Chayei Sarah: What Can You do for Am Yisrael?

By Meir Jacobs

It was a brisk but sunny winter day on twentieth of January, 1961, and despite the 8 inches of snow which had covered the D.C. area the day before, thousands of citizens gathered to hear President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address to the nation. During his 14-minute speech, considered to be one of the best inaugural speeches of a U.S. president in history, he uttered the now-famous phrase “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”.

A common refrain among the political right in America is the nationwide loss of this attitude put forth by Kennedy. As the West has, as a whole, moved away from Judeo-Christian values and morals, the sense of duty and obligation towards one’s community and one’s country has been largely supplanted by an overwhelming focus on one’s own wants and needs, at the cost of the needs of their community and broader nation. And as such, that sense of community and camaraderie which came with simply being an American who loves and cares about the welfare of his country and those in it, has been all but lost.

The גמרא in ברכות יג notes that אברם’s name was changed to אברהם because originally he was אב לארם, but then Hashem changed him to being an אב המון גוים.The מהרש”א explains this to mean that originally אברם was the father of ישמעאל, but Hashem changed his name to אברהם because of the המון גוים, the 12 שבטים, which would come from him through יצחק. Similarly, Hashem changed שרי’s name to שרה because her name needed to match her role. The word שרי is possessive, meaning “השר שלי”, my שר, my nobleman/noblewoman. Before the birth of Yitzchak, since שרה was childless, her influence was limited to those who knew her from her community, and had that continued to be the case, her legacy would cease at the time of her death. But just like the change from אברם to אברהם, the ה in שרה indicates a broadening of שרה’s role as well, to the שר of המון גוים. In order to prepare them for the birth of the Jewish people which would ultimately come from them, Hashem changed their names and their roles to being models not only for themselves and their community, but also to modify their essence, to frame their decisions in a way which would consider the outcome for their future generations as well.

And the proof that אברהם and שרה carried this new role to their deaths is in פרשת חיי שרה. Rav Hirsch asks on the first pasuk, וַיִּהְיוּ֙ חַיֵּ֣י שָׂרָ֔ה מֵאָ֥ה שָׁנָ֛ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה וְשֶׁ֣בַע שָׁנִ֑ים שְׁנֵ֖י חַיֵּ֥י שָׂרָֽה, about the last 3 words, שני חיי שרה, that they are seemingly extra. The pasuk already said that שרה lived for 127 years, why repeat שני חיי שרה. Rav Hirsch explains that the torah is emphasizing that those 127 years of שרה’s life were just the years of her life, but not her life as a whole. Her whole life can’t be fully encompassed by the number of years that she lived because her actions and the way she carried herself and made decisions were not just about herself, but about the Jewish people which would come from her. So it would be impossible to fairly encompass שרה’s impact by the years that she lived, because the impact that she had on future generations of her descendants, עם ישראל, lasts עד היום הזה.

While there are many cultural differences between Americans and Israelis, one stark contrast that I’ve seen is the difference in perspective on the פרט vs. the כלל, the individual vs. the community. In Israel, there seems to be much more of a focus on the כלל, and in America on the פרט. For example, in Hakotel there was a strong emphasis on responsibility for not only your own growth, but on the growth of others as well. You should be having chavrusas with שנה אלף guys, and you should be giving chaburas to others and attending others’ chaburas, even if it comes at the expense of your own learning. In YU, in my eyes, it seems that the focus is much more about personal growth, with less of a push to help others along. Not that it’s not a value, just that there’s less of an emphasis. And I think that perspective is pervasive amongst the broader community as well, which has other implications. For example, while there are a host of reasons why people don’t make aliyah, I believe one of them is an over-emphasis on one’s personal goals and wants, at the expense of the good of כלל ישראל. The thought that since I’m more comfortable here because of the salaries, the physical niceties, and the sense of familiarity with the system and culture, then that should override כלל ישראל’s overarching destiny of ושבו בנים לגבולם.

And perhaps, especially in light of the current situation, it’s time for a reevaluation of our perspective on פרט vs כלל. We need to make the ideological transition from being an אברם to an אברהם, a שרי to a שרה, to claim repsonsibility for the present and the future of כלל ישראל.

Last shabbos, I heard a drasha from Rabbi Anthony Manning, who said that he was certain that, halachically speaking, we are fighting a מלחמת מצוה, and as such, halacha dictates that even the חתן and כלה are pulled away from their חופה to fight in the war, whatever role that be, whether on the physical battlefield, on the spiritual front in the בית מדרש, or materially helping כלל ישראל’s war effort in some other way.

We are all part of עם ישראל. We all have equal responsibility in the destiny of עם ישראל. And every life decision we make should be decided through the lens of what’s best for עם ישראל. So ask not what עם ישראל can do for you, but what you can do for עם ישראל.