, and we shouldn't.
What do we pass on? I don't think it's all
the scraps of paper and report cards that we say
from our children. It must be the memories that they
can carry with them much more easily and not store
in storage units, but rather in their hearts and souls
and minds. Give it some thought, make a note, have
(14:32):
conversations now and not later with your children and grandchildren
about what matters most to you, so they might make
it matter most to them as well. For now, give
it some thought and then share some conversation. Thank you
for joining me today. I look forward to being with
you again next time.
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. In the cycle of Torah reading,
we come to the portion called chye Sarah in Hebrew,
it means the life of Sarah. Ironically, the portion is
really about the death of Sarah. At one h twenty
(00:22):
seven years old, Abraham's dear wife Sarah dies, and part
of the portion tells us about the lengths to which
Abraham goes to find a proper burial place for his
wife Sarah. Abraham approaches Efrone the Hittite and begins to
engage in a conversation with him to secure a proper
(00:43):
burial plot for her. Efrone the Hittite, out of consideration
and kindness, apparently says to Abraham, take any place for you.
Recognizing Abraham's goodness his stature, he offers him a place
for his wife's burial at no cost. Take anything that
(01:04):
you want, but Abraham insists. The conversation goes on and
on until Abraham ultimately earns the right to pay a
full price for the burial place for his wife Sarah.
The commentators offer many interpretations, and over the years, as
(01:25):
I've studied this portion, learned it from myself and taught
it to others. It's helped me recognize that there is
an enduring value in the Jewish community. It has to
do with cemeteries and plots and more. But first we
begin by understanding that when Abraham paid a full price
(01:46):
for the burial plot for his wife Sarah, he was
committing himself to laying his wife to rest in the earth.
For the Tora also says from dust we come, to dust,
we shall return. And for paying a full price, it
would never come back to haunt Abraham, so to speak,
(02:07):
that the price wasn't full, that the plot for her
wasn't all his, or that it wouldn't endure in perpetuity.
And therein lies something very important to Jewish communities to
this very day. You see when a Jewish community organizes itself,
for example, moving from one place to another, as many
(02:30):
Jews millions came to America first in the late nineteenth century,
in the early part of the twentieth century, and ever since.
Wherever they made their home and a community was organized,
you might think that they built a synagogue first, a
place for gathering. You would be wrong. In most cases.
(02:53):
The first thing they did was to secure a sacred
burial space, not one space, but a plot of land
where they could have it platted for many burials in
the future. Why would they do this Well, First of all,
as life cycle of ends go, there are many that
we can prepare for. There is birth and bar Mitzvah
(03:14):
and weddings and many other celebrations and occasions that Jewish
families and communities come together to observe. But death is uncertain.
Death can happen at any time, so one of the
first things the Jewish community does is to prepare for
the inevitable. The only thing that is sure, we are taught,
(03:36):
are death and taxes. And so death is prepared for
by the community by securing a place, a sacred ground
that is sanctified through ritual and prayer and set up
to abide by the governance rules of the synagogue and
the Jewish community, typically to mean that the only burials
that would be permitted in that plot of land would
(03:57):
be Jewish burials. In some Jews cemeteries today, because of
the a number of interfaith families that still raise Jewish children,
very often husband and wife partners are still buried in
the Jewish cemetery, even if one is Jewish and one
is not. Even so, only Jewish ceremonies and rituals are
(04:18):
conducted in a Jewish cemetery, but that Jewish cemetery allows
for the Jewish community to get on with all that
it needs to do, to grow, to build, and to be,
while they also pay proper respect honor do the dead
when death comes, and so part of the ritual is conducted.
(04:40):
The observances are maintained. But so also is a promise.
Like Abraham made a promise to his wife and paid
a full price. By the way, scholars went back and
determined that the high price in shekels that Abraham paid
in current dollars or current currency was significant. It was
an extraord ordinary amount of money that he paid. And
(05:02):
so even today, though prices of plots in any cemetery
can feel high, the value that Chow's place in the
cemetery is a promise to maintain a value called kibud hamet,
that is, to bring honor to the dead by maintaining
(05:23):
in perpetuity the cemetery. And so there are many synagogues
in this country. My own, which was organized in eighteen
fifty four, actually organized a cemetery first in eighteen forty four,
ten years before, and then began to secure the money
and the setting for a small synagogue. And of course,
(05:44):
almost one hundred and seventy two years later, the oldest
synagogue in Texas maintains two cemeteries and a beautiful building
for worship and education and community gathering. The perpetuity of
a cemetery's maintenance and upkeep becomes the commitment and obligation
of each generation, and we make that promise not only
(06:07):
to the generation that we accompany to their final resting place,
but to all those who were laid to rest long
before us. When I enter a Jewish cemetery, it's remarkable
not only to read the stone, the honorifics, the Hebrew
psalms and proverbs that are inscribed on the stone, but
of course to read the dates, the date of birth
(06:29):
and the date of death. It's really meaningful when you see,
certainly in olden days, the lifespan of most people was
maybe forty fifty sixty if they live long. Today, people
live well into their eighties, nineties and even one hundred
and relatively good health and well being. But cemeteries tell
(06:49):
stories and part of the story they tell is the
enduring promise of the Jewish community that maintains them true.
