Parashat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23–25): Summary and Commentary

Parashat Chayei Sarah (“the life of Sarah”) is the fifth portion of the book of Bereshit (Genesis 23:1–25:18) and is read on the Shabbat of November 7, 2026. It is also spelled Chayei Sara, Chayei Sarah, Chaye Sarah or Hayyei Sarah, and it takes its name from the first words: “And the life of Sarah was” (23:1).

The tradition proposes reading each portion in four steps: what the text says, what it hints at, what the sages explain and what it conceals. Let us take them in turn.

Peshat: the simple meaning

Let us begin with what the text says, adding nothing to it.

First is the name. The portion called “the life of Sarah” begins with her death, and the text repeats her years with an unusual insistence: “a hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah” (23:1). Abraham comes to Kiryat Arba, which is Hebron, to mourn her and weep for her (23:2).

Then comes something that reads almost like a contract. Abraham presents himself before the children of Chet as “a stranger and resident” (23:4), and they answer him with respect: “you are a prince of God among us” (23:6). He is a man held in esteem, and yet he does not have even a grave of his own. He bows before the people of the land (23:7) and asks for the cave of Machpelah, “for its full price” (23:9). Efron offers it to him for free, “in the sight of the children of my people” (23:11); Abraham insists: “I will give the money for the field; take it from me” (23:13). Efron mentions the figure almost in passing: “four hundred shekels of silver, between you and me, what is that?” (23:15). And Abraham weighs out exactly that amount (23:16).

The text insists that it all happened in the sight of all: the purchase is established “in the eyes of the children of Chet, before all who entered the gate of his city” (23:18). It is the first time the text tells that Abraham buys a piece of land.

In chapter 24, the servant asks for a very concrete sign: that the young woman to whom he says “please tip your jar and I will drink” will answer “drink, and I will also give your camels to drink” (24:14). And Rivkah, “before he had finished speaking” (24:15), arrives and does exactly that, until all the camels have drunk (24:19-20). When the family asks her whether she wants to go, her answer is one word: “I will go” (24:58).

And the ending has two scenes of farewell. Yitzchak “went out to meditate in the field at evening” (24:63), brings Rivkah into the tent of his mother Sarah and “was comforted after his mother’s death” (24:67). Abraham, for his part, dies “old and satisfied” and is buried by his sons Yitzchak and Yishmael together (25:8-9).

Remez: what the letters hint at

Remez means “hint.” Here the reading pauses on letters and numbers: on how a word, when the value of its letters is added up (gematria), coincides with another that illuminates its meaning. The great collector of these hints is the Baal HaTurim, Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (13th–14th centuries), author of the Arba Turim. In Chayei Sarah he points out, among others, these seven.

The first is in the sun. The initial letters of “Sarah me’ah shanah” (שרה מאה שנה, 23:1) form shemesh (שמש), “sun.” The Baal HaTurim recalls what the previous verse has just told, the birth of Rivkah (22:23), and joins it with “the sun rises and the sun sets” (Ecclesiastes 1:5): before the sun of Sarah set, the sun of Rivkah rose.

The second is in the price. “Efron” (עפרן, written without the vav in 23:16) adds up to 400, the same as ayin ra (עין רע), “evil eye.” And 400 is also the shekels that Abraham paid.

The third is a warning. The initial letters of “vayakam sdeh Efron” (ויקם שדה עפרון, 23:17), read backward, say Esav (עשו). For the Baal HaTurim it is an allusion to Esav later rising up to dispute the cave.

The fourth is the oath. Abraham says to the servant “place your hand” (na yadecha, נא ידך, 24:2), and the letters add up to 85, the same as milah (מילה), “circumcision”: he made him swear by the covenant of circumcision.

The fifth is the water. The final letters of “im adoni Avraham” (עם אדוני אברהם, 24:12), the servant’s request, form mayim (מים), “water.” The Baal HaTurim recalls that, because of that “let a little water be brought” that Abraham offered the visitors (18:4), the answer arrived with water.

