Parashat Chayyei Sarah, 5786/2025 thoughts

In this morning's Torah reading, Avraham Avinu (Abraham Our Father) sends his (unnamed) servant to find a wife for his son Yitzchak (Isaac). But it's not entirely clear where the servant is supposed to look. Some people translate the word "molad'ti" as "homeland" or "birthplace," while others translate it as "kindred." Clearly, the servant thinks he's being sent to Avraham's homeland, because the test he devises to find a suitable wife for Yitzchak has everything to do with kindness and nothing to do with kinship--if he'd been looking for Nachor's family, he would have asked for directions at the well. Yet, once he finds out that Rivkah is Nachor's granddaughter, he makes quite a show of telling her family that he was sent to find a member of Nachor's family. Apparently, he thinks that flattery will get you everywhere. 🙂 (See also my Saturday, October 30, 2021 post, "My name is—or was—Sarah, and I was the Invisible Matriarch." https://onthefringe_jewishblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/my-name-isor-wassarah-and-i-was.html