The lifetime of Sarah was – ויהיו חיי שרה
It is told regarding Rebbe Yisrael Salanter that when he was young, he was in business, he ran a store, and his Rav wondered about him that he wasted his time in business. They once met and his Rav expressed his wonder directly to him. Rebbe Yisrael told him that he was doing this to support his family since he already had four children. His Rav replied: “I see that you already have what to live with, I also want to see that which you will die with...” The words entered deep in the young man’s heart, he left all his businesses and took himself to toil in Torah and avodah until he ultimately became a gaon in Israel, one of our majestic figures.
There is a famous question, why is our parsha called ‘Chayei Sarah’, the parsha tells of her passing and not her life? But the truth is that by every person, his passing already begins on his birthday. Every passing day brings the person closer to his death, this happens to everyone without exception. But by the tzaddikim, the matter is different for they live with this awareness. Every moment of their lives, they think about the day they will die knowing that everyone will come to the time when they will have to give an accounting for all their actions. As the Tanna said (Avos 4:16), ‘Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall’. That is how this world is compared to the World to Come, it is a lobby before the banquet hall.
Once someone told a joke: How do I know that the World to Come is better than this world? No one comes back from there... True, this is a joke, but it is also the truth, but only to one who really thinks about it. One who lives without this awareness, really does not know what to do in the banquet hall... but when a person lives with this awareness that his time in this world is set, and the day will come when he will have to give an accounting for his actions, then he will inspect himself and his deeds if they were truly to the will of his Creator. Sometimes it might be revealed that there are things that he thought he was doing them for the sake of Heaven, but on second thought he realizes that they were only for his sake. This is ‘chayei Sarah’ – the ‘life of Sarah’, for whoever lives like this, then even when he passes away, he is alive!
-Tiv HaTorah – Chayei Sarah
