Hayyei Sarah III: Genre

ואומר י"י אלהי אדוני אברהם וגו' - כל אריכות דברים להודיעם שמאת הק' יצא הדבר:

One of the most striking things about our parashah is the repetitive nature of the narrative. Not only do we hear about the Avraham’s servant’s journey in great detail, but we then here him retell it in all its picayune glory to Rivkah’s family. Why is this repetition necessary?

My question itself presumes something about the Torah: that it only tells us that which is necessary. Indeed, many voices in Hazal approach the Torah in this way, assuming it to prize parsimony of language and they relate to it as a mythic, mystical work where every word is (and must be) pregnant with meaning. That is why this week’s parashah was so troubling to those who would seek deep purpose in every line of the Torah. Consider the following midrash in Bereishit Rabbah 60:

א"ר אחא יפה שיחתן של עבדי בתי אבות מתורתן של בנים, פרשתו של אליעזר שנים וג' דפים הוא אומרה ושונה, ושרץ מגופי תורה ואין דמו מטמא כבשרו אלא מריבוי המקרא, רשב"י אומר טמא הטמא ר"א בן יוסי אומר זה וזה.

Said R. Aha: “The idle chatter of the servants of our forefathers is [apparently] more precious than the teachings of their children! The parashah discussing the adventures of Eliezer (the midrash assumes the anonymous servant of Chapter 24 to be none other than דמשק אליעזר, who is referred to in Bereishit 15:2 as the still-childless Avraham’s presumed heir) can take up two or three pages (of parchment when written out in a Torah scroll) and is told twice. On the other hand, with regard to the impurity of reptiles—which is a fundamental principle in the Torah—we only learn that the blood of reptiles defiles as powerfully as their flesh from an exegetical inference! (The midrash then proceeds to give the inference from Vayikra 11:29 that produces this law; see further at Sifra Shemini Parashah 5:2.)

R. Aha hardly knows what to do with our chapter; it is so out of character with what he expects from the Torah that he can only conclude that there is some mysterious counterintuitive importance to the stories of our ancestors that we must somehow find a way to appreciate. Rashbam, on Bereishit 24:42, cuts the Gordian knot here and simply understands the genre of the Torah as sometimes being quite different from what R. Aha expected. The Torah indeed tells stories, and those stories often require detail in order to make them compelling and sensible to the reader or the listener. In this case, the lengthy and repetitive telling of the story is critical so that Rivkah’s family will understand how miraculous this match is so that they will quickly send Rivkah back to marry Yitzhak. A simple ויספר להם את כל הדברים האלה—which formulation is indeed found in Bereishit 24:66 when the servant relates the chain of events to Yitzhak—would not have sufficed, since we need to understand how Rivkah’s family came to internalize that מה' יצא הדבר—that this was truly a match made in heaven.

I might also add that this telling also seems to be of great importance in understanding how Rivkah is able to pick up the morning after meeting a stranger at a well to follow him to a land where she has never been to live a life she could not possibly have planned for herself. This story is eerily similar to Avraham’s own journey. But whereas Avraham was given a direct command of לך לך by God, Rivkah receives a more indirect charge through Avraham’s servant and his telling of the momentous events as they unfolded. Without this excruciating level of detail and repetition, Rivkah’s willingness to go seems almost shocking. But with this added telling of the story, we can both admire and understand her.

Hayyei Sarah II: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

השוקת - מלשון וישק את צאן לבן, שם דבר כמו בושת מלשון גם בוש לא יבושו:

והאיש משתאה - מלשון תשאה שממה והתי"ו כמו תי"ו בישתבח מן שבח, וישתמר חוקות עמרי מלשון שמר. כלומר משתומם ומחשב על שאמרה לו זאת הנערה גם לגמליך אשאב. הבין שזימן לו הק' מה שביקש. והמפרש לשון שתייה אי איפשר, מפני שהאלף שבו לא תהיה בלשון שתייה. ועוד שלא אמרה לו רבקה להשקות את גמליו עד לאחר שתייתו ואז התחיל להיות מחשב ותוהא:

מקום לנו ללין - מקום לנו בביתך, ולמה אנו צריכין? ללין, לבית לינה. שם דבר הוא כמו כי יהיה ריב בין אנשים מן וירב בלבן. בין דין לדין [מן דן אנכי. כמו כן לין] שם דבר מן וילן שם בלילה [ה]הוא. אבל היא שאמרה גם מקום ללון, פירושו ללון גופכם כמו לקום, לשוב מצרימה, ואילו היא אמרה גם מקום לכם כמו שאמרו הם מקום לנו, היה לה לומר ללין כמו שאמרו הם, שהיה משמע גם מקום לכם, ולמה? לבית לינה. אבל ללון אין צריך פירוש, שהרי משמע ללון בו בני אדם. זהו עיקר פשוטו למדקדק לשון הקודש:

Anyone who has ever studied Hebrew grammar, whether by taking an Ulpan, going to day school or just cuddling up with a copy of 201 Hebrew Verbs takes it for granted that there are seven בנינים, that “normal” Hebrew verbs are composed of three-letter roots, and that nouns are often grounded in those same roots.

