Chayeh Sarah The Valuable Lesson of Camels
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| Eliezer on his camel? |
Have you ever given thought to the important role that
camels played in the Bible. Thus camels are used by the wandering Midianites who
bring Joseph to Egypt and again camels are used by the Midianite enemies of
Israel in the time of Gideon. But in our Torah portion, the camel is a very
important element for it is at the core of the great test of the bride for Isaac.
There is an unusual tidbit about the origins of the camel
at least according to Bedouin legend.
“The Bedouin of Arabia have a strange legend about the
origins of the camel. According to them, it was the Jews, not the Bedouins who
had camels first in antiquity. The legend says that the Jews lived in the
mountains of the Hijaz, while the Bedouins lived in the deserts.” The Bedouins were lost …. Until “ they came
to a plain where the Jews lived.
“When they came to the plain, surrounded by hills, they
discovered the many tents of the Jews. In front of the tents were strange
animals that the Bedouin had never seen before. These were camels, known to the
Bedouin as al-vil. The Bedouins hid until sunrise and then attacked the
Jews in the early morning by surprise. The Jews fled by every possible means,
and with them, they took their female camels. The Bedouin then chased the group
of Jews, defeated them, and took their female camels. Since that time the Jews
have had no camels to raise, and instead became farmers or tenders of sheep and
goats. “
The legend continues to say that the Jews would put out
buckets of water, hoping to draw the camels back to them.” From this story the
ancient Bedouin proverbs developed for something one does not expect to attain
or achieve, rajw al-hihuud min al-bil. or "the Jews hope for the
camels." (http://nabataea.net/camel.html)
This curiosity tells us that while the Arabs may be angry
at the Jews for stealing Arab land, we have a claim against them for stealing
our camels!
Bible critics have had a heyday with camels because
archaeological evidence seemed to indicate that camels weren’t used intensively
till the ninth century before the common era. Thus they claim that the writers
of the Bible use the word gamal, camel, only because that’s what the
audience knew, like saying “ car” for a story about horse and buggy times.
However, the story of Gideon fighting the Midianites really makes sense only in
describing people who knew and used the camel for warfare and that account
predates the time set by these archaeologists by two centuries. Even more, newer
archaeological evidence do show references to camels and pictures of people
riding camels in Mesopotamia dating back to the time of Abraham. That evidence
puts the camel back into play in our account!
We have this popular and well known story of Abraham sending
his trusted servant, Eliezer of Damascus, to his home town of Haran to find a
wife for his son. In the Bible, the well
is core of civil life. In a world without water faucets, no bottled water, and
no canned coke, getting water plays a central role in society and becomes a
metaphor for all that sustains life. Therefore, Eliezer will meet Rebecca at
the well, a generation later Jacob will meet Rachel at the well, and then Moses
will meet Zipporah at the well. Clearly, the well is eHarmony or JDate of its
day. It is also extensively used as a metaphor for the spiritual nourishment
needed— U Shavtem Mayim be Sason,” You
shall draw water with joy,” Mi Maayanei Hayeshua, “From the fountains of
salvation”.(Isaiah 12:3)
Let’s ask ourselves now. Why did Abraham go out of his
way to send for a bride from his homeland? Was it just that he wanted his boy
to marry into his faith? After all his family was not Jewish; they were all idol
worshipers while he was the lone monotheist in the group. .
Why would he not have his son marry one of the local
Canaanite women? After all he had developed some friendly relations with the
locals as it was shown just a chapter before when he negotiated with the people
of Hebron for a burial place for Sarah. Did he look down on the Canaanites as
racially inferior? Was it a reflection of the accusation later made by anti-
Semites who claimed that Jews don’t allow intermarriage because they don’t want
alien blood?
He is afraid of the influence of the Canaanite culture.
Abraham is the
epitome of kindness to strangers; only a few chapters before we had seen the
worst of cruelty in the behavior of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The
culture of Canaan is also described in the Bible as a culture of sexual
license. Abraham is concerned with shaping progeny who were dedicated and loyal
and neither trait would be fit for his children.
We’re all familiar with the test that Eliezer devises to
identify the right woman and it raises lots of questions. For example, some of
our rabbis asked “Isn’t this an act of divination or of going to an oracle?” You
create some test and if the test comes to be then you know that’s your answer?
That goes against the teachings of the Bible that we do not use acts of
divination.
It was also, they said, in itself, an unfit request. What
if the woman that carried this out was unfit for marriage? Never make an oath
that you might regret!
Rather should see this not as an act of fortune-telling
but as a kind of entry exam, let’s say it’s an S A T test not for college but
marriage instead.
What is nature of the test?
Drawing water for a stranger is, by itself, not so
unusual. It would have been a common courtesy to a stranger in those days.
But in our day? Could imagine all the possible answers
that Rebecca could have given if she was one of our modern teenagers?
“You’re standing near the well, you can go draw it yourself.”
“I just finished going to the well. Why don't you get one
of the girls who has just arrived to help?”
“I just got the pitcher up on my shoulder; get it down by
yourself.”
The
test becomes a real test when we realize what it involves.
Have any of you ever been on an archaeological tour
Israel where you are taken to see ancient wells. You know they are you deep and
cavernous circular pits in the ground with staircases cut into the rock going
all the way down. It’s not our common depiction of the well with a crankcase
attached to a water bucket. You had to go down down down with your bucket and
then up up up with a bucket full and heavy.
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| Here's an unusually large cistern |
This mystery
woman( or girl) is described as descending into the ancient well of that time so to draw the water is a major effort.
Where does she have to bring the water? The watering trough
is not next to the well but at a distance, so she is described as running, not
walking!
Eliezer only asks for water for himself. She offers not
only to give him water but to draw water until all the camels have finished
drinking!
Eliezer is stunned and we can only understand this when
we do the arithmetic for watering camels.
It turns out that a camel drinks about 25 gallons of
water a shot and Eliezer has 10 gallons. That means a total of 250 gallons and
if we assume she can carry 5 gallons bucket seven trip, then that is 50 trips
up and down the steps of that the well and to the watering trough. Now that is
a prayer fulfilled.
It is now clear for us how Rebecca is so very different
from the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. When strangers come to Sodom and
Gomorrah they are almost gang raped and killed. When the stranger comes to
Rebecca he is nourished. That makes clear why the heir to Abraham’s vision
cannot be from the Canaanite peoples but only be from someone like Rebecca.
Here is the person who runs to help, offers aid without
expecting a
tit for tat, without asking “What’s
in it for me”, or” why should I bother?”. Here is the ideal one who does not
say “call on somebody else.”
So we can see how much we owe to these camels, because
through them, we find a match made in heaven. Perhaps Rebecca was the
originator of the slogan, “I’ld walk a mile for a Camel”( but the cigarette
people used it the wrong way.)
We can all use more Rebeccas.
People of her time may have thought of her as a fool to
go out of her way for a stranger, but I
want to respond to it with a quote from Pirke Avoth in the name of Akabya ben Mehalelel:
“Better that I be called a fool all my life than that
there be one moment of wickedness on my account in the presence of God.”
Let's all choose to be called fools; lets all be like Rachel.
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