The sixth is in the farewell. In “al te’acharu oti vaHashem” (אל תאחרו אותי וה׳, 24:56), “do not delay me, for Hashem…,” the final letters form leviyah (לויה), “escort”: Hashem accompanied him. And in “im ha’ish hazeh” (עם האיש הזה, 24:58), when Rivkah agrees to go “with this man,” the final letters form Moshe (משה): for the Baal HaTurim, it is an allusion to her going by the way of Moshe and Israel.

The seventh, in Rivkah’s blessing. “Heyi” (היי, 24:60), “be,” adds up to 25, the same as koh (כה), “so,” which recalls the promise “so shall your offspring be” (15:5). And “vayevi’ah” (ויבאה, 24:67), written without a letter, adds up to 24: the Baal HaTurim relates it to the twenty-four adornments with which she was arrayed on arriving at Sarah’s tent.

Drash: the teaching of the sages

The sages read this portion pausing on every gesture. Rashi, with the Midrash, gathers these lessons.

The years of Sarah. When the text says “the years of the life of Sarah,” Rashi explains that all were equal in goodness: at a hundred she was like at twenty with regard to sin (for at twenty one is not yet punished from heaven), and at twenty like at seven with regard to beauty.

Why she died now. The text tells of her death right after the binding of Yitzchak. Rashi explains that it was because of the news of the binding: on learning that her son had been about to be sacrificed, her soul flew away and she died.

Machpelah. Rashi gives two reasons for the name Kiryat Arba, “city of four”: the four giants who lived there, or the four couples who would be buried in the cave: Adam and Chavah, Abraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivkah, Yaakov and Leah. And “Machpelah” would be “double,” because of those couples (Eruvin 53a).

Efron: much said, little done. Efron had said “I give it to you” and “four hundred shekels, what is that?”, but he charged in the heaviest coins. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 87a) draws a rule from it: the righteous say little and do much; the wicked say much and do not even do little. Abraham, who had said to the visitors “a morsel of bread” (18:5), served them a banquet; Efron, who had spoken of a gift, charged every last shekel.

Sarah’s tent. When Yitzchak brings Rivkah into his mother’s tent, Rashi relates that, while Sarah lived, there had been three signs: a light that burned from one Shabbat eve to the next, blessing in the dough, and a cloud tied to the tent. When Sarah died, they ceased; when Rivkah arrived, they returned.

The three prayers. When the text says that Yitzchak “went out to meditate in the field,” the Talmud (Berachot 26b) reads prayer there. According to that teaching, Abraham instituted the morning prayer, Yitzchak the afternoon prayer and Yaakov the evening prayer.

Sod: what is hidden

The Zohar

The Zohar begins with a question: why is Sarah’s death written in the Torah differently from that of other women? Rabbi Chiya objects that the deaths of Rachel, Miriam, Devorah and Shua’s daughter are also written. But Rabbi Yosi answers that in none of them are the days and years counted as with Sarah, nor is an entire portion dedicated to them: it is a secret, because of the degree on which all the days and years of a person depend. The Hebrew edition we use clarifies that this refers to the last hei, that is, Malchut.

Then it pauses on the numbers: “a hundred,” which is a large figure, goes with shanah (“year,” in the singular); “seven,” which is small, goes with shanim (“years,” in the plural). What is great becomes small, and the small, great. And it concludes: all those years are “above”: the hundred, the twenty and the seven, all as they should be.

Finally, Rabbi Chiya adds that when Yitzchak was bound he was thirty-seven years old, and on learning it Sarah died. Where was Abraham coming from to mourn? From Mount Moriah. And those thirty-seven years, from the birth of Yitzchak until he was bound, were “the life of Sarah”: it is exactly what vayihyu (“and they were,” ויהיו) adds up to in gematria, 37.

The sefirah: Malchut

Malchut is the last of the sefirot, the one that receives the light of the higher ones and transmits it to the lower levels. You can see where it sits in the guide to the sefirot. For the Zohar, Sarah’s years are not lost with her death: they belong to the degree from which all the days and years of a person hang. That is why the text counts them one by one.

More weekly commentary in the list of parashiot.