וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אַל־תְּאַחֲרוּ אֹתִי וַיהֹוָ”ה הִצְלִיחַ דַּרְכִּי שַׁלְּחוּנִי וְאֵלְכָה לַאדֹנִי׃ וַיֹּאמְרוּ נִקְרָא לַנַּעֲרָ וְנִשְׁאֲלָה אֶת־פִּיהָ׃ וַיִּקְרְאוּ לְרִבְקָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶיהָ הֲתֵלְכִי עִם־הָאִישׁ הַזֶּה וַתֹּאמֶר אֵלֵךְ׃

[Avraham’s servant] said to them, “Do not delay me, now that YHVH has made my errand successful. Give me leave that I may go to my master.”

And they said, “Let us call the girl and ask for her reply.”

They called Rivkah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” And she said, “I will go.” (Gen. 25:56-58)

In between the two funerals in Hayyei Sarah, Avraham sends his servant to find a wife for Yitzhak. The servant prays, “God, whoever shows readiness to care not only for me but for my animals – let that be the person You’ve chosen for Yitzhak.” Sure enough, the girl who lifts her pitcher turns out to be family, which our sages see as the hand of God at work. For me, though, what’s most remarkable isn’t that miracle: it’s that Rivkah’s family asks what she wants, instead of deciding for her.

And Rivkah doesn’t seem to need time to ponder her answer. When her family asks, “will you go with this man?” Rivkah immediately says, “אֵלֵךְ׃ / I will go.” For me this feels like a hyperlink to one of my favorite passages in Ruth (1:16): “כִּי אֶל־אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכִי אֵלֵךְ וּבַאֲשֶׁר תָּלִינִי אָלִין עַמֵּךְ עַמִּי וֵאלֹהַיִךְ אֱלֹהָי׃ / where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay; your people will be my people, and your God my God.” Like Ruth, Rivkah shows no apparent hesitation. Maybe she’d been waiting for change.

Ruth had known Naomi for a long time before she made that promise. They had years of relationship. An existing love, growing into something new. Rivkah is doing something more radical. She doesn’t know what she’s stepping into. She’s presented with a new chapter, and she just says yes. Between them, these two foremothers remind me that there is strength to be found in (like Ruth) deepening our commitments to one another, and in (like Rivkah) embracing new beginnings.

Sometimes new beginnings emerge in times of grief. In the book of Ruth it’s famine and the deaths of Elimelekh, Mahlon, and Khilion. This parsha opens with Avraham burying Sarah. Then Yitzhak and Ishmael come together to bury Avraham. Reading these stories every year, I remember what it was like to say goodbye to my mother, and three years later to my father. I remember how unmoored I felt when I was suddenly at the front of the line of generations. How it felt to lose that connection to my origins.

I can tell you now that my relationship with my parents didn’t end when I buried them. It’s different now. But it’s still there. And I can see, in hindsight, how connecting with the people in my life helped me navigate the shoals of grief and come out safely on the far side. For Yitzhak, that means welcoming Rivkah into his mother’s tent and into his life. For me it was my friends, my son, my community. Each of you will know how this manifests for you, in your life, in your journey through whatever unfolds.

Many of you have heard me say that when we read Torah, we can find all of her characters within. Sometimes we’re Yitzhak, walking the mourner’s path and in need of comfort. Sometimes we’re Rivkah, presented with the opportunity to take a radical step into the unknown and say “yes” to the unknowable. And sometimes we’re Ruth, navigating our own griefs even as we deepen our commitments to one another and to the things that matter, the values and relationships that make us who we are.

Because of the way the Jewish calendar works, where we get an extra month in seven out of every nineteen years, we aren’t always reading the same parsha during Election Week. I have distinct memories of going to the voting booth in 2008 and then coming home to write the Torah poem First Step for parashat Lekh-Lekha, a parsha of hope and new beginnings where God calls us to go forth into ourselves and into the world. This week we have Rivkah, embracing the opportunity for change.

If Rivkah hadn’t taken that bold step, the Jewish people wouldn’t exist. (She and Isaac become the parents of Ya’akov who becomes Yisrael, whose son Yosef will go down into Egypt and keep his family and the community alive during famine, whose descendants will be lifted out of slavery, offered a covenant with God, and given the Torah.) This year’s intersection of Hayyei Sarah and Election Week feels to me like the universe urging us to be like Rivkah – to dream into a future we can’t yet see.

The future I dream of seeing is a future of hakhnasat orhim / hospitality and ahavat ha-ger / love of the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee. It’s a future of temimut / integrity and akhrayut / responsibility and accountability. It’s a future of tzedek / justice. It’s a future of honoring the tzelem Elohim / divine image in everyone. It’s a future of pushing our elected officials to govern in a way that’s aligned with Jewish values – our job no matter which party has the privilege of governing.

And because Rivkah’s boldness and readiness remind me of Ruth, this week I also feel God and Torah inviting us to be like Ruth: to deepen our commitments to one another and to the values and relationships that shape us. Ruth says “where you go, I will go” to someone she loves. She’s also saying it to a widow, a refugee, someone with no power and nothing to give. This isn’t quid pro quo. This is a heart, caring for another heart. What beautiful models Torah gives us for how to be.

On this Shabbat Hayyei Sarah, here is my prayer:

Like Yitzhak, when we grieve may we be comforted.
Like Rivkah, when doors open may we be brave enough to step through them.
And like Ruth, may we find our deepest and truest selves in connection and commitment: to each other, to our community, and to our God.