Delivered: November 15, 2014 by Joe Nalven
Parashah: Hayyei Sarah – Genesis 23.1-25.18

The title of this week’s parashat is The Life of Sarah, a life, which in its totality ends, as with us all, in our mortality — and a quest to find a burial place. It is also how we remember those who have been significant to us.

For Abraham, the question is about securing a permanent burial site for Sarah. Not one that can be reclaimed by some future people. This parashat also tells the interesting adventure Abraham’s servant has in obtaining a wife, Rebekah, for Isaac. Abraham insists that the wife must be willing to return to his land – the land in which Sarah has been buried. This is also understandable in a patrilineal, patrilocal society. Go and live near the father.

Today, I would like to focus on the land in which Abraham lives as a resident alien. About how he bought some land for burying Sarah. His purchase represents one of the two models in the Torah for getting land. The purchase also represents the property he gives to Isaac when dies.

Of course, the much, much longer human history is one of living as hunter/ gatherers, which gave way to the idea of owning the land, arising in the sedentary ways of a populous agricultural society. The ownership of land, and its connection to a more complex social organization, has been with us for only some 12,000 years measured against a continuity of human society for a million or more years.

In the Torah, there are two models for obtaining land: There is Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah as a burial site for Sarah. This included the purchase of the surrounding field and followed the requirements of Hittite law.

Let us take a closer look at Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Macpelah. In one sense, this burial site started as perhaps the first holy structure for the Jews. Maybe Abraham did not think of this as a consecrated site, but it has become so for Jews, Christians and particularly the Muslims. The Muslim community is responsible for the care of the Tomb of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs. All of the matriarchs and patriarchs are presumably buried there except for Rachel.

[I am passing out a two-sided mini-narrative of the Cave of Machpelah – at its inception and to the present. See the drawing by Gustav Dore of Abraham leaving the burial of Sarah at the Cave. Consider the history of Herod building up the site 2,000 years ago to provide a place for Jewish prayers. Consider the conquest of Hebron by the Muslim dynasty of the Mamelukes where Jews were not allowed to pass the 7th step, now that it became a mosque. Then, it became a Church during the Crusades and back again as a mosque until 1967 when a Religious Trust (the Waqf) was allowed to administer the site and Jews again received many of the rights to pray there (but only 10 days a year in the largest room of Isaac). See referenced material below.]

The text in Genesis describes Abraham bargaining with Ephron, the Hittite, not just for the price of the land but also revealing the legal context of Hittite law in which it is important to understand ilku (obligations of the land owner to the king). If Abraham just buys a portion of Ephron’s land – that is, just the cave and not the field, then Ephron must still carry out his ilku obligations to the king or lord of the area. However, if Ephron sells his entire property (the cave and the field), then Abraham gets the land AND he now carries the burden of ilku – at least under Hittite law. I’m not sure what Abraham is getting into, but having his son Isaac stay with the land is important should the family have to render obligatory service to the local king. Such would have been otherwise had Abraham been bargaining with Babylonians where the obligation would have attached to the individual rather than to the land.

The second model of land ownership in the Torah is quite different: there is Joshua’s [1355-1245 BCE] conquest of the land of Canaan in various battles from Jericho to Gibeon – at Gibeon, God acceded to the request of Joshua to have the moon and sun stand still so that Joshua could fight the battle in sunlight.

Now, for us, who live and own property here in California, we should be aware that these two models in the Torah were also present here as well. There was the westward movement of U.S. settlers with the belief in manifest destiny – of a divine mission to expand the territory of the new nation to the Pacific ocean. That was the Joshua model at work in making California a United States possession.

For most of us, we obtained our land through a legal purchase with all the obligations due to the state and federal jurisdictions. Translate that as “taxes” and observing the various administrative codes – our modern version of the Hittite ilku.

I mention our own context in California so that we can see that we are not so different from present day Israelis – who occupy land both as a result of conquest and purchase.

Many of the Jewish settlers in Palestine bought their land from the local Arabs – the Abraham model; it was not until the 1948 war on independence that the Joshua model of conquest once again redeems Israel as a nation.

Sometimes, conquest is first; at other times, purchase is first. But both can be, and both are, present in contemporary California and Israeli land ownership.

