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A Jewish Matriarch: Sarah Teaches Us That We Have the Power to Stay Young
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
When a famous person passes away, newspapers try to capture their life and accomplishments in an obituary. The greater the person’s achievements, the longer and more detailed the obituary.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik noted that for Sarah, the matriarch and first lady of the Jewish people, we might expect a detailed account. Yet, she is remembered in this week’s parsha with one sentence: “These were the years of Sarah: a hundred years, twenty years, and seven years. These were the years of Sarah.”
Why does the Torah phrase Sarah’s age of death so unusually, dividing it into “a hundred years, twenty years, and seven years”? Why not simply say Sarah was 127?
The Midrash explains: at 100, Sarah was as beautiful as at 20; at age 20, she was as free of sin as at seven.
But this answer raises another question: the phrase “these were the years of Sarah” seems redundant. Rashi explains it means all her years were equally good. This phrase doesn’t just answer how old Sarah was, but reflects her essence. The Torah isn’t simply relating how many years the Matriarch Sarah lived, but who she was and how she lived. Sarah was 100, she was 20, she was seven.
In his words: “Sarah was a seven-year-old innocent child when she reached the age of twenty and a twenty-year-old lovely woman when she reached the ripe old age of a hundred. … The adult in Sarah did not destroy the child. Maturity did not do away with childhood. No matter how developed, no matter how capable and experienced a woman Sarah became, in the deep recesses of her personality there still existed an innocent child … This did not mean that her mind did not ripen with age, that she did not benefit by repeated events in her life or that her personality was not enriched by wisdom and life experience. However, Sarah still retained within her personality the young girl she once was.”
Rabbi Soloveitchik continues to say that the three traditional periods of life, namely childhood, youth, and adulthood, need not be mutually exclusive. Rather than replacing one with another, Sarah united them. She was simultaneously a child, a youth, and an adult.
Most of us move through life by replacing one stage with the next. Leaving childhood, we develop passion and idealism in youth but often lose our innocence. University campuses, where many great social movements began, illustrate this tension. They are spaces of youthful idealism, but also of lost purity. Similarly, in adulthood, as we gain wisdom and experience, the passion and idealism of youth often fade.
In one of my favorite Billy Joel songs, “Angry Young Man,” Billy Joel writes: “I believe I’ve passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage, I found that just surviving was a noble fight. I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view, and life went on no matter who was right or wrong.” Winston Churchill captured this, saying, “Anyone who is young and not a liberal has no heart. Anyone who is old and not a conservative has no brain.”
I am not saying that we necessarily become more selfish as we age, but that a natural part of maturation is an exchange of idealism for wisdom and experience.
Imagine, though, if we could have it all. If we could be 100 years old with the wisdom of age, the passion of youth, and the innocence of childhood. That was Sarah.
Sarah maintained the purity of childhood and the idealism of youth throughout her life. As she grew older, gaining the wisdom of experience, she remained both innocent and passionate. This combination made her a transformative force.
Sarah’s example inspires us in two ways. First, young people entering the working world can strive to maintain their idealism. Professional aspirations or daily concerns need not extinguish passion for noble causes, like a love for Israel or other values. However, this depends on having the right mentors. Misguided teachers can corrupt youthful idealism, as seen when campus ideologies lead students to support unjust causes — like the “innocent” and “idealistic” support for Hamas and terrorism.
Second, combining childhood innocence with adult wisdom is vital in religious life. Rabbi Soloveitchik explained that the mitzvah of Torah study requires the ability to think conceptually and critically — not to accept things at face value, but to challenge and question, which a child is less capable of doing. On the other hand, says The Rav, when the Jew puts down the Sefer and picks up the Siddur, it is now the child who becomes the expert. Whereas Torah study requires self-confidence and self-assertion, prayer requires humility and self-negation. To pray means to surrender, to feel dependent on a greater force, something an adult with their highly developed mind and confident stature has a difficulty doing. Only an innocent child with his heightened sense of helplessness can come before God and pray in the ideal way Judaism demands.
To live fully as Jews, we must embrace both the innocence of childhood and the sophistication of adulthood. Sarah’s life teaches us not to replace one stage with another, but to integrate them. By doing so, we not only engage with all aspects of Judaism but also stay young at heart, carrying the qualities of every life stage into each moment.
Rabbi Mark Wildes is the founder and director of the Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE), a vibrant community for young Jewish professionals, and the author of The 40 Day Challenge: Daily Jewish Insights to Prepare for the High Holidays and Beyond the Instant: Jewish Wisdom for Lasting Happiness in a Fast-Paced Social Media World.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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