Chayei Sarah: The Rumor of a Name

Have you ever noticed how rumors get started? One person says something ("The sky is falling!"), a second person corroborates ("It's true, I felt something fall and I'm worried..."), and by the time it gets to the third individual, it's practically a news story. And two minutes later you can read about it on Wikipedia as indisputable fact. You might be able to tell that I find this process pretty annoying.

You may be surprised to realize, however, that the same thing can happen in Torah study. This week we find one of my biggest pet peeves, and it's a nasty rumor that started nearly 2,000 years ago. In our Torah portion, we read about Abraham wanting to find his son Isaac a wife, so he sends his servant out to look for one. And many commentators will tell you that the servant's name is Eliezer. Why? Because in an earlier story, we saw that Abraham had a servant named Eliezer, so this must be the same guy.

But the text itself never calls him Eliezer! It irritates me to no end, because someone simply started a rumor ("Yeah, that's probably Eliezer, the servant from that other story"), another person felt the same way ("I agree, that's most likely Eliezer"), and two thousand years later, everyone is "certain" that it's Eliezer. If that's true, why doesn't the Torah call him Eliezer? In fact, the text goes out of its way to keep calling him either:

- "The servant" (Gen. 24:2, 5, 9, 10, 17, 34, 52, 53, 59, 61, 65, 66)
- "The man" (Gen. 24: 21, 22, 26, 29, 30, 32, 58, 61)
- "him"/"he" (Gen. 24:6, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 33, 54, 56)

Look how many times the text refers to this guy! More than 30! And every time, it avoids giving him a name. If it's so OBVIOUS that it's Eliezer, why doesn't the text say so??

This teaches me two important things. First, rumors are annoying. When we assume, we miss out on learning for ourselves. The Torah is clearly trying to teach us something, and if we gloss over it by simply naming the poor guy and moving on, we've missed out on the intention of the Torah. We should instead be reading the text with our eyes wide open, sensitive to every nuance and intonation, and not allowing someone else to tell us how to read the Bible.

Second, what is the message of the Torah? Why is this servant unnamed? I'll offer one interpretation. Perhaps because he is not meant to be the focus of this journey. He has been sent on a great mission - to find a wife for Isaac, and thereby enable Abraham's lineage to continue - but he is simply a vessel in this mission. The emphasis is on Rebecca, the eventual woman who is chosen, and also on God, who is always present and guiding our footsteps.

Sometimes in life, the task is much greater than the individual. It's not always about us! It is a great blessing and an honor to be a vessel, a vehicle, for something more significant than ourselves. This story teaches us about faith in God, about the power of love, quite frankly, and about having a purpose in life. And by having the main character of the story go without a name, we also learn about humility and focusing on the task more than the individual.

Let this be a lesson to all of us, not to listen to rumors and to always keep our eyes and our minds wide open. Just because an opinion has been espoused for 2,000 years doesn't mean it's correct. Just ask The-Servant-FORMERLY-Known-As-Eliezer!!

Shabbat Shalom!