The Connection from the Cave
On Chayei Sarah and the enduring resurrection of the Jewish People
The accompanying shiur is available on the Orthodox Union's parsha learning app: All Parsha.
In the middle of my wedding, while standing underneath the chuppah, the rabbi officiating the ceremony asked my wife and me to step outside, through doors adjacent to the chuppah, to formally perform the ring ceremony. He explained that it is a special blessing to get married beneath the sky—our wedding hall, alas did not have a sunroof. So we stepped outside for the formal ceremony—we wanted to make sure we had as much blessing as we could get. My mother-in-law, who was inside seated for the ceremony, has still not completely forgiven me.
In all aspects of Jewish weddings, we are so careful to avoid any bad omens—we literally walked outside in the middle of my wedding! And yet, the actual ring ceremony is derived from Avraham’s purchase of a burial plot for his wife, Sarah. It’s a bizarre connection for the Talmud to make. Why would we derive such a central part of marriage, the primary way people are married to this very day, from the purchase of a burial plot? It doesn’t get more ominous than that.
The nature of the Cave of the Patriarchs is quite mysterious. What exactly does it represent?
It is one of the few places within the Land of Israel that are explicitly referenced in the Torah. Aside from the actual Temple Mount, no other place within the Land of Israel is given this much attention. Ramban even wonders why we spend so much time detailing its purchase.
(A small insight we may return to: I once heard from my Rebbe, Rav Ezra Neuberger, that the first time a cave is discussed in the Torah is in the story of Lot’s affair with his daughters. The Torah there explains that Lot’s daughters slept with their own father in a cave. Which cave? It does not say. But when it introduces the cave, it vowelizes the word with a patach rather than a shva, indicating it is a well-known cave—a principle known as the hei hayedia. The only other cave we know of in the Torah is the Maaras HaMachpeila. It is through Lot’s sin with his daughters that eventually the nation of Moav, and the personality of Russ are born. It would seem, perhaps, that the cave that serves as the origin of this story is the very Maaras Ha-Machpaila that we read about in our parsha. Why would the seeds of redemption be planted specifically there?)
One final mystery of the cave: Maharal writes that in the end of days, resurrection will begin from the Maaras Ha-Machpaila. In Rav Yehoshua Hartman’s annotated edition of the Maharal, it is one of the rare instances where he writes that he does not know the source for the Maharal’s statement. Subsequently, he found a source after speaking with Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l. Regardless, why would this be the place where resurrections begin in the end of days?
To understand the nature of the cave, we need to understand the city in which it resides—the old city of Chevron. And let us return and examine one of the most painful chapters in the history of the city, the 1929 Chevron Massacre.
I feel that this whole business of Judaism is a huge question mark. There is so much that I do not know and that requires solving. I don’t want to go through life being a Jew, but not understanding Judaism to its roots. I want to have Jewish knowledge of the ages, Jewish religious spirit, and Jewish conceptions coursing through my blood, and then passed on to my children and to the world.
—Harry (Tzvi) Frauman hy”d, explaining why he wanted to study in yeshiva
Ever since the 1917 Balfour Declaration, tension had been simmering in Israel. Still, most lived in relative peace. In 1924, Yeshivas Knesses Yisroel, known as the Slabodka Yeshiva, decided to move it entire Yeshiva from a small town in Lithuania to the Land of Israel. The relative peace was sadly short-lived.
In 1929, nearly 700 Jews lived in Chevron. They saw their Arab neighbors as friends. In fact, as The New York Times reported, “These Jews of Hebron had become so closely associated with their Arab neighbors they were all but Arabs themselves.”
Everything changed on August 23, 1929. Riots broke out throughout Chevron. Early Shabbos morning, rioters took to the streets with knives and axes looking to murder Jews. Later reports would attribute the sudden flare-up of violence to the instigations of a Sheik who promised Arabic villagers would be free of their financial obligations to the many Jews who had lent them money. The Sheik was later prosecuted in court for inciting the riots. Others attributed the riots to Arab concerns about the emerging Jewish dream for control of the Western Wall. Control of the Western Wall and Al-Aqsa mosque, which in 1929 was under Muslim control, was then and remains a powder keg for the justification of terrorism.
The rioting lasted two days. In total 133 Jews were killed—67 in Chevron alone. The New York Times headline described “victims killed like sheep.”
Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook was quoted in The New York Times story (incorrectly referred to as “Rabbi Koot”) saying:
“It is the worst slaughter the Jews have experienced since the destruction of Jerusalem because it was perpetrated in the town of King David.”
Rav Kook called for mourning services throughout Israel and called upon world Jewry to commemorate the lives of those murdered on Yom Kippur, which was just over a month away.
The horrors that Zionism hoped to protect from, had visited the Land of Israel itself.
Chevron Yeshiva was hit particularly hard. 24 members of the yeshiva were murdered.
The Chevron Massacre sent shockwaves throughout the worldwide Jewish community. The violence literally hit very close to home—eight victims were Americans who had been studying abroad in the Chevron Yeshiva.
Two of the yeshiva students killed were students at RIETS, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University—Aharon Dovid Shainberg and William Berman.
Rabbi Bernard Revel, president of RIETS, said of Berman: A proud American and an understanding son of his people, with a deep knowledge of the Torah, a charming personality, and an eloquent speaker. In his short life, he made many sacrifices for the Torah, and it was given to him to make the supreme sacrifice ‘al Kiddush Hashem.
