Jayei Sara - English

Rabbi Joshua Kullock

As every foreigner arriving in a new country, my wife Jessica and I devoted ourselves to learning a new language when we first arrived in Mexico.  I know some of you will say I am exaggerating, since both in Buenos Aires and in Guadalajara Spanish is spoken.  But is it the same Spanish?  Or do we actually speak different languages, even though we share the same dictionary?

            Julio Cortazar defined dictionaries as cemeteries.  Other scholars emphasize that, while there are words not spoken by specific people in concrete interactions, they make no sense whatsoever.  Thus, meaning arises from interaction, which is nothing more than action among many.  Meaning is always produced by the context in which we live and develop.  Hence we spent our last four years trying to learn a little Mexican, or if you prefer, tapatio.  And la neta (the truth) is that learning a new language has been a chido (fantastic) exercise.

            Now then, one of the words intensely used around these geographies is the word madre (mother).  Here in Mexico, madre not only denotes the woman who gives birth, or the woman who brings up and educates with unconditional and infinite love, but it can designate or value all kinds of other things as well.  Thus, although it is still difficult for us to believe it, a madre in the Mexican market can be worth the same as a peanut.

            We also realized that when everything is confused and disorganized, when we lose control or when something excessive happens, people here refer to a terrible desmadre, or chaos.  To those of us not accustomed to the countless meanings of the term, it can become quite peculiar.  Moreover, the task is even more difficult when you understand that the connotations of the word madre here are generally, somehow, negative.  Unlike that which is padrísimo (superlative of father), the madres usually appear to be quoted at low value.

            But relations are even more complex, because for Mexicans, there is nothing more important or sacred than mothers.  Nevertheless, if this is so, I keep wondering about the common use of the word madre in negative contexts.

            This mystery, which still haunts me, intensified these days with the reading of this week’s parashah, because our parashah tells us of the death of Sarah, our first mother.  This is not a minor fact, since the biblical text is also a product of a patriarchal society, where women don’t appear recorded by name, age or death.  For instance, we don’t know how many years Eve lived.  Nor do we know the name of Lot’s wife, who turned into a salt statue.  But with Sarah, the story changes:  the Torah not only tells us that she died and her age, but gives the entire parashah the name of our matriarch:  Chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah – yes, what is underlined is her life and not her death.

            Sarah’s character has enigmatic overtones in the Torah.  She doesn’t speak much, and even so, God tells Abraham to mind her voice.  We know she was a beautiful woman, and that twice she had to say she was Abraham’s sister in order to avoid his being killed.  But we know as well that twice she threw out Agar due to jealousy.  This woman dies in our parashah, and with her death, the first generation of the founders of our people begins to close.

            Her death leaves a void both in Abraham and in Isaac.  To them, Sarah was worth more than a peanut.  Her role, whether due to her silence, jealousy or laughter, was essential to holding up and moving the family forward.  And being so, it is not by chance that the story following Sarah’s death is the search undertaken by Abraham to find a wife for Isaac.  Once Sarah’s cycle has finished, it is essential that Rebecca’s cycle begin.  That is why, in our parashah, the second of our mothers makes her appearance, although with her, another story begins.

            In short, reading these texts I again think about the way languages create worlds and define realities.  That which we say shapes our existence, our perspective of the world and of the things around us.  It is written in the Torah:  Motza Sephatecha Tishmor ve’Asita…, “That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt observe and do” (Deut. 23:24).  According to our tradition, we are and do in the context of what we say.  When we don’t do what we say, we alienate ourselves.  When we say things we don’t want to be or do, or support word meanings we do not want or accept – and in this case, sentences where madre sounds decidedly wrong – it is our responsibility to change our way of speaking.  Because a change in our interpersonal relations comes along with those changes.

            Learning a language is a chido exercise.  And daring to modify it in accordance to the values we actually want to support and reproduce constitutes a challenge worth undertaking.

            Shabbat Shalom uMeborach!