Chaye Sarah: Of Monsters and Men . . . and Women

Sometimes our students pick up on things we didn’t realize we were teaching.
Sometimes our legacy gives illuminating insight about our lives.

Our parsha this week is Chaye Sarah, which means the life - or really lives - of Sarah, but it opens with her death.
This Shabbat is also the bat mitzvah parsha of my student Tamar.
Tamar and I have known each other a long time. She was first my student in 4th grade, she is in our Spill the JEWce book club, and in preparation for her celebration of becoming bat mitzvah I’ve had the joy of continuing to be her teacher. She will be leading worship and sharing her words of Torah at her Conservative shul in California Shabbat morning, and I invited her to share something else she wrote in response to this parsha here. (With her parents’ permission, of course.)

As she learned the Hebrew and the prayers, the tunes and the trop, Tamar and I also studied Torah together. We focused on her parsha, and also the parshiot near or related to her parsha. We read midrash. We listened to related music. We watched videos about Hebron where Abraham buried Sarah. We learned about what wells were like in Ancient Mesopotamia, what life might have been like in Ur, what travel might have been like along the Euphrates River, what their stay in Haran might have been like, and what life was like in their era in Hebron. Over the summer we returned to this parsha, to Chaye Sarah, and read it together again with all of the insight we could bring from these other things we now knew all guided by Tamar’s interests as much as possible.

Why would Rebecca talk with a stranger at a well?
Actually how much water might ten camels drink?
Why was the servant (Eliezer) looking for someone who would give him water and also offer water to his camels?
How far was the well from Rebecca’s home?
How far did everyone have to walk to get water?
Was getting water from the well the only safe way for a family to get water?
Was it actually safe for Rebecca to walk to the well for water?
How heavy was the jar that she had to carry all the way home with water?
What were the gifts that Eliezer gave to Rebecca about?
What would Rebecca say about Tamar’s idea for a mitzvah project?
(Make sure to read all the way to the end to find out about that!)

Tamar wrote her d’var Torah under the direction of her synagogue rabbi.
I invited her to create her own midrash about anything she felt was missing in the story.

How to Get a Good Haircut

By Tamar, 13
Midrash, Chaye Sarah 5784
Genesis 24:10

וַיִּקַּ֣ח הָ֠עֶ֠בֶד עֲשָׂרָ֨ה גְמַלִּ֜ים מִגְּמַלֵּ֤י אֲדֹנָיו֙ וַיֵּ֔לֶךְ וְכׇל־ט֥וּב אֲדֹנָ֖יו בְּיָד֑וֹ וַיָּ֗קׇם וַיֵּ֛לֶךְ אֶל־אֲרַ֥ם נַֽהֲרַ֖יִם אֶל־עִ֥יר נָחֽוֹר׃

“Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and set out, taking with him all the bounty of his master; and he made his way to Aram-naharaim, to the city of Nahor.”

He was riding on one camel, and the other nine were carrying the luggage. In the luggage he had extra water, clothes, a tent so he could sleep in the desert, and wood for fire. On the other camels were presents for the woman who he found. Jewelry and clothes to show his gratitude when she gave his camels water.

While he was traveling, he met a woman who was with a man at a well. She gave the camels water, and she was very beautiful. But after she gave his camels water, she said, “Meet my husband, Bob,” and she introduced the servant to her husband. 

He met another woman who wasn’t strong enough to even pull up the water bucket. She fell down when she was trying to pull it up and needed help. She was very small, and she looked too young. 

And he met a third woman who didn’t want to give him any water. She said, “I don’t trust you, and anyway, you are just a servant.” 

So he kept traveling. He traveled all the way to Nahor. 

Meanwhile, Rebecca was trying to run away from a monster. It was a desert octopus with long blue tentacles that was trying to lash out at all of the women in the community. The monster would always come and drink all of their water, and then the women would have to go get more water. That’s why one of the women went with her husband Bob. Bob was with her because he didn’t want to be with that monster, either. 

“Don’t you just hate it when the monster comes and takes our water?” said Rebecca. On this day in some ways it was just another day with the monster. Like always, the monster drank all their water and Rebecca had to go to the well to get more water for her family.

She took the water buckets and made the not-too-long walk to the well to get the water. She saw a man standing and watching people, like a stalker, and she thought he seemed weird and his hair was sticking up. Then he asked her to get water for him. He said, “Excuse me, I’m Eliezer, could you please help me get water for myself? I’m very thirsty.” His words and his voice were kind, so she wasn’t worried about him anymore. “Okay, I can get you water,” she said. “My name is Rebecca.” And then she got him water and also water for his camels - because it’s not the camels’ fault that he had a bad haircut. 

Rebecca brought him back to her village and he saw that it was destroyed. He asked what had happened and she told him about the monster. He had never heard of such a thing. “You don’t have a monster where you come from?” she asked. “I don’t even know what it is,” he replied. She decided right then and there that if she had an opportunity to leave the village with the monster, she would.

When Abraham’s servant asked her if she wanted to come with him and marry Isaac, she said yes. She offered to give him a haircut, and he said yes.

In the years to come, married to Isaac, officially Eliezer’s hairdresser, sometimes Rebecca missed her village and her family, but she never missed the monster. 


In all of our conversations, there was one thing I think about a lot in this parsha that Tamar never raised:
She didn’t, and with so many other things she was curious about, I didn’t.
Why was Rebecca so eager to leave her home and her family?

