All for the Best

Since parshas Chayei Sarah was read two weeks ago, I’ve been mulling over three words of Rashi there, and I trust readers will forgive me for being just slightly out of step with the times if I share the understanding of Rashi I’ve arrived at. After the Torah states that Sarah Imeinu lived for 127 years, it adds that these were shnei chayei Sarah, the years of Sarah’s life, and Rashi famously comments, “Kulan shavin letovah,” they were all equally for the good.

These words of Rashi are perplexing, coming as they do following two parshiyos that describe the many painful experiences Sarah underwent over the course of her life: childlessness until the very advanced age of 90 (a uniquely hopeless predicament of barrenness, too, given that, as Chazal teach [Yevamos 64b], she had no womb); abducted twice by kings; her beloved only son being menaced by his brother to the point that the latter had to be driven from their home.

These personal trials and tragedies were in addition to the wars and famines and arduous journeys to alien lands that she endured with her great husband. There were, no doubt, many long periods of great goodness in the life of the tzadeikes, too, when all was well, when there was plenty and tranquility and she derived unimaginable joy from being the helpmate of the first of the Avos Hakedoshim and mother of the second. Still, can it be said these were 127 equally good years?

The key, it would seem, is Rashi’s use of the term letovah, meaning all her years were identically for the good, rather than betovah, denoting they were alike in their goodness. Letovah reveals Sarah’s subjective mindset as she endured the vicissitudes of a most tumultuous life, and teaches us that she consistently focused not on the troubles that befell her but on the larger purpose they were serving, the goal toward which they were directed.