Rashbam’s above comments, however, reveal how much we take for granted based on the painstaking work of our medieval predecessors. First, Rashbam notes that the word שוקת—used in Bereishit 24:20—is a noun, and that its root comes from the verb להשקות, to cause others to drink.

But even the explanatory move I just pulled depends on knowing how to get back to a Hebrew infinitive form, which is itself something Rashbam is working out in the third comment above, on Bereishit 24:23! There, he notes the subtle difference between two similar words in our parashah. When the servant asks Rivkah for a place to stay, he inquires if there is place for him ללין, which Rashbam reads as a lamed followed by a noun form of לין, meaning a place to sleep, parallel to the noun form of דין, meaning judgment. But when Rivkah answers, she says that indeed she has a place ללון, which Rashbam takes to be the infinitive verb form, parallel to other forms like לקום (to get up) or לשוב (to return). Though I am not at all sure a contemporary grammarian would agree with this analysis—I am fairly certain s/he would not—Rashbam’s work here is part of the pioneering effort of medieval Biblicists to sort out the rules we take for granted, and must always be appreciated in that light.

And indeed, the second comment here reveals a work still in process. Commenting on the word משתאה in Bereishit 24:21, Rashbam notes that there were people who saw the verb לשתות—to drink—in this word, and they saw here some kind of reference to the servant’s drinking from Rivkah at this point in the story. Rashbam points out, rightly, that this cannot work with the narrative, since the servant had already drunk by the time the camels were given water, and it is only after all of this that this verb appears. But as he tries to make the grammatical point that the tav in that word is not really a core part of it, we see how primitive the available terminology remained at that point. We would just say: “Of course, that is a hitpa’el form and the root is שאה!” But Rashbam must appeal to patterns and intuition, noting that we seem to have something parallel to the word ישתבח, which, he assumes his reader will concede, is obviously related to שבח (praise). Once one can imagine that tav dropping out, perhaps it can be extended to this case as well. [For other interesting comments in this mode, see Bereishit 26:26; 28:12; 30:11, 37.]

Hayyei Sarah I: Choosing Distinctiveness

ברך את אברהם [בכל] - להודיע האמור לפנינו שלא שלח עבדיו לקחת אשה ממשפחתו מחמת חוסר נשים בארץ כנען שלא יהו רוצין להזדווג לו, שהרי נתברך בכל וכל העולם מתאוים להזדווג לו, אבל הוא לא רצה כי אם ממשפחתו. וזהו שאמר העבד וי"י ברך את אדוני מאד ויגדל, ולכך הוצרך לפרש תחילה ברך את אברהם בכל. כמו וחם [הוא] אבי כנען:

Bereishit 24 opens with the intriguing phrase:וה' ברך את אברהם בכל —that God blessed Avraham with “everything.” Bava Batra 16b features a number of interesting interpretations that see this phrase as hinting at whether Avraham in fact had a daughter or not (with one view suggesting that he had a daughter that he actually named בכל!). These interpretations share an approach that sees this comment as somewhat disconnected from what follows. Rashbam, true to his attentiveness to the pattern of הקדמה, suggests that this passage is in fact intended to set up the next piece of the story—the search for a wife for Yitzhak.

Avraham, Rashbam argues, was among the most famous and beloved people in C’na’an (a fact that indeed seems borne out by the way בני חת treat him in chapter 23), and this is what is meant by his being blessed with “everything”. Canaanite women were lining up around the block for Yitzhak, and it was all Avraham could do to stick to his principles and find a wife for Yitzhak from his own clan.

Not only does this reading help tie the pieces together, but it makes even more poignant and powerful Avraham’s decision to choose distinctiveness in the context of such a welcoming culture. This is surely a lesson for contemporary American Jews; Rashbam’s comment here transforms Avraham from a lonely man standing apart in true faith from the rest of the world into a successful, beloved figure who knew that only he could take the necessary steps to ensure his own spiritual survival.