Sermon: Chayei Sarah

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 7 November 2015

The ages that people live to in the early chapters of the Torah get a bit crazy.  Noah is, according to the Torah 600 years old when he leaves the ark and he then goes on to live to 950 years of age.  Noah though is not the longest life in the bible.   The greatest age in the bible is Methuselah who enjoyed 969 years of life before succumbing to his mortality.

Things calm down before the next death recorded in Torah, as if to tell us that we are leaving legendary time and coming closer to our own era of a lifespan determined by the limitations of our physiology.  That is the death which begins this Torah portion of Chayye Sarah – the life of Sarah, wife of Abraham, mother of Isaac and founder of Judaism.

Sarah dies we are told at just one hundred and twenty seven years of age.  From now on no-one in the bible lives for more than one hundred and seventy five years and once we leave Genesis the longest life is that of Moses at 120.   This is the origin of the Jewish greeting of good wishes, ud mea v esrim – may you live to 120 which turned in English to our greeting to mourners – I wish you long life.  The longest medically documented life ever lived was that on Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122.  So with Moses we leave the stuff of legends where age in concerned and stay in physiological reality for the rest of the Bible.

Why did Sarah die?  After all the Rabbis say that the opening words of the portion that she lived for 100 and 20 and 7 years tell us that at 100 Sarah was as vigorous and beautiful as a woman of 20 and that at 20 she had been as innocent and sweet as a girl of 7. (Genesis Rabbah 58:1)

Midrash explains that she died not from a physical cause but from the extremes of grief that she suffered as a result of what had happened in the previous Torah portion, Vayeira.  (Genesis Rabbah 58:5).   The Midrash notes that from the moment that Abraham packed up the donkey with firewood, his knife and a fire lantern and took Isaac off to a faraway mountain to sacrifice him we do not hear Sarah mentioned again.  She never knew that the sacrifice had not happened and that Isaac returned unharmed to the family encampment in Beer Sheva.  Through the mental anguish of her grief – she died.

There is an undercurrent of distress and disturbed mental well-being running through this portion.  When Abraham’s servant returns with Isaac’s future wife Rebekah, Isaac is found meditating in a field, seeking peace and respite we assume from his own distress.   When he and Rebekkah come together as husband and wife we are told that finally Isaac found comfort from the death of his mother.

The Bible does not shy away from understanding that our wellbeing is determined as much by our mental state as our physical state.   Moses in his earlier life is a man who stutters, a physical trait that will often have emotional difficulties at its underlying cause.  The prophet Ezekiel lives with wild visions which compel him to speak out in the Babylonian exile.   King Saul loses his monarchy to David because his mental illness makes it impossible for him to cope with the role.  Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, first appears in the Book of Samuel as woman in “bitterness of soul, who weeps continuously” (I Samuel 1:9) .

From the story of Abraham we learn the Mitzvah of Bikkur Cholim.  The Jewish duty literally to visit the sick.  It comes from the point where Abraham is recovering from his circumcision (Genesis 18:1) and God appears to him as he sits at the door of his tent.  From here our Rabbis derive that each of us too has a duty to be there for others who are not well – to be involved in each other’s illnesses (Nedarim 39b-40a).   This duty is of course not restricted to physical illness but to mental illness as well.  The Priest Eli encounters the deeply distressed Hannah.  His reaction to her distress is not rejection but compassion and care and for that reason Hannah decides to dedicate her son Samuel’s life to the Temple service and he grows up to be one of the great prophets of Israel.

When Solomon Ibn Gabirol in 11th Century Spain writes of the greatest Jewish duties, mitzvot towards one another, he writes that we must “v’ha-dalim t’rachem, v’ha’aveilim t’nachem, v’hacholim t’sichem”, a rhyming formulation that dictates compassion for the needy, comfort for the mourners, and conversation (sichah) for the sick. (Rabbi Daniel Feldman – Sources on Bikkur Cholim)

In our community we talk quite freely about and support each other pretty effectively when our physical health is challenged.  The Jewish Chronicle this week reports in its feature about six Synagogue’s which are exemplars of community vitality, an Alyth member speaking about the deep level of support that she experienced when her husband was long term sick.

This has not always been easy.    A generation ago it was very difficult to find support and to express freely one’s feelings about Cancer or living with HIV, for example.  Now through the work of Jewish charities like Chai Cancer Care and JAT and their counterparts in wider society and though an opening up of our community to the issues, the situation is much better.  Relatives and people living with the trauma of physical illness can find action and support rapidly.

This is much less the case with issues around mental wellbeing.   As Rabbis we often hear families speaking about how difficult it is to share the challenge of supporting a relative whose mental health is not good whether for short or long periods.  We hear about people finding it difficult to find support from friends and from health services.   We hear about people feeling cut off from their various communities.

Mental health is the new frontier of compassion, of Bikkur Cholim – we hear more about the challenges to mental health services and the problems that come from taboos around discussing it.   The issues featured on one of the Radio 4 thoughts for the week this week and the Labour Party has just appointed its first Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Luciana Berger who has been active in the field for some years as well as supporting efforts to build response to Aids and Hiv.

Alyth has worked for many years with the Jewish Association for Mental Illness and the Martin B Cohen Centre to ensure that this community offers a welcome and a friendly space for people living with substantial mental and learning challenges.  You would have witnessed this last night at our Shalom Supper.

This year we want to go much deeper and find out what is going in with the regular day to day issues around mental wellbeing that challenge our own members and their families.  We want to make Alyth a place where, as we already do with physical illness, you know you can talk about mental wellbeing with frankness and find support, not ostracism.  We want to build upon the excellent work of Lynette Sunderland and the more formal Synagogue welfare set-up and make supporting each other’s mental wellbeing easier.

On the way there we need to listen and talk with one another.   For this reason the Alyth Action Group has trained seventeen volunteers to hold conversations with any member who would like to so that we can find out what the issues actually are so that we can act as a community in the future. We need as many members as possible to participate in a half hour conversation one on one or in groups, as you prefer.  Then on December 2nd we will bring together, anonymised, the issues and challenges that we have heard and in an open meeting work out how this community can deal better with mental wellbeing and see if there are issues upon which we should campaign beyond our gates.

We are seeking conversation partners in many ways.  We are sending individual e-mails to invite people to meet and talk.  We are holding an open session for anyone who would like to drop in for a one to one conversation on Mitzvah Day morning (22nd November).  We are approaching groups of Alyth members who already meet regularly to see if some of them would like to talk.  Alternatively please simply contact Ruth Weiner on ruth@weinerfamily.co.uk (Co-ordinator of the listeners) who can get a conversation organised for you.

Alyth is rightly known as a caring and campaigning community, helping North West London life to be good.  Let’s hear what today’s mental well-being challenges are so that together we can make our contribution to removing taboos around mental illness and improving services for so many of us who are challenged.

Our Torah recognises that our mental wellbeing is a matter for people around us.  We should never be isolated because our mental health is challenged.  We may not live to 127 but our lives are long enough for many ups and downs. We can help each other and our families to survive the downs so that we can enjoy the ups together.