Lech Lecha: In the merit of Sarah Imeinu

Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha

This week I read a fascinating and, arguably, overlooked interpretation of Parshat Lech Lecha. However, to explain what led me to this interpretation, a little background is necessary.

There are some biblical words which are deceptively simple to translate but which can mean different things in different contexts, and one such word is ‘Vayikach’ - which we generally translate as ‘and he took’.

Of course, when applied to the taking of an object this word demands no further explanation. However, when applied to a person, what does ‘Vayikach’ mean?

If we survey the commentaries, we find that at times ‘Vayikach’ means to take by force. At times it means to take the initiative or to start a process. And at times it means to encourage or persuade someone to do something with words so that you ‘take’ them along with your idea.

With this in mind, Bereishit 12:5 raises a question when we are told: ‘And Avram took (Vayikach) Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the souls [i.e., bondsmen and bondswomen] that they had acquired in Charan, and they went out to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan’. Specifically, what does it mean that Avraham (then, Avram) ‘took’ Sarah (then, Sarai) with him? Did he actually take her by force?

Various suggestions are offered to answer this question, but the interpretation which particularly fascinates me is that of the Alshich who, noting how we have already been told (see Bereishit 11:30) that Sarah was barren, then explains that when Avraham was told by God to journey to the land of Israel where he will be ‘made into a great nation’ (Bereishit 12:2) that Sarah felt that Avraham’s future either hinted to the fact that she would soon die, or that she would be replaced by a second wife. So while ‘Lech Lecha’ was a compelling command for Avraham, it was far less compelling for Sarah. This is why we are told that ‘Avram took (Vayikach) Sarai’ – which the Alshich explains to mean that Avraham had to convince Sarah to join him in their journey.

As this interpretation is a deduction from a single biblical word, we have no information about what Avraham might have said to Sarah. As we know, Sarah acquiesced. But the key point here is that Sarah went to Israel without any clear blessing that things would necessarily work out for her.

If we now leap two parshiot ahead to Chayei Sarah, we find something of great significance. When Sarah dies, Avraham purchases a field from Ephron - which itself is a perpetual record of our ownership of this section of land. But why that field? The words of Eishet Chayil (Mishlei 31:16) suggest that it was because Sarah wished for this field to be purchased.

On this basis, and as Rav David Levanon explains in his ‘Nir David’ commentary to the parsha, Sarah becomes the impetus for the purchase of the first piece of land in Eretz Yisrael, and in her merit, the Jewish people can demonstrate our rights to the land.

So while the Alshich may well have been correct that Sarah was initially reluctant to go to the land of Israel since the blessing to Avraham seemed to marginalize or exclude Sarah, in the end, our connection to the land is in the merit of Sarah Imeinu, and it is an expression of her love of the land.

Shabbat Shalom!

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