Parsha Chaye Sarah: Avraham’s Well Developed Attribute of Intuitive Perception…

The first of the two posukim is spoken by Avraham and says, in part, “I will have given the money for the field; take it of me …” (Breish’it, Perek 23, posuk 13)

“…That a man may marry a woman by using money to effect the marriage is deduced in the Talmud (Kiddushin 2) by drawing a parallel from this verse. But the parallel goes beyond merely the acquisition of the land of the Efronite and the acquisition of a wife. Just as in a marriage the act of acquisition is only the beginning and not the end, because that is when all one’s obligations begin — food, clothing, etc. — the same is true in our dealings with the Efronites. Nothing ends with written contracts and agreements. We pay, pay and pay again, and yet they keep demanding more from us.” (Torah Gems on Chaye Sarah, page 182 quoting Rabbi A.M. Amiel)

Somehow these last sentences, “Nothing ends with written contracts and agreements. We pay, pay and pay again, and yet they keep demanding more from us” seem to ring true in our ongoing struggle to maintain our Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael against the avowed goal of the Arabs, the Moslems, to destroy and eradicate the Jews, to cast us from our land into the sea.

And even worse, when a Jewish government, a Jewish Prime Minister straight-faced betrayed his Jewish brothers, the nation he leds, as Sharon did, due to his own self-interest affair in attempting evasion of prosecution for alledged corruption and wrong doing while also hoping to personally profit from the betrayal visa vi a piece of the action on a Casino that he and his special advisor attorney Dov Weisglass hoped to profit from which they hoped would be built on the sweat, blood, tears and broken hearts of Jews being expelled from parts of our divine legacy — Eretz Yisrael. But we see where Sharon is today.

Then, three posukim below our first posuk, “And Avraham heard Efron … and … weighed for Efron the silver which he [Efron] spoke about in the ears of the B’nai Chais, four hundred shekels of silver that merschants used.” (Breish’it, Perek 23, posuk 16)

On the words, “And Avraham heard”, the Rashbam commented, “A hint is sufficient for a wise man.” Efron spoke as if he were a man of generosity. He spoke to Avraham with great respect and ostensibly offered him the burial site free of charge. However, Efron mentioned in passing, “The four hundred shekels … is nothing between friends. Your friendship is more precious than money. Bury your dead.” (Breish’it, Perek 23, posuk 15)(Rashi and Rashbam on posuk 15)

But Avraham was perceptive, with his finely-honed intuition, and understood Efron’s real intentions; he didn’t really want to give the land away for nothing. Avraham responded to Efron’s real inner wishes, not to the outer, simple meaning of his [Efron’s] words. (Growth Through Torah, Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, on Parsha Chaye Sarah, pages 57 – 58).

Rabbi Pliskin speaks of understanding the true meaning of what others say in a context of correcting and refining one’s midos. He writes that “this ability to differentiate between what someone says and what he means is an attribute that we must deveop. For many areas of spiritual growth it is essential.” (Growth Through Torah, Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, on Parsha Chaye Sarah, page 58)

However Rabbi Pliskin’s discussion of refining ones perceptiveness and intuition extend beyond the striving for perfection of midos in Everyman. Avraham Aveinu who, in his time, was a prominent leader of mankind as well as builder and proponent of a then revolutionary concept, belief in an infinite being who controls every aspect of the world’s existence, correctly read the reality of his relationship with the other peoples. He read the reality of his relationship with Efron and, with an eye to both Hashem’s promise to create a people from him [Avraham] and to all of future history, he acted accordingly in paying Efron the four hundred shekels of silver.

In our contemporary times, the leaders, the politicians of Israel utterly lack the perception and intuition of an Avraham Aveinu toward the suggestions, nuances and intuitive expressions of the enemy, failing even to discipline themselves toward cultivate these attributes. Further, they are not strong enough to digest the reality of the straight-out, direct statements made by the enemy, i.e., “Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa are settlements.”

And so, the posuk which begins; “And Avraham heard”, is inextricably tied to the posuk 3 above it which reads, “I will have given the money for the field; take it of me …” And so we learn in our days that “Nothing ends with written contracts and agreements. We pay, pay and pay again, and yet they keep demanding more from us.” We paid with Oslo, Oslo 2, the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif, the continuing propping up of Abbas and Fatah (who seek our destruction and eradication no less that Hamas) by continuing to give them the weapons, training, technology and capability to kill us in numbers, with the “Jewish government” persecuting and expelling their fellow Jews from Jewish land, under the bogus guise of pre-empting UN, EU, World or American pressure. The reality, for those perceptive enough to read deeper into revelations made by various investigative journalists, is that of successive socialist prime ministers soo corrupt and soo blinded by their hate of anything Jewish that they hide behind their enemy’s obvious duplicity and the bogus guise of American pressure.

May it be in this year and in all future years, that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif — many still seeking their places, our brethren in the North who have had their lives disrupted, been displaced from their homes, their property in many cases destroyed by Katushyas, as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard and the lives of the 3 captive Chayalim are central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream, be retified — our brethren made whole and may hitnatkut be expunged from collective consciousness yet it’s evil never forgotten.

May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!