After she had her midrash written, I asked her what it was about.
She told me it was about making Rebecca a real person and Eliezer a real person. Making them just . . . people, she said.
I asked her about the monster and she shrugged.
”I don’t know,” she said. “I just felt like there was probably a monster.”
I asked her if she thought there was a reason in the text that might help us understand why Rebecca was so eager to leave.
”The monster,” Tamar insisted.

Genesis Rabbah 60:7-9 highlights the moral differences between Rebecca’s family and Isaac’s. The text emphasizes the righteousness of Abraham and the members of his household, including his servant Eliezer, and points to the lack of integrity and decency of Bethuel and Laban. The negative light of her father and brother and family highlights Rebecca’s positive qualities. It frames her as ethical despite her environment. The Talmudic sages understood Eliezer’s words in v. 33 “I will not eat until I have told my tale” to have been spoken because he knew that they had put a bowl of poisoned food before him thinking to steal his money. While he was talking, continue the sages, an angel came and switched the bowls, placing the dish of poisoned food before Bethuel who ate it and died that night. (Sechel Tov, edited by Buber, Gen 24:33).

The Talmud goes to great lengths to show that Rebecca’s father was a scoundrel, as were the people among whom she lived. (Lev. Rabbah 23:1).

I’ve always understood this story and her eagerness to mean that Rebecca was abused by someone in her family, and that she hoped leaving would get her far away from that person. From that monster.

I realized as I supported Tamar while she worked on her midrash that even though we hadn’t specifically discussed this understanding of Rebecca’s family and hadn’t talked about why she would be so eager to leave or my thoughts about it, we had read the text over and over again. We had taken it apart and put it back together. So much of the story is drawn out. We read details about Eliezer’s travels and about his prayer. We get a repetition of his story. But when Rebecca is asked if she will come with him and marry Isaac, there is no hesitation. Yes, she will come. Her family tries to convince her to linger. She doesn’t pause. She will go. Tamar may not have intentionally picked up on Rebecca’s eagerness, but at this point in her learning, she knew Rebecca. And she knew Rebecca’s family. And she knew Isaac and his family. Rebecca didn’t, but Tamar did. Or maybe it was just so obvious to Tamar that it didn’t warrant spending a lot of time thinking about.
Why was Rebecca eager to leave?
”I just felt like there was probably a monster,” said Tamar.

A monster Rebecca would never miss.

When Tamar told me she wanted to restore a well in a rural village in southern Sudan for her mitzvah project, I wasn’t surprised at all. Everything about it fit. The organization she wanted to partner with was Water for South Sudan. She had learned about it at school.
“It’s the same thing,” she told me. “It’s people who need water. And it’s people who are hoping that a well will change their lives.”
”The way a well changed Rebecca’s life?” I asked.
”Yeah,” she said. “And Eliezer’s and Isaac’s and Abraham’s and everyone’s. Ours, too.”

Ours, too. Because Rebecca is our ancestor. And whether she was a real person, a specific historical individual who lived or a character in a story representing an experience of our ancestors, without her we - the Jewish people - wouldn’t be here. You never know how a well might change things, who you might meet there, the monsters it might let you leave behind.

Salva Dut, the founder of Water for South Sudan, was born in a rural village in southwestern Sudan to the Dinka tribe. From the Water for South Sudan website, “At 11 years old, the Sudanese Civil War reached his village and separated Salva from his family. He joined thousands of boys, famously known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, on their journey by foot to seek safety in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. After living in refugee camps for 10 years, Salva was given the opportunity to move to the United States, where he was embraced by a family in Rochester, New York. Several years later, Salva learned that his father was still alive in Southern Sudan but was suffering with a disease caused by waterborne parasites. His father’s illness inspired Salva to help both his father and his country by bringing clean water to those in need. This was the beginning of Water for South Sudan.”

War. Contaminated water. These are also monsters.
Rehabilitating a single well costs $4,000.

On her fundraising page Tamar asks:

Want to join me in making a difference? I'm raising money to benefit Water for South Sudan, Inc., and any donation will help make an impact. I am doing this for my Bat Mitzvah project. I want to help people in South Sudan get water because, in my Torah portion, Rebecca drew water from a well to help a stranger and his camels. She did this from the kindness of her heart without questions, and just because she knew they needed water. Rebecca saw an opportunity to be kind and took it.

Thank you in advance for donating. If you want to know more information you can check out waterforsouthsudan.org. Again, I really would appreciate it if you donate, and I believe everyone should have the basic things that are needed, like access to clean and safe water. Let's be like Rebecca and help the vulnerable people in South Sudan by rehabilitating their water wells!

In a recent message about her project Tamar explained:

“This Saturday is my Bat Mitzvah. The term “Mitzvah” translates to “commandment” or “good deed” in Hebrew, and Mitzvah Projects are all about putting that commandment into action. As most of you know, I’m raising funds to rehabilitate a single well in South Sudan to provide clean water to the people of South Sudan. More than just providing the much needed resource to communities in need, Mitzvah projects allow us young celebrants to connect with our faith while making a positive and lasting impact on the world, and can start a lifelong commitment to the values of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world). In a world of difference, I will make a difference in the world. Let’s make a difference together.” - Tamar

Want to donate? You can do that right here!

Tamar invites us to be like Rebecca.
Today as we celebrate Tamar and celebrate her becoming bat mitzvah, celebrate how hard she has worked and what she has learned, what she has taught and what she will teach, celebrate the amazing person she is and the person she will continue to become, I’d like to invite us to be like Tamar.

As one of her teachers and one of her rabbis, I know there are ways I see the world now I never could have without knowing her.
The world and I are both better for it.