Parshas Chayei Sarah 5785
I was recently speaking with my daughter and bemoaning the recent trends in presumed gift-giving (gift-demanding?) following a couple’s engagement. Sure, the ring under the chupah is an ancient tradition and even halachically required to a large degree. The diamond engagement ring? Originally Jewish? Who knows? But, again, it does seem to go back a number of generations. But what about the kallah tennis bracelet? When did such lavish gifts become standard? Where did that originate? Lakewood? Brooklyn? Monsey?
Hmm…maybe Charan…
Bucking any possible concern of “raising the standard,” Eliezer heaps an impressive array of jewelry upon the new kallah-to-be. Recognizing that Rivkah passed his test with flying colors, providing water for both him as well as his camels, he presents her with the spectacular betrothal gifts of a gold nose ring and two gold bracelets.
Over the top? Too ostentatious? Perhaps this is what motivated Chazal to see more in these gifts than objects of mere material luxury. As Rashi explains, the two bracelets represented the two luchos, their weight—recorded in the pasuk as ten shekels—serving as a reference to the Aseres Hadibros. And the nose ring was one beka in weight, the same as the weight of the half-shekel coin that each Jew would one day use to participate in the census.
So there is a spiritual dimension to these gifts as well. A Jewish dimension. The jewelry is representative of Torah, of mitzvos, of the connection between Hashem and His Chosen Nation.
And of a census.
A census?
Of all possible elements and themes to be plucked from the coming thousands of years of Jewish history, why does the object used for a census become critical in this first meeting with Rivkah?
Perhaps for the same reason that the half-shekel was used for a census in the first place. Many explain that it was specifically a coin of a half-denomination that was used to count the Jewish People in order to emphasize the relationship between the individual and the nation. Namely, that the individual is incomplete on his own. The Jew in isolation is but a half, unfinished, until he becomes bound to the Klal, which completes him.
As a message contained within one of the betrothal gifts, Eliezer both emphasized the importance of the actions Rivkah had already demonstrated, and likewise encouraged her along a new course as well.
Rivkah saw Eliezer as someone in distress, a weary traveler in desperate need of refreshment both for himself as well as his animals. She saw him as a half who needed someone else to step in and make him whole. And she rose to the challenge, going above and beyond in assisting a stranger in a time of need.
In referencing the half-shekel of the census, Eliezer was telling Rivkah, “What you’ve done is more than just a good deed. It is the very foundation upon which an entire nation will rest—a nation you’ll have the opportunity to spawn with my master, Yitzchak.” Chessed is part of the very fabric of our nation, the manner in which we echo Hashem’s activities perhaps more than any other. It is through Chessed that we insist that G-d is good and kind, and man can strive to become remarkably like Him.
But there was another message latent in the reference to the half-shekel, one that intended to prod Rivkah towards a choice that she was perhaps hesitant to make. The half-shekel is not only a reminder to see another’s half and try to make it whole, but to likewise see oneself as but a half—an incomplete fragment—when disconnected from others.
“Rivkah,” Eliezer was suggesting, “What you’ve done here all you own, in this spiritually hostile environment is uncanny. That you’ve become someone who recognizes G-d and is bent on inculcating His attributes into your own character is awe-inspiring. But don’t believe for a moment that you’ve reached the pinnacle of all you can achieve and of all you can be. It’s not until joining up with another half that you can truly be whole.”
It is specifically through connecting with others that we can become all we were meant to. It is impossible that we have all the answers and all the insights, that the recipes for all we wish to achieve are already present in our very own minds, that our character need not benefit from the influence of other great people in order to be molded into its most refined version.
For Rivkah, the question of attaching to others or not was rather binary. Would she venture out with Eliezer or stay behind? Would she continue to grow in isolation or join up with another? Would she remain a half, or become a whole?
For us, it’s not simply a matter of choosing whether to interact with others or not. We already live in vibrant communities, our lives intersecting with others on a daily basis. It is less a question of whether to interact, but of how to do so.
We may well love our family members, neighbors, and friends. But do we regularly stop to appreciate how valuable each is in the process of becoming a more complete person? Do we recognize every interaction as an opportunity to learn some new virtue, discover some new strategy to become better and more whole? Are we forever scanning the room, appreciating all that there is to learn from the people around us?
A daily minyan can serve simply as the backdrop for proper tefilah, or as an opportunity for our half shekel to be made whole by drawing lessons from the people around us. The person who always arrives punctually. The one who steadfastly keeps his tefillin on until the very last kaddish. The gabbai who is so well-organized. The fellow who makes a point of walking to the back and greeting every new face. The friendly one who makes a bit of early morning small talk with everyone around him, infusing a bit of joy into everyone’s day at the earliest opportunity.
A simcha, a parlor meeting, a social event—these can be mere items on the agenda, the time spent at which may or may not be all that enjoyable. Or they can be opportunities to mine for gold. To interact with others, to attach to what lays beyond ourselves, to see in real time the qualities others possess that we’d do well to inculcate into our own character.
Eliezer urged Rivkah to step outside her comfort zone, to become part of something greater than herself, with the promise that she would become greater in turn. Those opportunities exist for us as well; we need only make use of them.