For Christians, Catholic churches that have cemeteries on their grounds,
and so many others, the place to which we return
to pay our respects. For those who like to return
to a cemetery to pay their respects, is a place
(07:11):
that we need to come and find in good shade,
well maintained to always honor and respect those who have
gone from life. And so that value is really traced
back to the commitment that Abraham made to his wife,
the full price that he paid, and the expectation that
that plot of land would endure. And in fact, Sarah
(07:35):
was buried in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron or
Hebron today, and one can go and visit that place.
That enduring, perpetual place of burial is still exists, and
according to the Torah, a full price was paid. And
so today we might think of the legacy of those
(07:58):
who have gone from life as a means of going
to the cemetery and visiting their plot. But there's also
another way to appreciate the legacy of a human being.
In Judaism, there's certainly the plot in the cemetery, but
we also say that a good name endures beyond the grave.
What is it that we take with us? What do
(08:19):
we retrieve from death? What continues to live on after
the life of a person has ended. A good name,
a shem tove we call it in Hebrew, is what
endures because we can take it with us. All the
goods and riches and wealth and things that we've done
remain behind, But what truly continues to live on is
(08:40):
the good name. So when your name is mentioned, when
my name is mentioned, long after we're gone, we hope
that our name would be remembered for good, for honor,
for respect, for the difference that we made. That's a
perpetual and enduring legacy, like the said military plot, a
(09:01):
good name. But what's more are our deeds. I've taught
you before, and I'll share again that our teachings explain
that if one's wisdom exceeds one's deeds, then wisdom won't endure.
But if our deeds exceed our wisdom, then our wisdom
will endure. Wisdom is valued, but it all depends on
(09:23):
our deeds to make a difference in this world. And
to be remembered for the good difference that we made
is a treat It's the greatest prize. And very often
when I visit someone at the end of their life,
they want to know, they want to be validated by
me because I'm their Rabbi, that their life was for good.
(09:44):
They were faithful to their family, they were faithful to
their friends, they were faithful to work and their community,
and they were faithful to their God in all the
ways they imagine God in their faith tradition means so
much to them. And very often at the end of
that conversation I might have with a person on their deathbed,
(10:06):
they say Amen or thank you. It's a gift to
help them appreciate that the long life that they aim
to live right was imperfect, because nobody's is. But to
know that they did the best that they could and
that their legacy would endure means the world to them.
Why Because there is a part of each of us,
(10:28):
though we know that death is part of life, that
wishes for some immortality, and that shred of immortality is
our good name, and the memories that others have of us,
that we were loved, that we were liked, that we
did the best we could, and even when we didn't,
we made amends and tried again to do better. We
(10:52):
have to think about our legacy and what we want
others to remember about us. Is not too soon, but
it sometimes can be too late. Not too late to
make a difference, but sometimes too late to think about
the difference that we want to make, because death can
happen at any moment, and that's why Jewish communities organize
(11:13):
the cemetery long before they thought they might be needed,
because death happens sometimes when we least expected. So what
will your legacy be? Will it be only wealth and
monetary gains or will it be a good name? Will
it be an accumulation of deeds? Will it be lessons
(11:34):
that you taught your children or grandchildren, or lessons that
you modeled with them, even if you didn't use your words.
Will it be love and affection? Will it be forgiveness
and renewal? Will it be faithfulness that you can lend
to future generations to find in faith what you found
in faith? Or is it something else? Sometimes when I
(11:57):
meet with seniors in high school and teach them, they
know and I do that they're leaving for college and
when they think about what they're packing, they think of
their clothes and all kinds of things that will make
their small dorm room feel more like home. But then
I ask them, what about Jewish ritual what about Jewish memory?
(12:18):
What about your Jewish family life of heritage and culture?
What part of that will you pack with you? The
conversation goes on and on. They talk about holidays and rituals,
and occasions and vacations and memories. Those are the things
they take with them do and those are the things
that they will replicate and duplicate because they were part
(12:38):
of the rhythm of the life that they were raised in.
That's part of the enduring legacy. So even as you
contemplate what will be part of your enduring memory that
you leave to others, what will you prepare for them
to duplicate, to replicate when they make their own homes,
when they raise their own children, when they teach their grandchildren.
(13:01):
It doesn't have to be everything. Everybody has to go
into the life that they're given. But what small measure,
what souvenir of your life would you like others to
know about you? Sometimes we call it an ethical will
rather than a living will or a monetary will. What
ethic teaching will be so important that you would like
(13:24):
others to have it? I'm Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation
Beth Israel in Houston. To listen again or share this
message with others, please find it my podcast called Heart
to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon. You can find it
at Sunny ninety nine dot com on the iHeartRadio app.
These are days when we think about what is most important.
(13:47):
When some values, some traditions, and rituals are discarded or denied,
we know in our heart and soul that long ago
we were treated to the gifts of previous generations. We
love them, we remember them. So what do we want
to preserve and cause to endure in the future too.
(14:09):
We can't bury everything in the ground, and we shouldn't.
What do we pass on? I don't think it's all
the scraps of paper and report cards that we say
from our children. It must be the memories that they
can carry with them much more easily and not store
in storage units, but rather in their hearts and souls
and minds. Give it some thought, make a note, have
(14:32):
conversations now and not later with your children and grandchildren
about what matters most to you, so they might make
it matter most to them as well. For now, give
it some thought and then share some conversation. Thank you
for joining me today. I look forward to being with
you again next time.
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