Chayei Sarah

“The Life of Sarah” is an ironic name for a parsha/sedra (weekly Torah-reading portion) that begins with her death. So what was her life like? Well, she was married to her half-brother, Avraham, who twice asked her to lie about their marital status out of fear for his life. She was a barren woman who lived to regret giving her servant to her husband as the first surrogate mother on record (to the best of my knowledge). She was chastised by G-d for laughing when He told her husband that they’d have a child in her old age, though her husband had also laughed at a previous such prediction and gotten away with it (see Parshat Lech Lecha/ Genesis, chapter 8, verse 17). Later, when she’d had enough of Hagar’s son Yishmael/Ishmael’s mockery of her own son Yitzchak/Isaac, she had them expelled from their home. But Hagar got the last laugh—midrash (rabbinic legend/interpretation) tells us that Sarah died of a broken heart when she found out that Avraham had taken Yitzchak, her only child, to be sacrificed.