Text of the Haftorah of Chayei-Sarah (Melachim I 1)

Repetitions

The haftorah tells the story of the succession to Dovid HaMelech’s throne. He is old and ill, and his son Adoniyah acts as if he will succeed to the throne, despite Dovid HaMelech’s preference for Shlomo. Adoniyah takes on some of the overt signs of monarchy and makes a feast, inviting the entire court — with the exception of Shlomo and his supporters.

The haftorah repeats this story several times. First, we hear it from the point of view of the narrator, then Nassan tells it to Bas Sheva, then Bas Sheva to Dovid, and finally Nassan to Dovid. The repetitions do not add any detail, nor do the different perspectives add any new insight. What, then, is the purpose of that repetition?

Our parashah exhibits similar characteristics. Chayei Sarah is famous for the repetition of the story of Eliezer[1] and Rivkah at the well. First, we are told of his plan: the girl he is looking for will be the one that offers to give water both to him and to the camels. Then, we hear it as it actually happens: Rivkah comes, gives water to Eliezer and to the camels, and turns out to be Avraham’s niece. He then goes to Rivkah’s house, and we hear all about it yet again, in detail, as he retells it to Rivkah’s family.

Finally, as if to tease us, when Eliezer brings Rivkah to Yitzchak, this is how the entire event is described:

וַיְסַפֵּר הָעֶבֶד לְיִצְחָק אֵת כָּל הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה —

The servant told Yitzchak all the things that he had done. (Bereishis 24:66)

Could this not have sufficed earlier, too?

Some suggest that the purpose of the first two repetitions is to learn about Eliezer’s faith, that he relied on God, and He came through for him. This explains the first two parts, the story of Eliezer’s request for a sign, and the sign working out even better than he had hoped. But what could be the purpose of knowing exactly what he told Rivkah’s family? Could the passuk not have said, “The servant told them all the things that he had done?”

This question prompted Chazal to make the following statement:

אמר ר’ אחא יפה שיחתן של עבדי בתי אבות מתורתן של בנים, פרשתו של אליעזר שנים ושלושה דפים הוא אומרה ושונה, ושרץ מגופי תורה, ואין דמו מטמא כבשרו אלא מריבוי המקרא —

R’ Acha said: The conversations of the servants from the Forefathers’ households are more valuable than the Torah of their children. Eliezer’s story takes up two or three pages, and repeats itself, but we learn the essential Torah law that a rodent’s blood does not cause impurity only from a hint in the text. (Bereishis Rabbah 60)

Important halachos, practical laws, are not spelled out in the Torah; they need to be painstakingly derived from hints in the text. Our sources for halachos such as which text needs to be inside tefillin, or whether we need to eat matzah for seven days or only one day, are derived from unusual phrasings or apparent contradictions. It is as if writing out the laws explicitly were a waste of ink.

Yet for the story of Eliezer, there’s plenty of room. Pages and pages of it, most of the parashah, when the entire thing could have been summed up in about three verses.

The Medrash draws the obvious conclusion: the Torah cares more about the conversations of the servants of our forefathers than it does about making sure that important laws that we must keep are written clearly.

Why? What is the value of recording what Eliezer said to Besuel and Lavan? What is the lesson that could not have been conveyed in any other manner?

Some of the commentators who have analyzed the differences between the version of the narrator and the version of Eliezer point out that Eliezer’s story has a particular slant that makes it obvious that he has an agenda. In his speech, he keeps repeating that everything came from God: his master’s fabulous wealth, the mission itself, the choice of the woman for his master. The message is that as a servant, he has no will of his own, and likewise, his master Avraham, as a servant of God, has no will of his own. In every sentence Eliezer utters, he points to God as the cause of everything that has happened.

It is nice to hear of the faith that Eliezer has in God. Yet to suggest that Eliezer is simply sharing his view of the world is inadequate. He is now at a critical juncture of his mission. Once he found the girl, the very worst thing that could happen is that she will not come — or that she will not be allowed to come. The Torah implies that Rivkah does not require much convincing. She recognizes very quickly that unlike her home, her life with Avraham’s son will be full of truth and purpose. But Eliezer also needs to convince her family. While Besuel is Rivkah’s father, in the ancient world, the brothers had a say in their sisters’ welfare. It appears that the real decision of whether or not Rivkah marries Yitzchak is in Lavan’s hands. We get to know Lavan later on, as the father of Rachel and Leah, and we see that he has absolutely no scruples when it comes to getting his own way. We also see that he is very possessive about his family,[2] and prefers to have them firmly under his thumb. Eliezer faces a difficult challenge: how to get Lavan to let Rivkah go?

