They Who Walk in Shadow: Thoughts on Parashat Chayei Sarah - Rabbi Chaya Rowen-Baker

The Torah portion Chayei Sarah is about those who live in shadow.

It begins with Sarah's death, presented casually without context. The portion, named “The Life of Sarah” tells nothing of her own life, further marginalizing her. As it unfolds, an almost imperceptible thread is drawn between Sarah and Abraham's nameless servant, subtly hinting at the silenced stories of those who live in shadow: without many details, without independent existence, only to serve the narratives of others.

The account of choosing Isaac’s bride seems to be a story of non-choices by a servant who, for a fleeting moment, has the opportunity to craft his own narrative, but ultimately retreats back into servitude.

Abraham commands his servant to find a wife for Isaac. The servant carefully clarifies the details of his mission and sets out on his journey. He coordinates with God a sign to fulfill his task, and just then... he notices Rebekah.

Rebekah is described as very beautiful, and the servant is captivated by her charm. He begins to assess whether she meets the qualifications of being his master's wife; and with each passing moment, he becomes more and more drawn to this extraordinary woman.

The profound impression Rebekah makes on the servant is conveyed through the singular expression

The servant realizes that he is far from his master's household, free from the social strictures that had defined him his entire life. Equipped with substantial wealth, he finds himself standing by a well—the biblical setting for romance—beside a beautiful and remarkable woman.

At that moment, countless possibilities lay open before him.

Until this point, the text consistently refers to him as "the servant." From the moment of his encounter at the well until his introduction to Bethuel's household, however, he is described exclusively as "the man" (Genesis 24:21-30 and elsewhere):

For a fleeting moment he seems to shed his identity as a servant and allows himself to be a man—a potential suitor.

He bestows gold jewelry on Rebekah, without revealing that the jewels do not belong to him, and asks to meet her family.

Rebekah excitedly runs to tell her family about the wealthy man she met at the well. Her family, led by her greedy brother Laban, are eager to welcome the servant and discuss the possibility of a match.

The servant, at the core, is an honest and loyal man. Perhaps he also remains mentally bound by his status. Therefore, despite his brief fantasy, he is unable to continue the pretense. After 18 verses in which he allowed himself to imagine what it might feel like to be the master, he confesses to the family in a verse, dramatic for its brevity:

From this moment on, the narrator reverts to calling him "the servant."

For the family, the servant's true status does not matter. What matters is the prospect of a favorable match with his master. However, it is unclear whether Rebekah herself is aware of this. We surmise that most likely she was not present during the matchmaking discussions, insofar as later she is explicitly called to voice her opinion. The family might even have preferred to keep her in the dark, having noticed her attachment to the servant and not wanting her to refuse the advantageous match with Isaac.

When Rebekah was asked,

she may well have thought she was being asked to marry him. The family sends her off ceremoniously, with blessings of mastery and fertility. Rebekah and her maids follow

and his actions are described with the same word used for taking a wife:

The servant maintains the illusion, stretching out his fantasy just a little longer, until he can no longer do so.

At the journey's end, Rebekah notices Isaac and suddenly realizes there is another man in the story. She falls from her camel and asks the servant about the man’s identity, suspecting he would know. When the servant tells her,

all the pieces fall into place. Rebekah understands that she has traveled inappropriately exposed to a man not destined for her. She immediately

indicating that until then she had misconceived her relationship with the servant.

The servant confesses to Isaac

including role-playing under the guise of his master. The story concludes with Isaac marrying Rebekah and finding comfort after Sarah’s death.

The possibility of a different life flickered briefly in the servant's mind, but the honest and loyal man banished such thoughts and returned to his place, in the shadow, beside the absent Sarah.

The successful concealment of this narrative is perhaps evidence of its existence; it is a literary tool that illustrates the very nature of the hidden. The story of a shadow figure must be told in shadow, for to fully reveal it would be to bring the man out of darkness.

Reading this concealed story thus, Chayei Sarah connects the seemingly incidental death of an important woman—whose life remains shrouded in mystery—with a servant who, sent on an historic mission, dreams for a moment of another life. It gently asks us to consider how many people form the fabric of our stories yet remain unseen.

We are naturally drawn to focus on heroes—their needs and their exploits, especially when those heroes are ourselves. In so doing, we often overlook the people in shadow. Perhaps we lack the emotional capacity to truly see and carry the weight of everyone’s presence. But it is worth being reminded to strive for greater awareness.

Deliberately treating people as inconsequential is certainly unconscionable. Those in power who cynically use human beings as pawns, deserting our people in captivity in order to preserve or display their strength, are betraying their heritage of sensitivity to the plight of the helpless.

In the name of those who walk in shadow, for the sake of all that is right and good in our tradition, we must bring them home. All of them. Now.

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