Комментарий о цитате к Берешит 25:32

מאה שנה, “one hundred years;” Rashi comments on the reason why the word: שנה, “year,” is repeated here three times, when the Torah could have simply written: מאה עשרים ושבע שנה, “one hundred and twenty seven years.” He suggests that the Torah wished us to know that Sarah was as free from sin at a hundred as she had been at twenty, and that she was as beautiful at twenty as she had been at seven. This, of course, raises the question why the Torah, in reporting the death of Yishmael at 137 years (Genesis, 25,32) used exactly the same formulation? We can answer this by pointing out that when reporting Sarah’s age, each group of years is reported separately, as an individual unit, whereas when reporting Yishmael’s age at death, the groups of years are introduced in the construct mode, i.e. מאת, not מאה, i.e. all the years had the same common factor. Not only that, but the Torah sums up her years once more with the words: שני חיי שרה, “the years of Sarah’s life,” i.e. all her years were earmarked by a common denominator. If, when Avraham’s death is reported our sages have seen fit to read something into the way his years are reported, although there too just as at the death of Yishmael we find the word מאת in the construct form, this can be accounted for by the word: ימי, “days of,” which are superfluous and therefore available for interpretation. (Genesis 25,7) Rashi also adds that Sarah was free from sin at twenty as if this was something exceptional; this sounds strange as at that time everyone was free from sin, i.e. not held accountable until the age of twenty? We must understand Rashi as if he had written: ”just as she was free from sin at 20, she remained free from sin until the end of her life. Accountability for sins at the age of 12 or 13 for females and males respectively, commenced only after the Torah had been given. [Our midrashim describe Yishmael as “innocent” when expelled by Sarah, as he was below 20 years of age. Ed.] Sarah had not required cosmetics at twenty anymore than she had required it at the age of seven. We know from Rivkah, who accepted jewelry at the age of three in order to enhance her appearance, that girls in those days felt the need to enhance their natural charms at an early age. (Compare Genesis 24,22) There is a Midrash in pessikta zutrata according to which the reference to her being one hundred as meaning that she was as beautiful at a hundred as she had been at twenty, whereas she was as free from sin at twenty as she had been at seven.

על יד היאר means BESIDE THE RIVER. Similar is (II Samuel 14:30) “See, the field of Joab is beside mine (על ידי)”. It really denotes even in this sense the actual hand, for a person’s hand is beside him (i. e. beside his body). Our Rabbis explained that the word הלכת “they were going” denotes dying, similar to (Genesis 25:32) “Behold I am going (הולך) to die” — they were going to their death because they attempted to prevent her from saving the child. Scripture, too, supports them in this explanation, for if this is not the meaning, why do we need that it should write “and her damsels were going”? (Scripture reports nothing as having happened because they were walking there. Why then stress this detail if it merely signifies that they were walking along the bank?).

הולכות ,ונערותיה, “and her servantmaids “walking,” Rashi, while interpreting the word as meaning “walking towards her death,” quotes a traditional explanation in the Talmud Sotah 12 according to which it is short for “being on a path which leads to death,” as in Genesis 25,32, where Esau is quoted as saying: הנה אנכי הולך למות, “here I am pursuing a path that will result in my death;” The scholar in the Talmud has the servant maids warning the daughter of Pharaoh who was actually going to use the waters of the Nile as a mikveh, ritual bath, in order to cleanse herself from the desecrations that were a daily occurrence in her father’s palace, by warning her that even when other people might disregard the king’s command surely his own daughter would not dare do so? They warned that by doing so she would condemn herself to death by execution. When hearing what her maidservants had said to Pharaoh’s daughter, the angel Gavriel struck them so that they fell to the ground. At this point there surfaces a divergence of opinion between two scholars, one saying that the word אמתה, as distinct from the word נערות for the servant maids used by the Torah previously, refers to the servant maid who had been spared by the angel, as it is not fitting for a princess to remain without at least one of her attendants. The other scholar does not understand the word אמתה as “her servant maid,” but as “her arm,” i.e. the arm of the princess which had been miraculously lengthened to the extent of about 2,5 meters for this purpose. Rashi, for reasons of a grammatical nature, rejects the second opinion offered in the Talmud, saying that if correct the letter מ in that word would have to have a dot, dagesh in it. He adds that further proof is the fact that the letter א in the word is vocalised with an abbreviated vowel chataf patach.