Word as Image - Week 5: Sarah’s Legacy (Chayei Sara 2010/5780)

In her book Torah Tapestries, Shira Smiles points to the fact that the story of Avraham ends after the death of Sarah as proof that without his partner in creating the covenantal community, Avraham’s lifework could not be continued. In fact, the Torah tells us how Avraham completed his role by finding a burial place for his partner and by sending Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchak – in essence finding a replacement for Sarah in order to assure the continuation of the covenantal community.

With this understanding of their marriage , we come to see not only why the burial of Sarah had to be both of their endings, but also why the burial site had to be specifically the cave of  Machpelah. This is because the first couple, Adam and Chavah had been buried there long before Avraham purchased the cave. As Adam and Chavah are seen to be responsible for the confusing, murky mixture of good and evil which permeates the world, Sarah can be seen as the first person whose eternal mission is to disentangle them.

There is so much that speaks to me in Sarah Smiles’ teaching. What speaks to me most are the allusion to our two lives - the physical which is finite, and the spiritual which may be something other. This is the first encounter with this concept in our dreamtime story.

As is often the case, the clues are in the Hebrew words themselves. For a start, Machpelah is related to the words "double/folded" and the actual cave (which does exist, in the city of Hebron, which significantly means "connected") is actually a double storied cave, one level folded onto the other. But because Torah is written without vowels, words have a certain ambiguity. מכפלה Machpelah can also be heard as “mah ki pelah” or “likeness/holding what wonder”.

I experience those words as the wonder of that liminal space that connects life and after life. And if you substitute the last letter of מכפלה Machpelah  (ie ה hei) with א alef (which is perfectly acceptable in our “pardes” tradition of exploration) you find that the word contains the palindrome פלא pelah ("wonder") and אלף "alef" (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet). The alef א represents the number one, indivisible unity of all things, and is non vocalised - it is the unutterable ultimate carrier of potential, the beginning of all beginnings. The wonder of Oneness - even the darkest of caves, even the seeming finality of death - are all folded/doubled into a single whole.

My image, called Sarah’s Legacy, was created in 2019. The pen sketch of Sarah shows her dancing on into eternity. Her presence suggests movement - a spiral of protective, encircling energy. It is evocative of the double helix pictured just below it. The double helix is the thread of coding that makes us who we are, and just maybe, we are fractals of the cosmically divine double helix blueprint. It also reminds me of the double cave itself, and the number eight (the number which represents one more than a natural cycle of seven, rather like infinity really).

Within the eight/double cave are the letters taf, and then below, alef. Taf, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, carries the meaning of a seal of finality and at the same time, the end being enwedged in the beginning, both of which speak to me about legacy and soul lineages. Folded into the hidden cave of the world to come below, is the first letter, the alef. So this cave represents the totality of everything, from alef to taf, the end of ends to the beginning of beginnings, whirling around in a spiral of timelessness.

The four square image at the bottom left is a reference to Kiriyat Arba (the City of Four), which is another name for Hebron. Why four? For a start, there are four couples buried there. Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah. A deeper interpretation of the four could suggest the four elements upon which all life depends - earth, fire, water and air. Deeper still is the reference to the four experiences/worlds  - from the darkest, most dense where it is difficult to perceive divinity (ie this physical world) through to the world where the truth is continuously revealed (the world to come, or perhaps more accurately, the world that is continuously coming/unfolding). 

It is taught that Machpelah is a portal to the Garden of Eden, that blessed time of oneness before doubling/duality when everything became folded into everything else.  According to legend, the sweet aroma of the etrog is sometimes noticeable in the cave (although I have to say that I couldn’t detect it when I visited it a year ago). Because the etrog fruits continuously, regardless of the season, it is considered to be above/beyond natural cycles (ie a fruit version of the number 8). It is for this reason, that it represents the Tree of Life in the paradise garden.

The four etrogs depicted, (viewed from right to left), are cut from papers alluding to those elements - coloured for earth, fire, water and air perfumed by the etrog. Each gradually and progressively reveals what is initially obscured - the Eden within the etrog - always blooming, always fruiting, waiting for us to remember the heady perfume of paradise.

Chana-Toni Whitmont

Parshah Chayei Sara 5787/2026

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“Sarah’s Legacy” is part of the Word as Image project which comprises more than 50 weekly visual midrashim to be published here over the year 5787. Click Word as Image to find out more about this project.   

Chana-Toni Whitmont is a collage and mixed media artist, crystal sound practitioner, creative, writer, wanna-be calligrapher and curious questioner whose practice and passions are born from her spiritual connection to her Jewish lineage and the ebbs and flows of its calendar cycle. She lives on ancient Bidjigal, Birrabirragal and Gadigal Country (also known as Bondi), on the Pacific coast of Australia.

She can be contacted through the AJS Members WhatsApp Group or at twhitmont@gmail.com