D’var Torah by Rabbi Zischa Shaps
Last weekend, we lost 2 Giants in the Jewish world, Rabbi Dovid Feinstein and
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.
This week’s Torah reading begins with the passing of another giant, Avraham’s wife
Sarah. The majority of the Parsha deals with the search for a wife for Yitzchak.
When Yitzchak marries Rivka, the Torah states Isaac brought her into his mother
Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was
comforted after his mother’s death. Chizkuni (R. Chizkiya ben Manoach 13th century)
comments that Yitzchak was comforted because Rivka was similar to Sarah in her
actions.
Three years after his mother’s death, Yitzchak still felt it strongly, something was
lacking and he felt a hole in his being. It was only after he married Rivka and saw
that she had the same qualities as his mother Sarah did the hole begin to fill and
he was able to be comforted.
When someone dies there are different levels of loss. The closer you are to the
person the more you will feel the loss of the individual and your relationship with
them. But in addition to this personal loss, there is the loss of everything that
person did and represented.
We have been given a gift of forgetting that allows the pain of loss to lessen as time
goes by. But forgetting doesn’t fill the void left by the person in terms of their
contributions to your life and to the world and society. That requires someone else
to step up and fill that void. It was only after he saw that Rivka had the same
qualities as his mother, was Yitzchak able to be fully comforted. The special
character of Sarah and the acts of kindness and charity that she performed were
manifested in Rivka and were once again a part of Yitzchak’s life.
For most of us, we did not know Reb Dovid or Rabbi Sacks personally. Yet we
gained so much from them both knowingly and unknowingly. Their contributions
to the Jewish people and the world in general has left a void that cannot be easily
filled. We will all feel the pain of loss until someone else steps up to fill the void and
provide the clear, broad Halachic knowledge of Reb Dovid and the keen insight and
compassion of Rabbi Sacks.
Yet, we can do something to lessen the loss for each other. If we continue to learn the
lessons they taught and make those teachings a part of our lives, then we can all be
consoled with the knowledge that their unique qualities still live on within each one of
us.
Shabbat Shalom,
The JET Team
