Chayei Sarah: The Quiet Strength of Continuing
Chayei Sarah by Ben Russell
It’s one of Torah’s quiet ironies that Chayei Sarah — “the life of Sarah” — begins with her death. But the portion isn’t really about endings. It’s about what comes after a world-shaking moment, when everything could break and yet somehow life keeps moving.
Last week we stood at the Akedah — the binding of Isaac — that terrifying brink where the covenant itself seemed ready to unravel. This week opens in the stillness that follows: Abraham mourning, Isaac withdrawn, the family shaken. But instead of beginning again, as God has done with Adam, with Noah, and even with Abraham himself, something new happens: God doesn’t start over. The story simply continues.
That quiet continuity is its own kind of beginning.
Abraham secures a burial place for Sarah — an act not of closure, but of planting roots. Eliezer journeys to find Rebecca, and her generosity becomes the spark that brings light back into Sarah’s tent. Isaac emerges from his silence, comforted. The family takes its next steps. No reset. No upheaval. Just the steady, fragile work of living.
This feels especially resonant in a week marked by Veterans Day. We pause to honor those who served — not only for their courage in moments of crisis, but for the courage shown afterward. Many of our veterans lived through moments when the world shook, and then faced the long, quiet work of rebuilding: restoring families, healing wounds seen and unseen, choosing life again. The bravery of continuing is its own kind of heroism.
Chayei Sarah understands that kind of courage. The beginning that emerges in this portion is not dramatic but deliberate — a future rebuilt step by step, gesture by gesture. Rebecca’s kindness. Isaac’s comfort. A lamp rekindled in Sarah’s tent.
Beginnings aren’t always loud. Sometimes they arrive as continuity — steady, faithful, resilient. A grave purchased with dignity. A prayer whispered on the road. A young woman offering water. A home where the light returns.
Life goes on — and in going on, it becomes a beginning again.
,שבת שלום
Ben