Chayei Sarah 2019

In this week's Torah portion, Chayei Sara, Sarah dies and Avraham then appoints Eliezer - his servant - to find a wife for Yitzchak. The Torah describes in great detail the trip Eliezer takes and how he finds Rivka for Yitzchak. Rash"i is bothered by the long detailed depiction of Eliezer's trip, and then the almost verbatim repetition of it in the Torah when Eliezer tells it over to Rivka's family. Rash"i's explanation is that we see from here that the everyday conversations of the servants of our ancestors was more dear to God than the Torah of their progeny, for later in the Torah, when the mitzvot are given, they are given in much less detail than the story of Eliezer finding a wife for Yitzchak.

The Torah is a book of law, but it is just as much a book of narrative, and the same is true of the Talmud. Why do you think this is so? In what way do law and narrative speak to you differently? Does one seem more Jewish than the other?

Perhaps, as my teacher Rabbi Yisrael Samet said, the Torah and the Talmud are not books of law with narrative thrown in, but are the story of the Jewish People, and law is a significant part of telling that story. This I think is a different way of seeing our tradition, and perhaps can serve to broaden and deepen our view of what it means to be observant Jews.