By Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu

Each person has their story; the way they lived so often resonating at the time of death. That story plays out in those who gather round their grave. Some of us think about the end of life, and plan for it, and others leave that thought until there is no more time. Abraham was a founding patriarch. Leaving his own birthplace meant leaving the ancestral burial ground behind; settling in Canaan requires him to purchase as new place for burial.

The field of Ephron, with its cave of Machpelah, will, in time be the burial place of Sarah, Isaac, Rebeca, Jacob and Leah, and of course, Abraham himself. Known today as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in Hebron, it is the epicentre of ongoing deadly conflict. It is a sacred site for both Jews and Muslims, as well as a monument to the deadly and magnetic pull of burial in such contested land. But one small verse opens up a different reality in this week’s parashah. When Abraham dies, at a ripe old age, “Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him, at the Cave of Machpelah, at the field of Ephron…”

Imagine that. After so many years, after so much pain. Ishmael, who enters adulthood as an outcast, is and banished by Sarah, and sent into the wilderness with his mother Hagar, by Abraham. Ishmael finds it in his heart to come back to bury him. Isaac, who has also survived his own near sacrifice at his father Abraham’s hands, joins him. Two brothers, fatherless sons. Who knows what it took to put aside their pain, as well as their mutual estrangement.

Burial places that are weighty with the unresolved crimes of history can be dangerous places. That is why it is essential to keep remembering that the Cave of Machpelah, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, was at that moment the site of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Shabbat Shalom.

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