Besuel and Lavan are pagan, as we say in the Haggada, “originally, our ancestors were idol worshippers.” The pagan relationship with their gods is a manipulative tug-of-war: if you come up with the proper offerings, your god will give you what you want, but if he’s made up his mind, it’s fate, and you can’t do anything to change it. Therefore, Eliezer phrases his entire narrative in terms that they could relate to: Hashem has given Avraham great wealth, showing that He must be very powerful. Avraham serves Hashem, which to them means that Hashem must give him what he wants. Hashem has miraculously singled out Rivkah to be the bride, which proves that Hashem has made up His mind, and it is impossible to try to get out of it. Indeed, Eliezer presents his case so well that he elicits the ideal response:

וַיַּעַן לָבָן וּבְתוּאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ מֵה’ יָצָא הַדָּבָר לֹא נוּכַל דַּבֵּר אֵלֶיךָ רַע אוֹ טוֹב —

Lavan and Besuel answered, “This came from Hashem; it doesn’t matter what we say.” (Bereishis 24:50)

They might not be particularly happy about it, but they bow to what they perceive to be inevitable, and let Rivkah go. Eliezer achieves his goal, and his mission is a success.

In contrast, when he reports on his mission, he does not need to put on a show for his master, and the Torah can comfortably sum it up as: “The servant told Yitzchak all the things that he had done.”

We are now suitably impressed with Eliezer’s skill as a negotiator, with his understanding of the mindset of his target audience, and the difficulty of his mission.

Still, the question remains: why is this in the Torah? Why is Eliezer’s skill as a negotiator so important that it merits pages and pages of text?

Perhaps what we need to look at is the alternative, the other way it might have gone, if the servant were not a representative of Avraham’s household.

Several chapters earlier, in Parashas Bereishis, when the Torah talks about why the world must be destroyed, one of the reasons it gives is that great men would “take themselves wives, whomever they chose” (Bereishis 6:). Chazal say, “Took wives: women who were already married to someone else” (Bereishis Rabbah 26:5). If a wealthy and powerful man would see someone he liked, he would take her. He would not ask permission — not from her family, not from her husband if she had one, certainly not from her. He would just take.

Avraham is wealthy. He is respected, even powerful. He needs a girl from a specific family for his son. If he sends his servant, and the servant finds a suitable girl but she doesn’t want to go, what should happen? Would his servant make her family “an offer they can’t refuse”?

Avraham? Never.

Is that because after the Flood, taking women by force is no longer acceptable by the newly rebuilt society, and isn’t an option for anyone? Hardly. When the strikingly beautiful Sarah appears in the court of Pharaoh, there are two alternatives: if she’s married, her husband can be killed so she can be taken. Or, if she is under the protection of a brother, the brother can be paid, and she can be taken. The woman doesn’t need to agree; it’s not up to her at all.

But for Avraham, about whom Hashem Himself said, “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him; they will keep the way of Hashem, to do righteousness and justice” (Bereishis 18:19), this is not how things are done. Eliezer, a member of Avraham’s household and his representative, who keeps the way of Hashem, would not dream of using force or guile or bribery to take Rivkah from Lavan.

How, then, does one get what one desperately needs, if one can’t take it?

That is where diplomacy comes in. It is possible to get people to cooperate. It is possible to convince them of your need, of the rightness of your way, to create a narrative that they can identify with, to cause them to do the right thing.

To show us how this is done — that this is done — the Torah is prepared to invest a little bit of ink and a few pages of parchment. It is not something that one can derive through logic, from a hint in the text. It needs to be explicit.

Using his wits and his faith, Eliezer convinces Lavan, the most selfish man in all of Tanach, to let his sister out of his clutches. If this is possible, then other things are possible, too. Justice and righteousness, “the way of Hashem,” can succeed in this world.

The haftorah has the same repetitive structure as the parashah, describing first a plan, and then how it is carried out, several times over. However, unlike the parashah, Nassan and Bas Sheva do not need to manipulate anyone into doing the right thing. Why then, is their plan recorded in Tanach? What were the alternatives there; what did not happen that might have?

In the ancient world, a contested royal succession meant bloodshed. Whichever of the princes wound up taking the throne would immediately murder the remaining contenders and their supporters. In a lesser kingdom than Dovid’s, one that was not founded on Avraham’s justice and righteousness, the starting point of Nassan’s plan would have been for the warriors on Shlomo’s side to attack Adoniyah’s supporters and murder them all at that feast.

But that is not what happens. Nassan and Bas Sheva need something very desperately — it is a matter of life and death — and yet they do not take it by force. They achieve their goals through polite, well-considered discourse, maintaining respect and dignity — their own, and that of the aging Dovid HaMelech.

The lesson of Eliezer’s diplomatic success is the lesson of Nassan and Bas Sheva’s diplomatic success. In a society based on justice and righteousness, there is power in words.

And that is a lesson worth repeating — twice.

 

 

[1]. The Text calls him “Avraham’s servant,” without giving a name. Chazal identify him with Eliezer, and we will do so, too, for convenience.

[2]. As he tells Yaakov in Bereishis 31:43, “Your children are mine.” Yaakov had to sneak away when he left because he feared that Lavan would never have let him go.

Bereishis