In this week’s Parasha, Chaye Sarah, we read about the passing of Sarah, “And these were the years of the life of Sarah.”

The Torah uses a peculiar expression to describe Sarah’s lifespan. Instead of writing “127 years”, the text divides her age into “one hundred years, twenty years, and seven years.”

This numerical detail is interpreted to emphasize the quality-of-life Sarah achieved. At one hundred years old, our Sages tell us, Sarah maintained such a high level of spiritual connection that she was as if she were twenty, free of sin and imperfection. And at twenty, she possessed the beauty and grace she had at seven.

This combination of the spiritual and the physical is a model for all of us. Sarah achieved a balance between a deep spiritual life and an external beauty that reflected her inner goodness.

The Torah wants to teach us that a full life is not achieved with just one of these aspects, but with the union of both. For us, the fundamental thing is to achieve inner beauty, a purity of soul that is expressed in our actions and in our way of relating to the world, but along with this we must take care of life, our health and our physical safety.

In the following verse, it tells us about her death and the details of the purchase of the land where she was buried. This raises a question: If the story begins by talking about Sarah’s life, why does it continue describing her death and the details of her burial?

Our Sages teach us a profound lesson in this regard. When a human dies, his life does not end at that moment. On the contrary, his ideals and spiritual teachings remain alive, accompanying humanity and guiding future generations. The life of a human is perpetuated through his spiritual legacy. In this sense, Sarah continues to live in every act of faith that we continue to practice today, 4,000 years after her death.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Refael Cohen