Parshat Vayera
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron
בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Yearning for the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land
וַיִּשְׁמַע אַבְרָהָם אֶל עֶפְרוֹן וַיִּשְׁקֹל אַבְרָהָם לְעֶפְרֹן אֶת הַכֶּסֶף אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּאָזְנֵי בְנֵי חֵת אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שֶׁקֶל כֶּסֶף עֹבֵר לַסֹּחֵר:
Enduring One, may Your mercy be aroused and please take pity on the son of Your beloved because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely, to see speedily the splendour of Your strength..."[1]
The words for "yearning intensely" - "nichsof nicsafti" - are a clear allusion to Laban's description of Yakov's flee stemming from intensive yearning - "nichsof nichsafta" to the Holy Land in general, and Hebron, "the abode of your father" (Isaac), in specific.[2]
Indeed, the yearning for Hebron can be traced even further back to the purchase of Maarat HaMachpela by Avraham in our title quote from our parsha in the form of the same word root - k.s.f, here used to mean money, but also extrapolated in the Zohar to allude to the 400 spiritual worlds of pleasure yearned for and achieved by the righteous.[3]
We can understand that the usage of the root k.s.f. both for yearning and money is not simply a play on words: money and where one puts it is a product of one's yearning for a particular matter or thing. Last year on this week's parsha we discussed the great halachic importance attached to purchasing land from gentiles in the Land of Israel, as a type of regaining and/or re-conquering of the Holy Land for the People of Israel, so important that it can override Rabbinic prohibition on Shabbat in an unprecedented level.[4]
In parshat Balak this past year we discussed how this re-ownership and re-unity with the land is compared to the unity of husband and wife by Isaiah, which also begins with yearning, kisufin, and money, kesef, of kidushin (betrothal).[5] In both cases, marriage and purchase of the Land of Israel, the Holy Presence rests between husband and wife and between the People and the Holy Land.[6]
It is therefore no surprise that adjacent to the story of the purchase of Maarat HaMachpela appears the story of the marriage of Rivka to Yitzhak. The telling of the story of the purchase of the Machpela Cave is not only important history giving our people a deeper claim to our Holy Land - the very methods of marriage and of ownership in general in halacha are extrapolated by our sages from the story of Avraham's purchase of the Machpela Cave in this week's parsha.[7]
Our sages teach us that in truth HaShem first 'looked' at the supernal Torah and thereby created the world.[8]This means that, if the halachic source of marriage, all ownership and monetary possession stems from this 'story', then that means that all marriage and possession in the world over stem from the lessons and secrets imbibed and hidden in the story of the purchase of
Maaras HaMachpela.
Real stories from the Holy Land #41: "My name is Moshe. I once came across a book titled "Maarat Sdeh HaMahpela", which was called such partially because its author, a famous kabbalist, was named Moshe, coming out of the acrostic of this title. This past Shabbat I was honored with hagba (raising the Torah scroll for all to see), and as I lifted the Torah I wanted to look for the letter mem on the scroll, as there is a custom to look for the first letter of one's name on the Torah scroll when lifted. Without any effort, the first words my eyes centered on, among hundreds of words before me, were no other than "Maarat Sdeh HaMachpela".
[1]Yedid Nefesh
[2]Gen. 31, 30
[3]Zohar 1, 123b
[4]Rambam Shabbat 6, 11 and Orah Haim 306, 11
[5]Isaiah 62, 5
[6]Sotah 17a and Yalkut Shimoni Tehilim 863 and much more
[7]Beginning of tract. Kidushin at length
[8]Zohar 2, 161a
