Chizuk and Idud

The Challenge of Aliya: Before and After

The Baal Haturim points out that the Torah writes a small “chof” in its description of Avraham’s crying for Sarah after her passing. He says it was written this way to show that Avraham only cried “a little bit.” This would seem not to be what we would expect from a husband whose wife was not only his lifelong partner in marriage but his lifelong partner in spreading the word of G-d throughout the world.
Moreover, the Torah describes Avraham as arriving “to eulogize Sara and cry for her”. Usually one cries immediately after the occurrence of a tragedy out of grief and only later offers a eulogy. It would seem that Avraham did not cry for Sara until after he had first eulogized her. Why is the order reversed?
The Kehillas Yaakov answers the question. Rashi comments that the death of Sara is juxtaposed to the Akeida in order to show that Sara died as a result of hearing that her husband was going to kill her son. She was told of what was happening by the Satan who succeeded in causing her to die of grief. But his goal was not only to affect Sara, but Avraham as well. The midrashim recount that the Satan unsuccessfully tried to prevent Avraham from carrying out G-d’s command to sacrifice his son. But the Satan never gives up easily. If he cannot succeed in preventing a person from performing a mitzva, at the very least, he will later try to make that person regret his having done so.
Although he failed at convincing Avraham to forego the Akeida, the Satan hoped that by Sara’s death being linked to that event, Avraham would regret having gone through with it. By making Avraham feel guilty for Sara’s death, he hoped to stir up a feeling of regret on the part of Avraham for having obeyed G-d’s command to sacrifice Yitzchak. If Avraham would have grieved excessively at the loss of Sara, people may have wrongly interpreted his sorrow. It would have appeared to others that indeed he regretted his involvement in the sacrifice of his son. That is why he only cried “a little bit”. This also explains why he delayed his crying until after he first eulogized her. He wanted to make it absolutely clear that he was not crying tears of regret about having followed G-d’s instructions regarding the Akeida.
In the evening tefilla of Maariv, this is the intent of our words in the prayer Hashkiveinu - “And remove the Satan from before us and after us.” We pray to G-d that He stops the Satan whether he is trying to stop us from fulfilling a mitzva before we have done it or trying to cause us to regret over having performed it, after we have done it.
All of us Olim have successfully overcome the Satan’s attempts to prevent us from making Aliya and fulfilling the mitzva of Yishuv Eretz Yisrael. However, as we mentioned earlier, the Satan never gives up easily and if he cannot succeed in preventing someone from making Aliya, at least he will later try to make that person regret having done so. The challenge of making Aliya is not just in moving to Israel but to make one’s Aliya permanent.
Unfortunately, there are too many examples where the Satan has convinced Olim, even after being in Israel several years, that it is preferable to give up the Aliya dream and return to Chutz La’aretz. May the merit of Avraham Aveinu stand by our side to help us in our constant struggle to overcome the Satan’s temptations to turn our backs on Eretz Yisrael.

• Other Chizuk and Idud
• CHIZUK and IDUD for Olim not yet Olim respectively
• CHIZUK and IDUD for Olim not yet Olim respectively
• CHIZUK and IDUD for Olim not yet Olim respectively