Don't Let Life Pass You By

A moving verse in this week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, reads: "Avraham was old, he came in days, and G-d had blessed Avraham with everything."

What is the meaning of this expression that Avraham "came in days?" Most biblical commentators explain it simply that Avraham had advanced in years; that he had grown much older.

Yet, if this is accurate, the verse is redundant. Once the Torah stated "Avraham was old," there is no need to say that he was advanced in years. This would be inconsistent with the meticulousness of every verse, word, and even letter of the Torah.

How Many Times Do You Get Old?

Another difficulty arises when carefully studying Bereshit. Several chapters earlier, the Torah states that "Avraham and Sarah were old, they came in days; the manner of women had ceased to be with Sarah."

This verse describes Avraham and Sarah at the ages of 99 and 89, respectively, one year before their son Yitzchak was born. Their description as two elderly people seems fair.

Our verse however, “Avraham was old, he came in days”, describes Avraham living 41 years later, after the death of his wife Sarah at the age of 127 and right before the marriage of his son Yitzchak, who married at the age of 40. Why would the Torah suddenly now state that "Avraham was old" again, 41 years later?

If you write about an 80-year-old man that "he is old," would you write again 40 years later, "he is an old man?" Isn't it quite obvious that he is still an old man? Would anyone think that he has become younger over these forty years?

And in the earlier verse as well, the Torah uses this redundant expression: "Avraham and Sarah were old, they came in days." Once you have stated that Avraham and Sarah were old, you have already stated that they had advanced in their years?

Allowing Life to Touch You

The Hebrew expression used for "they came in days" is "baeim bayamim." A literal translation would read, "They came into the days."

Perhaps, then, we ought to interpret the words "they came into the days" in the simplest way possible: that Avraham and Sarah entered inside their days, allowing the days and its experiences to encompass them completely and touch the texture of their very being.

Avraham and Sarah lived an immersive life; they were fully immersed in each and every day.

Many of us are frightened to enter into our lives and live it fully, with the complete presence of mind, heart, and body, with unbridled passion and zest. We do not trust life enough to let it possess us. Perhaps part of our limbic brain is frozen and we cannot fully show up to life, it is too scary. Life holds too much pain, too many disappointments, so much shame, anger, and guilt; we would rather let our days pass by us from a distance so that we remain safe. We observe our days moving along, but we remain emotionally distant; are too timid to become one with them, to be fully engulfed by them.

Yet, Avraham and Sarah, the Torah says, personified a different model: "They came into the days;" they fully entered into their days. They allowed themselves to be wrapped by life. All their days were explored, actualized, and lived to the fullest. They valued, celebrated, and maximized every day.

Avraham and Sarah had been through quite a life together! They enjoyed tremendous blessings and victories, as well as profound pain and disappointment. Sarah and Avraham waited for most of their life for a child; Sarah was abducted twice by powerful monarchs; Avraham and Sarah journeyed alone on a journey that required them to stand up to a Pagan world. Yet throughout all of it – the positive as well as the challenging, the joyous as well as the painful – they allowed themselves to experience the pulse of life in its totality. They were present throughout and did not retreat into the cocoon of safe detachment. They "entered" inside each day and stared at its existence with an unwavering gaze and mighty courage.

Sure, it is safer to enter into your life halfway, to create a border between yourself and your experiences. No sorrow, no pain, no tears. But that may come at the cost of LIVING, and deprives you of a life filled with exuberance, laughter, passion, and wholesomeness. Avraham and Sarah, in a sense, retained the innocence of children. Did you ever observe children? They dislike fragmentation. They enter into something completely – with their entire sense of curiosity, trust, presence of mind, and emotional vulnerability.

It has been said that there are three types of people: Those who make things happen; those who watch things happen, and those whom you have to tell that something happened...

People who live an immersive life never experience two similar days. Every day brings up a new awareness, a new challenge, a new opportunity, a new task, a new layer of reality. When I show up fully to live, every day is a new journey, a calling to take on the unique mission of this day, which may be very different than my task yesterday.

When Life Became Rough

Now we will understand why, 41 years later, the Torah finds it necessary to repeat the exact same description about the first Jew: "Avraham was old, he came into the days."

No doubt during this period of time, Avraham experienced the most profound and most turbulent moments of his entire life. After waiting for decades, he was finally blessed with a child, Yitzchak, who would carry on the monotheistic revolution he had begun.

And during this period, Avraham watched himself about to slaughter his son. It was only at the last moment that G-d told him to take his hands off the lad and let him live. What does such an event do to a father?

Finally, during these years, the person who was there with him through thick and thin, his life's partner, passed away. Sarah has walked along with Avraham for close to a century, their lives merged into perfect oneness. Her death must have been an unimaginable loss to Avraham. One would think that at this point Avraham would have developed some detachment skills to protect himself against any further pain and anguish.

We often observe how after years of experiencing life with all its pressures and struggles, people develop a certain indifference and apathy. They have simply been through too much to subject themselves to the vulnerable vicissitudes of life. They detach.

So the Torah informs us that Avraham's courage lasted him till the very end. "Avraham was old, he came into the days." Even as a widower, Avraham did not detach from life. He breathed it in, with all of its majesty, drama, joy, and pain. On the lines of his face and the streaks of his soul, he carried a reminder of every encounter, every relationship, and every experience. That is what we call truly living: acquiring the courage to become one with life, to feel it, love it, and possess it.

Avraham believed that cynicism and detachment are the easy retreats of a small mind. Till his last breath, the founder of the Jewish faith awoke each morning and said, "I will live my life today to the fullest; my heart and soul will immerse themselves fully in the journey of life today and I will maximize the unique mission given to me for this day."