Moshe Burt

                        
There are two intriguing commentaries, each relating to a different posuk of Parsha Chaye Sarah, regarding the dialogue leading up to Avraham Aveinu's acquistion of the Ma'arat HaMachpela for 400 shekels of silver from Efron the Hittite.

The first of the two posukim say, 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 betrays his Jewish brothers, the nation he leads. This betrayal is strictly a self-interest affair in order to both evade prosecution in numerous files of alleged corruption and wrong doing while at the same time seeking to enrich and aggrandize himself from the Casino that he and his "special advisor" attorney Dov Weisglass seek to profit from on the sweat, blood, tears and broken hearts of Jews being expelled from parts of our divine legacy -- Eretz Yisrael.   

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; 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.  Avraham 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.  One need look no further for conclusive proof of this fact than no sooner had Prime Minister Sharon staked all of his cookies on expelling Jews from Jewish Land and on gambling for George Bush's victory, that upon the announcement throughout the world that the murderous Yassir Arafat, y'machsh'mo is "Brain Dead", that the newly-elected second term President let loose the words "G'd bless his soul."

To me, those four words encapsulate the net result of years and years and decades and decades of Israel's, and Yosef Q. Native-born secular Israeli's America-oriented mindset, Medinat Yisrael's unquenchable addiction to the bosom of American Foreign Aid.

Those four little words of President George Bush said it all; about the world's perception, particularly of Arab world's perception of the abject weakness of will and character of the Government of Israel and of the Jewish people.

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, by giving them the weapons, training, technology and capability to kill us in numbers, with the Chevron and Wye documents and now by a Jewish government persecuting and expelling their fellow Jews from Jewish land, under the bogus guise of pre-empting World or American pressure.   The reality, for those perceptive enough to read recent revelations made by various investigative journalists, is of a Prime Minister has been both blackmailed by Socialists who control all of Israel's institutions and, at the same time, by a Prime Minister and his sons hungry for Mega-Bucks Casino profits, even if it means dancing on the sweat, blood, tears and broken hearts of their Jewish brethren.

May it be in this new year that our brethren in Gush Katif as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard and our brethren currently subject to police harrassment, political interrogation and political persecution be central in our thoughts, prayers and actions.  May the Gezeirot Rah end, the Socialists evaporate and may we be zocha the moment when Jonathan Pollard is finally home among his brethren who care deeply about him.  May we be zocha in this coming year 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."

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", -- Immediately; Achshav, Chik Chuk, Meiyad, Etmol!!!

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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh