CHOCHMAS NASHIM: CHAYEI SARAH
By: Suri Davis
On Rosh Hashanah, when we blow the shofar, the sound of the shofar is like a lamentation, like the voice of one who is crying out. The medrash asks what the purpose is of the 100 voices of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The answer is that it is supposed to arouse G-d’s mercy. It is connected to the mother of Sisrah who cried out when her son did not return from battle.
In Sanhedrin 47: Rabbi Chananel questions why we are concerned about the cries of Sisrah’s mother, in that Sisrah was not a righteous person, so why would Sisrah’s mother’s tears, move G-d’s mercy on Rosh Hashanah.
Rabbi Chananel tells us that there might have been a misprint, that it wasn’t Sisrah’s mother who was crying, but Sarah, who was crying when Satan informed her that Isaac was being placed on the altar as a sacrifice.
It was Sarah’s tears that we exhume each year when we blow the 100 voices of the shofar to move G-d’s mercy for the Jews in the merit of Sarah’s tears.
Rabbi Chananel continues, Abraham was concerned that his merit for his desire to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on the altar would be reduced or diminished by the concomitant loss of Sarah’s life as a result of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac.
The fact that we use Sarah’s tears to raise G-d’s mercies each Rosh Hashanah is an indication that Sarah’s tears and death were not for naught. That throughout the generations to come, all Jews would utilize Sarah’s tears to repent and ask G-d for forgiveness. Abraham’s merit was not thereby reduced by Sarah’s tears. Sarah died, but her tears live on forever.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri