Chava Failed, Noach Failed – and Sarah Revealed the Secret of Joy | Chayei Sarah in Light of Chassidus

00:00 Have you noticed that in the weekly parsha, Parshas Chayei Sarah, the central story is about Eliezer, Avraham’s servant? Ask any child, and they’ll tell you: Who was the man Avraham Avinu sent to find a match for Yitzchak—to find Rivkah? Eliezer. But when we look for his name in the parsha, we won’t find it. Eliezer’s name is not mentioned even once. He is called only “the servant”: “The servant took,” “the servant said.” The whole story is about a servant with no name. What’s more, when he meets Besuel, Rivkah’s father, and her brother Lavan, and begins to tell them who he is, how does he identify himself? He says, “I am Avraham’s servant.” No name. The obvious question is: Why? We have to look in Rashi, the Midrashim and the Gemara to find his name, but it does not appear in the verses themselves. That brings us to today’s topic—one of the most fascinating and important lessons in a Jew’s service of Hashem that we can take from the weekly parsha. How do we carry out our shlichus in the healthiest, most proper way? After all, Eliezer, Avraham’s servant, is considered the first shliach, the first servant whom Avraham Avinu, the first Jew, sent on a mission. And not just any mission—a historic one. Yitzchak Avinu was the first Jewish son born fully Jewish, circumcised at eight days old, as our Sages say. This was the first wedding in a Jewish family where the son had been born Jewish from the very beginning. We’re talking about something of tremendous importance in the history of the Jewish people. Avraham Avinu sends his servant to carry out this mission. Here we learn a central point in our lives as Jews, one we need to talk about, study and understand.

02:29 How do I take my “I” out of the center? It’s not about me being at the center: I did this, I accomplished that, I’m doing this, I’m making things happen, I’m going, I’m arriving. There is a certain kind of “I” that we need to move out of the center. Let’s talk today about the healthy humility that the Torah teaches us in the weekly parsha. What does healthy humility mean? Chassidus explains that humility is not what people generally think it is: a person saying, “Who am I? What am I? I’m nothing; I’m worth nothing.” Healthy humility is just the opposite. A person recognizes his strengths. He knows exactly who he is, what abilities and qualities he has, what special strengths he possesses—and still, he does not take pride in them. He does not even feel them. The fundamental problem is what Chassidus calls being self-conscious: feeling oneself, putting the “I” at the center of what one does, at the center of one’s service of Hashem. This is something wonderful that we learn from the weekly parsha. Let’s go back to the beginning of the parsha and discuss a beautiful, profound explanation in Chassidus based on the Zohar. The Zohar asks a simple question about the opening of the weekly parsha. What is it about Sarah Imeinu that the whole parsha is named for her? Why is Sarah the only one of the holy Matriarchs whose years of life the Torah recounts? You won’t find this about Rivkah, Rachel or Leah. “Sarah’s lifetime was one hundred years, twenty years and seven years—the years of Sarah’s life.” The Torah devotes the beginning of the parsha—and names the entire Parshas Chayei Sarah—to telling us about a special life: the life of Sarah Imeinu. The Zohar asks: Why does the Torah speak specifically about Sarah’s life? And the Zohar says that Sarah accomplished something extraordinary: she repaired what Chava and Noach had damaged.

05:02 The Zohar puts it this way: Chava came into the world—the first woman came into the world—and tried to bring about a tikkun, to repair something special. We’ll explain what that was shortly. But she did not succeed. Not only did she fail; she became attached to the serpent. In other words, she caused damage—the primordial serpent, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Then Noach came and tried to repair what Chava had damaged. What does it say about Noach? “He planted a vineyard,” and then, “He drank of the wine and became uncovered.” He, too, caused damage. Sarah, says the Zohar, went down and came back up. Sarah Imeinu also went down to Egypt, yet she did not become attached to its evil, impurity or kelipah. On the contrary: “And Avram was very wealthy in livestock, silver and gold”—all the wonderful blessings described there. What is the Zohar telling us? What connects these three people? What connects the story of Chava, the story of Sarah, and, in between, the story of Noach? The maamarim of Chassidus give a beautiful explanation. Chava wanted to bring joy into the world. Adam was created, and immediately after his creation, as the Torah tells us in Parshas Bereishis, Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed him in the Garden of Eden “to work it and guard it.” Adam was in the world to work it and guard it—to perform the service of Hashem that Hakadosh Boruch Hu had given him. Chava knew that for service of Hashem to truly do what it is meant to do, to accomplish what it is meant to accomplish, simply serving Hashem is not enough. It must also be done with joy. Chava understood that the goal is not only to serve Hashem, but to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu with joy. “Serve Hashem with joy; come before Him with song.” Joy is essential to serving Hashem. One cannot serve Hashem without joy. “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of

07:33 heart”—the verse in Parshas Ki Savo goes on to say very harsh things. As the Rambam says, the verse does not mean there was no service of Hashem; rather, the joy was missing. When there is no joy in serving Hashem, “you will serve your enemies,” and so on, as the verse says there. Chava knew this, and so she wanted to bring joy to Adam, and through him, bring joy into the world. The Midrash says that the Tree of Knowledge was a grapevine. There are several opinions, as we know. The Gemara in Berachos and other teachings of our Sages discuss various explanations of what fruit the Tree of Knowledge actually bore. But according to one opinion—the one the Zohar is discussing here—it was a vine, and the fruit was made into wine. Chava knew that wine brings joy, so she wanted to give Adam a cup of wine. Then he would be joyful and serve Hashem with joy. But she caused damage; she became attached to the serpent. Here we come to the beautiful explanation, based on the Rambam’s words in Moreh Nevuchim. Chassidus explains at length the precise nature of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. It explains that it was the sin of self-consciousness: “I feel myself.” Before that sin, Adam was a holy person. He was also a wise person. We should not mistakenly think that the Torah means he would acquire intellect by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Heaven forbid. Before the sin, Adam possessed intellect on the highest level. But it was pure G-dly intellect, and pure G-dly intellect is true intellect: intellect that seeks the truth, with no feeling of ego mixed into it. Not “I want this,” or “I understand it because it suits me, my world, the things I like.” No. This intellect was pure; it was true. The sin of the Tree of Knowledge brought about a new kind of intellect. Intellect mixed with a feeling of ego is no longer pure intellect.

09:43 I understand what’s worthwhile for me, what makes me feel good. I’m always operating through understanding, through intellectual grasp. Yes, I’ll look for where I can gain, where it benefits me. But that is already the wrong kind of joy, an impure joy. Chava wanted to bring joy into the world. She... wanted Adam to drink the wine. But what happened? It was a joy he could feel in himself. She mistakenly thought joy meant feeling how good things are for you, how much pleasure you have, how much you possess. If I have more money, if I have more comfort in life, if I have everything I want, then I’ll feel full and I’ll be happy. But that isn’t joy. When a person places himself at the center of his joy—what we call a joy felt in oneself—it cannot be true joy. Because however much a person has, he will always want more. He will always think he deserves more. Once the “I” is at the center, you cannot have pure joy. Sometimes you look around to see what someone else has, and then jealousy begins. Why does he have it and I don’t? Why not me? I’d like to have more; I deserve more. Considering what I’ve done, I think I deserve it. Calculations upon calculations. Once the “I” is in the middle, a person will always feel that something is missing. He won’t be satisfied. He’ll always be calculating how much he deserves, how much he wants, how much he needs. When is joy true joy? That’s, that’s Avraham Avinu. That’s Sarah Imeinu. So the sin of Adam and Chava was the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. According to this Midrash, it was wine. She wanted to bring joy. Her intention, her aim, was right; it was good,

11:44 she had a good thought, but she brought spoiled wine. Wine that produces a feeling of self-satisfaction, a feeling of “I, and nothing else.” A feeling that things are good for me because I have, because I received. And that kind of joy cannot last. It later turns into depression, sadness, restless pursuit, jealousy, hatred, and competition. And that is essentially what happened to Adam. That is the sin of the Tree of Knowledge according to Chassidus. Noach came ten generations later and wanted to correct Chava’s sin, so Noach planted a vineyard. He came out of the ark, and what was the first thing he did? He planted a vineyard. Didn’t he have anything else to do? Was there any shortage of things to do in a world that had been completely destroyed? It needed to be rebuilt. Why go straight to a vineyard? But Noach wanted to correct Chava’s sin. He knew that Chava had brought wine, joy, but it was the wrong kind of joy: joy centered on the feeling of self, on selfishness. That kind of joy cannot be put right. It doesn’t work. So he wanted to bring a different kind of joy. What kind did he choose? The joy of intoxication. “He drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself inside his tent.” Noach drank the wine, became drunk, and lost control. In other words, this is a different kind of selfishness. There is the selfishness of self-satisfaction, pride, and ego. That is one kind of joy that cannot last. But there is another kind of joy: the joy of escape. He drinks so much alcohol that he forgets himself and escapes from himself, and then he is happy, he feels good. I’m missing nothing; I have no problems. Life is a pleasure, life is delightful, everything is fine. There’s a story told about the Frierdiker Rebbe. As the story goes, there was once a farbrengen of chassidim in Moscow, and in the middle they needed a little something to say l’chaim, to lift their spirits, feel renewed, and rejoice. They went looking, but they

13:45 didn’t have any. Then they came across a Russian drunk sitting there in the street with a bottle in his hand. They wanted to buy the bottle from him. They offered him ten rubles. Absolutely not. They started raising the offer: twenty, thirty, then a hundred, hundreds. No. “Give me millions—I’m not selling the bottle.” Why? You could make a great deal of money here. Why don’t you want to? So he said: “How much would you give me? This amount, that amount—every amount is limited. When I have a bottle of vodka in my hand, all of Moscow belongs to me.” What did he mean? It’s simple. Drinking takes you out of your reality. You disconnect from real life, and then you can live up in the clouds. Wonderful. But that is a life of escape. It isn’t the right kind of joy; it isn’t pure joy. It’s the joy of escape. And in an escape, a person isn’t truly present. That isn’t serving Hashem with the joy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. Then Sarah came. Sarah Imeinu brought pure joy. Sarah Imeinu was a joyful woman. How do we know she was joyful? Because we see that when Sarah hears good news, she laughs. “Sarah laughed within herself,” in Parshas Vayeira, at the beginning of the parsha. And also at the end of the parsha, when Yitzchak was born to Sarah Imeinu—what was her response when Yitzchak was born? “G-d has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And what does she name the only child she has, at the age of ninety? Yitzchak. In other words, for Sarah, laughter—the expression of joy—was something essential to who she was. But her joy was the right kind of joy, pure joy, joy that takes the “I” out of the center. It isn’t the joy of “things are good for me, I feel good about myself, and therefore I’m happy,” or “I escape from myself, and there I am, on a cloud

16:02 of joy.” No. Neither selfishness nor escape. There’s no need to escape anywhere. It is the feeling of complete self-nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is Sarah Imeinu. When a person is in a state of complete self-nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he is devoted. This isn’t about me; I’m not at the center. If I’m not at the center, then joy can be pure joy, true joy, joy that isn’t felt as a personal gain. There is a verse in Yeshayahu: “The humble shall increase their joy in Hashem.” The humble—that is precisely who can experience true joy. Because a truly humble person knows his qualities; he knows who he is. He knows the wonderful abilities Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given him, but he doesn’t feel the “I” in it. It isn’t me; this isn’t about me. I’m not at the center. There is a purpose, there is a shlichus, there is a task, and I am part of that task. Once my “I” and my selfishness are no longer at the center, the joy is true joy. Why? Because then the joy is pure. It isn’t a joy that seeks to receive, that looks for gains. It isn’t a joy that asks, “What will make me feel good about myself?” It is pure and genuine joy in the knowledge that what Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives me is good. What Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives me is the most I could ask for. He owes me nothing; He doesn’t have to give me anything; I’m entitled to nothing. I was simply created by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and if I succeed, that success is Divine—a success from G-d. If I have talents, I received those from Above too. There is the merit of my forefathers. It isn’t me. On the contrary, as Chassidus explains, the humble person’s calculation is that if someone else had the qualities and gifts and all the abilities I have, he would do far greater work, far better work. And therefore,

17:55 I am always grateful. That is pure joy, true joy, and it was Sarah Imeinu who revealed this joy. That is why, regarding “and the life of Sarah,” the Zohar says that her life was truly worthy of the name “life.” Sarah Imeinu’s life reached the higher life, in the language of the Zohar—the true, pure, holy life—because she felt what it really means to live. As the Rebbe writes in one of his letters: a healthy person is someone who doesn’t feel himself. A healthy person—if I’m healthy and my head doesn’t hurt, I’m not even aware that I have a head. Of course, if I think about it, I know I have a head, but a healthy person doesn’t feel his head; it’s simply there. He doesn’t say, “Wow, I have a head! I’m something special! I have a hand!” What do you mean, “I have”? There’s nothing here that I need to feel and be happy or sad about. It doesn’t arise in the first place. A healthy person is one whose body is nullified to the soul, so the body and its limbs don’t feel themselves. They are nullified to something far higher. And that, in essence, is the shlichus of a healthy Jew. This leads into the continuation of the parsha, when the Torah comes to tell us about Eliezer, Avraham’s servant. His name doesn’t appear. This is the right kind of servant, the true servant. Avraham Avinu chooses Eliezer, Avraham’s servant—a servant—because he is a person who knows how to devote himself, to put himself aside and say, “I am Avraham’s servant.” This isn’t about me. If it were about me, an argument would begin: Is it worth it for me or not? Should I do it or not? All sorts of calculations—and then the whole story of the parsha would never have happened. Once Eliezer devoted himself completely, he didn’t think about himself for a moment. He knew one thing:

19:49 “I am Avraham’s servant.” Avraham Avinu sends him; there is a mission, and there is only the person in the role of Avraham’s servant. Then, the moment he arrives in Aram Naharayim, everything happens wonderfully. Everything happens on its own. Notice an interesting expression in the weekly parsha. When Eliezer stands by the well and prays, he receives the great miracle of Rivkah arriving in the middle of his prayer. He has not even finished praying. The Torah says, “And the man stood watching her silently.” The Mitteler Rebbe asks: “And the man stood watching her silently”—what is the Torah trying to tell us? That he became quiet? He waited silently to see what would happen: Rivkah would come and draw the water. The Mitteler Rebbe says that “the man stood watching her silently” is really the whole story of Parshas Chayei Sarah. Eliezer, Avraham’s servant, had this wonderful quality of watching silently. I am nothing; I do not exist; I am quiet. This is not just silence in the sense of not speaking. We are talking about peace of mind, inner quiet. I am not here. This is not about me. I am only a conduit. After all, “I am Avraham’s servant.” Everything will happen when it needs to happen. Because he had this self-nullification—and that is why his name does not appear throughout the parsha—he achieved extraordinary success. As the verse says, “And Hashem made my journey successful.” Eliezer carried out his task with remarkable success: Rivkah arrived before he had even finished praying; she brought him water; and he tested her good character. She was so devoted that she was willing to give water to the camels without receiving anything in return. All of this, this entire story, happened for one reason alone: the moment I move my ego aside and devote myself to the mission, to

21:56 the goal, things flow in the most wonderful way, beyond nature. They move along swiftly and quickly, and everything happens. But move your ego aside. If you truly want to be a happy person, forget yourself. That does not mean you need to drink vodka or alcohol, disconnect, or run away. Forgetting yourself means not making your ego the focus in the first place. This is not about you. There is something more uplifting, more universal, more sublime. There is a mission here. Be part of it, and you will see that everything flows. This very week, we are celebrating the Kinus Hashluchim. This Shabbos, thousands of the Rebbe’s shluchim will gather at the world headquarters, 770. Within the Rebbe’s four cubits, they will farbreng, gather, pray, rejoice, and dance. It is by far the largest gathering of shluchim in the world. This gathering expresses the essence of the weekly parsha. It has always taken place around this time. I still remember the Kinus Hashluchim with the Rebbe in the good years, when we would hear the Rebbe’s holy voice at the Shabbos farbrengen of the Kinus Hashluchim. It was usually on Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah or Shabbos Parshas Toldos—always Shabbos Mevarchim Kislev—and the Rebbe spoke about the shluchim. The Rebbe spoke about the role of a shliach, and the point this parsha teaches us is so fundamental and essential: to be a true shliach. What is the strength of the shluchim? Everyone asks: What is their strength? What is the secret? What accounts for their success? The answer is, “I am Avraham’s servant.” This is not about me; I do not exist here. What matters is the one who sent me. What matters is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the tzaddik whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed in this world to guide us and lead us. There is a goal, and that goal is to bring the days of Moshiach. I am wholly devoted to that goal. The moment you have that devotion,

24:19 that approach, your success is assured. “And Hashem made my journey successful.” May Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant divine success to each and every one of the shluchim—and, in fact, to every Jew, because we are all shluchim of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We are all shluchim of the leader of the generation. I remember that in the later years, the Rebbe said several times that every Jew in our generation is a shliach. Every Jew is a shliach of the leader of the generation, tasked with fulfilling the goal and bringing the days of Moshiach. So let us all come together, gather strength, build up our strength, and reveal our true strength. The moment we devote ourselves and forget about ourselves a little, we will stop putting our egos at the center. What will I gain? What will I get? Who am I? What am I? None of those calculations matter. There is a mission; there is a goal; and the goal is very clear. The purpose of every deed, word, and thought of ours is solely to fulfill the ultimate goal: to make the world a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to bring the days of Moshiach, and to merit the great revelation of Moshiach Tzidkeinu speedily in our days, amen.