Bulletin Chayei Sara

Welcome • ohtcv ohfurc
Shabbat Shalom • ouka ,ca
Shabbat Chayei Sara
27 Heshvan 5784 • November 11, 2023
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Thank You VETERANS

Yahrtzeiten
Nov 11
Nov 12
Nov 13
Nov 17
Philip Garon
Allen Menkin
Ellen Macks
Janice Chartoff
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Nov 11 • 27 Cheshvan Sara Blanche Margolis – Mother of Jeffrey Margolis
Rose Gelb
– Mother of Terri Kline
Nov 12 • 28 Cheshvan Harry Rothstein – Father-in-law of Stephen Iser
Nov 13 • 30 Cheshvan Gert Hak
– Aunt of Elaine Kamin
Nov 14 • 1 Kislev Isaac Geist – Brother of Sam Geist
Eva Cherkasky – Mother of Belle Agronin
Nov 15 • 2 Kislev Eleanor Bohnen – Mother of Judith Levitt
Nov 17 • 4 Kislev Fran Bowman – Sister of Ferne Walpert
Birthdays
Anniversaries
Nov 11 Stacey & Franklin Baum (34)
Nov 12 Lisa & Mark Ratner (34)
Nov 17 Liuva & Pablo Sando (4)
Shabbat Kiddush Sponsored by:
Harvey Rosenthal
In Honor of our Veterans
Stuart & Terri Kline
In memory of Terri’s mother Rose Gelb
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Mavens: Rosalee Bogo & Steve Chizzik
Assisted by: Shelley Goodman, Joe Hammerman, Arlene Levin, Isabel
Ramos, Linda & Shep Scheinberg, & Sue Wasserman
5and Arleen Sivakoff
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5784 – 2023-2024
Sponsor a Kiddush
Contact Arleen Sivakoff: 239.455.8811
dsivakoff@aol.com

Torah & Haftarah Readings:
Shabbat Parshat Chayei Sara: Genesis 24:10-24:52 (Cycle 2) (Etz Hayim p. 132)
1. 24:10-14 2. 24:15-20 3. 24:21-26 4. 24:27-33
5. 24:34-41 6. 24:42-49 7. 24:50-52 M. 25:16-18 (p. 141)
Torah Commentary
D’var Torah:
Haftarah: I Kings 1:1-31 (p. 143)
Sending Into the Unknown - Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Rebecca loves and is loved something fierce. Everyone who knows her adores
and respects her. Yet she will choose to leave her family twice over, choose to
step out of love into the unknown. First, in our parashah, she chooses to follow
a man she does not know to a place she has only heard of, leaving behind her
family and her life. Next week, she will send her beloved son away, dissolving
the new family she has formed. In both cases, Rebecca does what needs to be
done. She leaves to form new lives, she sends away in order to preserve life.
Rebecca learns both the anguish of leaving home and the anguish of sending
away her child.
Rebecca’s parting from her parents and brother is one of the most beautiful
moments in the Torah. It is infused with courage and hope. After as many days
of delaying as they can manage, after putting off the moment of separation,
the time to leave finally arrives. Her mother and her brother want to keep her,
saying, “Let her stay with us for a few more days, maybe ten days, and then
she’ll go.” But the time for departure has arrived and Rebecca makes the choice
to leave. They ask her, “Will you go with this man?” and she replies, “Elech, I
will go.” As hard as it is for her family to let her leave, they do. They keep a brave
face and wish her luck and love. Their final words to her are a blessing: “Sister
of ours, may you become thousands of myriads. And may your seed possess
the gate of those who hate them.”
Rebecca is called not to battle but to marriage. Still, as she goes off, her family
wishes for her security, the ability to keep herself and the children they hope
she will have safe. They also have no doubt that there will be those who hate
her descendants. They cannot bless her with everlasting peace; these people
who have to send their child away know that someday she too may have to
send her child away. They bless her with success. They remind her that they
love her, that she will always be their sister.
Rebecca’s journey west to Canaan mirrors Abraham’s initial journey in Lech
Lecha. She too chooses to lech. Abraham will be father of many; Rebecca too is

lessed with innumerable descendants. Rebecca and Abraham both converse
with God, both express their fear over acquiring children. But unlike Rebecca,
Abraham is not sent out with love. Abraham’s initial departure from his family
is not recorded in the Torah. We get no words of promise, no overwhelming
outpouring of love from his parents and siblings as he leaves them. Later
rabbinic midrash takes this a step further and imagines that his family is angry
with him, that his family even harbors murderous thoughts towards him.
Abraham repeats this behavior when he becomes a parent. When it comes
time for him to send out Isaac, to let Isaac have his own lech lecha moment,
Abraham cannot do it. He does not know how to send forth his child with
love, to trust that the time has come for his child to take care of him. He has
bound Isaac too tightly to him. Instead, Abraham sends forth a nameless
servant, making him promise not to take Isaac with him no matter what. Isaac
won’t get a chance to grow up, to prove himself, to enter into adulthood in the
company of his father. Instead, Isaac got the akedah and then was homebound.
Rebecca, however, will mirror her family’s behavior when she becomes
a parent. Though it breaks her heart, she will send her son on his own lech
lecha journey back to Haran, back to her own family. She will wish him well,
surround him with her love and her promise. Jacob will go and he will succeed.
He will struggle but he will carry on that promise and pass on that love when
he too must send his children away from home, down to Egypt. There has
never been a time when we haven’t had to leave our parents, when we haven’t
had to send our children away. As Milcah and Laban sent Rebecca with love
and courage, as Rebecca sent Jacob, so too do we send ours with blessing, with
hope, and with breaking hearts.
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