Sermon: Parashat Chayyei Sarah – Say little, Do much

Written by Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 23 November 2024

Each week in the Alyth office, those of us who are going to be leading services over Shabbat put our heads together and ask each other ‘what is going on in the world?’ ‘what is on people’s minds at the moment?’

This week, as we asked the question, two of us said, almost in chorus:  “WEATHER”!  And it wasn’t until a moment later that someone else said “Aren’t we worried about the possibility of nuclear war?”

I found myself thinking, not about where the nearest bunker is, or even whether I would actually want to be one of the survivors of a nuclear attack anyway, but about the way leaders and politicians– and indeed all of us , talk and promise and threaten, and whether there are any guidelines we can turn to, to help us assess when to take people at their word, when & how to respond, when to walk away, when to threaten or attack in return, when to negotiate, when to concede.

When someone asks: ‘How are you?’, are they just being polite, or do they actually want to know?   When a dog growls, how likely is it to bite? When someone makes an offer which seems too good to be true, what lies behind it? When I enter into negotiation about something which really matters to me, how candid should I be about my ‘bottom line’?

We read the first part of Abraham’s interaction with the local people as he sets out to buy a burial site.  [And we heard how the story continues – with Abraham insisting on paying the full price of the land, which turns out to be a lot of silver].  We are used to reading this account as proud descendants of Abraham – knowing that he wanted the site not just for Sarah, but for himself and his descendants, that he believed he was taking the first steps to fulfil God’s promise about that land, that he wanted his ownership to be established beyond any doubt.

But let us for a moment try to speculate what may have been going on for Ephron.

A bit of me would like to give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that this was a civilised local man, as committed to hospitality and local custom as Abraham himself, and he was making a genuine offer to allow a foreigner to be buried on his land.

• But maybe that was because he just wanted to look good in front of his fellow citizens?
• Or maybe he just wasn’t keen on the idea of a foreigner actually buying up land?
• Or was he a shrewd businessman who knew a good deal when he saw one, and was just playing nice to make sure he did well out of Abraham’s situation?

Some of the commentators take the darker view – indeed suggesting that Ephron is an exemplar of how NOT to do business, contrasting him with Abraham.  They think that Ephron knew exactly what he was doing, and that his initial offer to give the land away was a completely empty promise.

In the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Bava Metzia 87a), the rabbis first cite Abraham as a model of hospitality, referring us to the story at the beginning of last week’s parasha, where Abraham welcomes strangers to his tent, offering to get a ‘pat lechem’ (a morsel, a little something) for them while they rest in the shade – and in fact he runs to the herd, and arranges for a young calf to be prepared, and bread to be made from the best flour, so that he can serve them a generous meal.  The Talmud in the name of R.Elazar then says

From here we learn that the wicked say much and do not do even a little? We derive it from Ephron…who implies at first that he doesn’t need to be paid the value of the land, but then doesn’t complete the transaction until its full worth has been weighed out to him in the best local currency in front of witnesses.

More succinctly, in the Mishna, in Pirkei Avot (in the verse immediately after the Hillel aphorism about ‘if I am not for myself who will be for me’), Hillel’s contemporary and sparring partner Shammai used to say “Say little and do much” (Avot 1:15)

Elsewhere in the same Talmud tractate (Bava Metzia 58b) , the rabbis discuss the harm that can be done through speech, and declare that even to appear interested in merchandise you have no intention of buying is wrong.

Underpromise.  Overdeliver.

That seems to be the message, at least when something positive is at stake.

I think I am happy to accept this as a guide for my own behaviour; I’m less sure that it helps me to be any less hopeless at negotiating, when I’m unsure of the intentions and motivations (or culture, or morals) of the other party – let alone when they are a world power making threats, rather than promises.

Should I/we be preparing ourselves for inevitable doom?

There is a wonderful website ‘My Jewish Learning’ which issues a regular newsletter called Recharge in which someone reflects ‘Jewishly’ about what is going on for them.  This week’s is from the American rabbi Irwin Keller,[1] who talks about reframing his attitude to Time, but starts by admitting some despondency in the wake of the US elections and other world events:

“I have lived my life believing that the world worth having would be had, and that I would witness it….. There are things I imagined I would see in my lifetime that I now know I will not….”

He dips into Talmud not for guidance on words or behaviour, but to help himself move beyond a tendency to look for a ‘Messiah’ to make the world better.

“…the Talmud does not want us living in the future.  All we have is the now,” he says. “While I don’t know if we can bring about a world of peace and justice down the road, I do know we can act for peace and justice now.   We can transform our prayers for the future into our practices for today.

Every day: an act of kindness. Every day: an act of courage….  All I can do is be the best human I can today….”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too concerned about what the rabbis thought of Ephron, but return to Abraham.  Abraham was open about what he needed, he was prepared to pay the full price for it – and despite his grief, once he had completed his mourning for Sarah, the latter part of the parasha tells us how he was able to move on – making provision for the future in practical matters, including making sure his son would have a wife.

Maybe ‘Say little, Do much” is the best available advice for all of us, for now.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

[1] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Recharge-Friday-112224.pdf?utm_source=MJL_Iterable&utm_campaign=MJL_Recharge&utm_medium=email