The letters of Aharon Dovid Shainberg that he sent home to his parents in Memphis before he was murdered were later published by Rabbi Akiva Males in Tradition Journal. On Oct. 15, 1928 he wrote home:
It is now ten days that I entered upon a new life — the life of a Hebron Yeshiva student. These ten days appear to me – now as I gaze back upon them reflectively – as so many years. Such great change of surroundings and mode of life always serves to magnify time. I feel that my past existence was only a dream & I have awakened to find the reality of life more enhanced than the dream . . . . . . I have started in on the gargantuan task ahead of me – to become learned in the Torah. The Yeshiva here in Hebron offers wonderful opportunities for anyone possessing such an ambition. The faculty and student body both are full with professed scholars of Talmud and colossal minds in general. Boys of sixteen or less here could vie with the most learned professors in mental capacity.
He signed his final letter to his father, “My ever present love & kisses, Devotedly, Dave.” He would never return home again.
In a moving article about the Americans lost in the massacre, Dovi Safier recounts that the Daf Yomi cycle had just finished studying Tractate Zevachim, which discusses the laws of sacrifices. About to begin the next tractate, Menachos, Rav Meir Shapiro, founder of the Daf Yomi program, addressed the gathering:
The following week in Vienna at the Knessiah Gedolah of Agudas Yisrael, Rav Meir Shapiro made a siyum on maseches Zevachim as part of the first daf yomi cycle. He then addressed the crowd, saying, “We just finished learning about korbanos and [referring to the kedoshim of Chevron] we hope that we’ve seen the last of Klal Yisrael’s korbanos. Now as we start learning Menachos, we pray that we’ll have menuchah — tranquility — from all of our troubles.”
Rav Hutner, future Rosh Yeshiva in Chaim Berlin, was also studying in the yeshiva at the time. Fortunately, he was away for Shabbos. Spared from the massacre, he edited a volume published by the yeshiva commemorating the lives of all those lost. He made special mention of the American students. In an article for Jewish Action, focusing on testimony from those who experienced the massacre, Eliyahu Krakowsky provides the following translation for Rav Hutner’s words:
. . . A special place is occupied by the American contingent, who received a double portion of the cup of tragedy from which we drank at the end of 5689 [1929]. From the land of gold and silver they came to the City of the Patriarchs, in order to dedicate their best years to the formation of their characters. “What report did they hear so that they came?” A combination of two words: Slabodka-Hebron . . . They heard and they came, and they dedicated themselves with all their ability to the great task of improvement [aliyah], in order to return to their native land suffused with Torah and yirah, to bring light and warmth to their surroundings, to awaken the hearts of the young to follow in their path, with great dignity and great strength. More than once did it seem that with the smiles on their faces they must have recognized the bliss that would be their future life. So did they grow and flourish, blossom and bear fruit, on the fountains of Torah and yirah, flowers of grace, nobles of Israel in whom is our glory and our pride . . . And suddenly, in the middle of the sunshine of the day, the axe was waved, the feller had come up . . . There is no word in the mouth and no utterance on the tongue. “But, lo, O Lord, You know it altogether” (Psalms 139:4).
And that very Sefer Zikaron, in that journal, Rav Yechezkal Sarna, one of the leaders of the yeshiva at the time, wrote a moving article affirming God’s enduring love for the Jewish people—even in the face of tragedy.
“God forbid,” he wrote, “to forget even for a moment of God’s love for the Jewish people.” God’s love is enduring, he explains, but some love is revealed and some love is hidden.
And in the aftermath of the Chevron Massacre, and especially in this present moment, God’s love, however hidden, can still be found.
Chevron and Yerushalayim represent two aspects of God’s relationship to the Jewish people. Yerushalayim is where God’s presence is openly revealed and readily accessible. Chevron, however, represents our hidden connection to God, the enduring bond even when the revealed presence of God cannot be felt.
Rav Moshe Wolfson, in his work Emunas Itacha, develops this idea:
Even when we are surrounded by horror and destruction, Chevron represents the bond that endures. Buried within the cave is our immutable connection to God and Yiddishkeit.
And this explains why we learn the standard marriage ceremony from Avraham’s purchase of Maaras Ha-Machpela. As we begin marriage we quietly pray that our relationships will also contain the enduring connection, however hidden at times, that Avraham forged when buying the burial plot for Sarah.
The seeds of redemption begin in the Cave of our Patriarchs. It is where resurrection begins because it is the place that symbolizes that we, the Jewish People, always endure—even when all other signs seem to indicate that we have been destroyed.
It is the home, in the words of Rav Sarna, of the hidden love. A love, that no matter the circumstances, will always endure.
Shabbos Reads — Books/Articles Mentioned
A Bond Sealed in Blood, Dovi Safier
In Memory of RIETS Students in Hebron, August 1929, Shulamith Z. Berger
When a Memphian Thrived in Hebron: The Letters of Aharon Dovid Shainberg (1906-1929), Akiva Males
Remembering the 1929 Chevron Massacre, Toby Klein Greenwalk & Bayla Sheva Brenner
Sefer Zikaron L’Kedoshei Yeshivas Chevron “Knessess Yisroel”
Check out All Parsha, where you can find weekly audio of Reading Jewish History in the Parsha, as well as other incredible presenters and amazing features that will enhance your Parsha journey!
Reading Jewish History in the Parsha has been generously sponsored by my dearest friends Janet and Lior Hod and family with immense gratitude to Hashem.