Parashat Hayei Sarah – 5787

Telling Our Stories

A D’var Torah for Parashat Hayei Sarah

By Rabbi Rachel Posner

In this week’s parashah, both Abraham and Sarah breathe their last and reach the end of their long and significant lives. Yet most of this week’s parashah is taken up by the story of the mission of Abraham’s servant—traditionally known as Eliezer, although he is unnamed in our parashah—to find a wife for Isaac. Remarkably, the episode is narrated and then retold from Eliezer’s perspective. It’s remarkable because Eliezer’s voice takes up an unheard-of amount of biblical real estate. The Bible tells multiple creation stories, and biblical motifs get repeated (e.g., the sister-wife narratives). But I can’t think of another instance in which we hear a detailed retelling of a story from a character’s perspective—let alone the perspective of an unnamed servant!

Since the Bible tends to be incredibly terse, why do we hear a telling, and then a retelling? I want to suggest that this slice of the Torah invites us to pay attention to the act of storytelling—as communication, as ritual, and as transmission of legacy. Stories allow us to communicate a message that, paradoxically, would be diminished if stated directly. Stories also help build relationships. The act of telling our stories shapes how we see ourselves and, ultimately, who we are.

My paternal grandmother, Helen, was a particularly powerful storyteller. As an adult reflecting on evenings spent at her kitchen table, moments where time seemed to slow down, I ask myself: What was my grandmother’s intended message to her audience—me, her American granddaughter? Helen—known in childhood as Henny—came to the US at age seven, in between the wars. She shared many stories about her childhood in Poland, tales of terror—the pogroms that tore through her town—but also tales of whimsy: falling asleep in a basket of plums in her family’s orchard. There were tales of the ship crossing: how she cried when her mother shaved off her beautiful blond hair to prevent lice, and how the sailors would play ball with the children on the deck of the ship.

But there was one story that was my grandmother’s central story—the story that her life hinged on, the story that defined her. This story was repeated often and took up a lot of space: the story of Helen losing her husband, Julius. The story began with their meeting as teenagers; he gave her a ring and asked her to go steady with him. “He was the love of my life,” she would say. At the pinnacle of the story, my grandfather was an athlete and a young father, swimming in the ocean at Brighton Beach and riding his bicycle over the Manhattan Bridge to work in the family jewelry business. One day he fell off his bicycle, and very soon after that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and soon after that he was dead, leaving her alone to care for two young children. Helen did not know how to drive; she had never held a job. Suddenly she had to figure it all out on her own.

I can see myself sitting at the kitchen table across from my grandmother, enthralled in her story, though I had heard it so many times before. Suddenly, she had to figure it all out on her own. This was the ikar, the essence she intended to deliver to me: you could lose the person you love and depend on at any moment. You need to be able to figure it out on your own, to stand on your own two feet. My grandmother seemed to be telling this story with her life, over and over again. It was her ikar, her essence.

Back to Eliezer. What is the ikar, or essence, of his story? What can we learn from his retelling of the tale from his perspective? The Bible gives us some sense of the urgency and importance of the act of storytelling when (in Genesis 24:33) food is placed before Eliezer and he says he will not eat until he can tell the story. I can see the food getting cold as he tells his story! The details are almost exactly the same, but in Eliezer’s telling the narrative is reshaped slightly to deliver the message that Rebecca leaving with him to marry Isaac is divinely ordained, a foregone conclusion. The ikar of Eliezer’s story seems to be that Eliezer is an instrument of the Divine; God is working through him. Eliezer needs Rebecca’s family to understand that they are all playing a role in a divine plan that reaches out beyond them. Rashbam on Genesis 24:42 explains: “Eliezer’s very detailed speech was designed to impress his listeners with how God had been the principal factor in everything which had transpired at the well.”

Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi, 1160–1235) also commented: “Eliezer told them all that had gone on between himself and his master, his transactions with Rebecca, and that God had providently arranged matters just as Abraham had promised. His emphasis on this point was to impress on them that they had no alternative. They could not stop the girl from accepting the marriage offer since the matter was from God.”

Storytelling is a central feature of Judaism; we are commanded to teach our children our central story of our journey from slavery to freedom, the Exodus narrative. Sfat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger) says that “the exodus from constriction happens by means of telling the story. This is the power of the mouth: by means of bringing forth words out of our mouths, we uncover hidden meanings and arrive at revelation.”[1] Revelation through story lands with greater impact than merely stating a premise or perspective. By telling our stories, we effect liberation from our own personal mitzrayim, our narrow places, through increasing understanding and psychological flexibility. “The more we tell our story, the deeper we can go in our awareness of the fact that it is just a story, and the more we can come to appreciate the many ways we can narrate our lives.”[2] Labeling something as “just a story” does not negate its power or impact; rather, it leaves open the possibility of a multiplicity of truth and wisdom. Appreciating the fluid nature of stories is an important mechanism for healing. As a therapist, I have been trained to work in stories and metaphors to help people heal.

Indeed, our minds are wired for stories. Storytelling is good for us spiritually, and also on a physiological level. Researchers[3] have found that listening to stories modulates physiological responses to stress for children in the ICU. When we listen to another’s story, we enter their world and see things through their eyes. This is particularly powerful for children hearing stories from adult caregivers. We can transform trauma and make meaning out of our lives through storytelling. Researchers and therapists have even developed a psychotherapeutic treatment—Narrative Therapy—that harnesses the power of storytelling for healing.

In our parashah, the Bible asks us to consider the story from the perspective of someone who is marginal—a servant, not a patriarch or matriarch—yet who plays a key role. I think of how the musical Hamilton transformed the story of the birth of our country for my children, for a generation of Americans. The musical’s closing number begins with the voices of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Madison:

Every other founding father’s story gets told
Every other founding father gets to grow old

And when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?
Who tells your story?
Who tells your story?

Yet it culminates in the lone voice of Eliza, the matriarch on the margins:

I put myself back in the narrative
I stop wasting time on tears
I live another fifty years
It’s not enough

I interview every soldier who fought by your side
I try to make sense of your thousands of pages of writings
You really do write like you’re running out of time

Eliza raises funds for the Washington Monument; she founds an orphanage in New York City. She tells the stories of the revolution, the founding of the country, of Alexander Hamilton. What Lin-Manuel Miranda taught us—his ikar—is to listen to the voices of those whose stories have been buried or forgotten. What happens when we move these voices from the edges, the margins, to the center?

We might ask: Who is the hero of this story? Arguably, it is Rebecca. You might argue it’s Isaac. Perhaps it is Eliezer. And maybe the hero is God, working behind the scenes to connect the threads of the tapestry of our family, our legacy. You might say that Eliezer’s narrative takes God from the margins and places God at the center of the story. It’s an invitation to us, right now. What happens when we put God, the Great Mystery, the Source of Being, at the center of our story?

[1] Sfat Emet, Passover 1875:5 as translated by Josh Feigelson, Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practice for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022), 24.

[2] Josh Feigelson, Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practice for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda Press, 2022), 25.

[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-stories-of-our-lives/202106/storytelling-is-good-for-us-and-our-bodies