And therein lies the problem for Israel and us Californians. Let me sketch this problem out for you.

As you know, the United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned Israel in 45 resolutions as of 2013 since its creation in 2006. And from 1967 to 1989 the <a”href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council”>UN Security Council adopted 131 <a ” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_resolution”>resolutions directly addressing the href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict”>Arab–Israeli conflict. What is particularly interesting is that the United Nations General Assembly adopted a number of resolutions saying that the strategic relationship with the United States encourages Israel to pursue aggressive and expansionist policies and practices.

Aha! We are closer to Israel in our respective policies and practices. I take that to mean that we both occupy land that we don’t really deserve to.

In this light, it is easy to understand that the UN General Assembly has now declared that California must be given back! The UN did not say to whom California must be given back – just that it be given back. At least in Israel, the Israelis know who the expected recipients are of the land that is owned by Israel, whether by war or purchase (or even as a result of the British and French post-colonial practice of creating new countries in the Middle East).

My thought is that we can further our understanding of having to give back the land that the Israeli’s are expected to return.

Who do you plan on getting your property when California gives back the land? To Mexico who had it only 35 years or so? To Spain, who held California for much longer? To Russia who owned Alaska and had a settlement in Sebastopol, California? Or maybe to the Native Americans?

Or, would we refuse to return our land regardless of world opinion or that of the UN?

The Cave of Macpelah was bought by Abraham with the assumption that the property would remain in his Jewish family. And now it is under the care of the Muslim community in the West Bank. Is this the same family that Abraham intended when he sent Haggar and Ishmael out into the desert? The same brothers Ishmael and Isaac who both bury Abraham in this Cave at Machpelah, in Hebron?

History has an odd way of explaining who really owns the land – whether by purchase, by conquest or by that odd institution that some see as the salvation and righting of past injustice – the United Nations.

You might be thinking and I would too that the United Nations didn’t really pass a resolution against the U.S. for its possession of California. But we should. If we think of the condemnation of how we own land in California as being little different from that of Israel (and many, many other lands gained throughout history) then perhaps we would refrain from telling Israel about how it occupies its land.

Would we no longer build in California if Mexico insisted on its return? I think not.

We have accepted our manifest destiny, why not allow Israel to accept its as well?

Reference Material on Machpelah

Hebron:   Tomb of the Patriarchs (Ma’arat HaMachpelah)
The Cave of Machpelah is the world’s most ancient Jewish site and the second holiest place for the Jewish people, after Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The cave and the adjoining field were purchased—at full market price—by Abraham some 3700 years ago. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah are all later buried in the same Cave of Machpelah. These are considered the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people. The only one who is missing is Rachel, who was buried near Bethlehem where she died in childbirth.

The double cave, a mystery of thousands of years, was uncovered several years ago beneath the massive building, revealing artifacts from the Early Israelite Period (some 30 centuries ago). The structure was built during the Second Temple Period (about two thousand years ago) by Herod, King of Judea, providing a place for gatherings and Jewish prayers at the graves of the Patriarchs.

This uniquely impressive building is the only one that stands intact and still fulfills its original function after thousands of years. Foreign conquerors and invaders used the site for their own purposes, depending on their religious orientation: the Byzantines and Crusaders transformed it into a church and the Muslims rendered it a mosque. About 700 years ago, the Muslim Mamelukes conquered Hebron, declared the structure a mosque and forbade entry to Jews, who were not allowed past the seventh step on a staircase outside the building.

Upon the liberation of Hebron in 1967, the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, the late Major-General Rabbi Shlomo Goren, was the first Jew to enter the Cave of Machpelah. Since then, Jews have been struggling to regain their prayer rights at the site, still run by the Muslim Waqf (Religious Trust) that took control during the Arab conquest. Many restrictions are imposed on Jewish prayers and customs at the Tomb of the Patriarchs despite the site’s significance, primacy and sanctity in Jewish heritage and history.

Over 300,000 people visit Ma’arat HaMachpelah annually. The structure is divided into three rooms: Ohel Avraham, Ohel Yitzhak, and Ohel Ya’akov. Presently Jews have no access to Ohel Yitzhak, the largest room, with the exception of 10 days a year.