The Origins of Land and Bond
In this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, Abraham continues to model exemplary behavior that undergirds Jewish values: He purchases a burial plot for his wife Sarah upon her death, and he immediately seeks a wife for his son Isaac to insure the integrity of the next generation. But it is Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah from the Hittites for her burial that invests ancient, sacred myth with geo-political claim.
Abraham’s insistence upon purchasing that land is understood by our tradition as an assurance that future generations of Jews would feel rightfully entitled to it, and that future generations of others would need to respect that claim. Whether such long-standing assertions rooted in scripture can satisfy more contemporary concerns is the source of much of the debate and conflict arising in the Mideast today.
The people of Israel have an unbroken chain of possession and residence in the land of Israel going back more than 3000 years—even through exile, persecution, and genocide. And yet, other peoples have also occupied that land over the millennia, and thus have some element of standing.
At the end of the portion, as Abraham is also laid to rest in the purchased plot, his sons Isaac and Ishmael (the progenitor of Arab peoples) reunite in love for their father and shared patrimony. How we, their descendants, build on that foundation of shared connection to land and bond is in our hands.