Table of Contents
The Patriarchs
2084AM

Year 2084 of the Jewish calendar.

1

And Yitzchak was thirty-seven years old and Yishmael his brother was walking with him in the tent. And he boasted, saying, "When I was twelve years old, when my father spoke to me to circumcise me, I did not disobey his word." And Yitzchak answered, "Why do you boast about a little piece of flesh from your body? As HaShem, the God of my father, lives, if HaShem were to say to my father, 'Take Yitzchak and offer him as a burnt offering,' I would not hold back my soul and I would do the matter with joy." And the matter was pleasing in the eyes of HaShem, and He said to test Avraham with this matter. [continued at length describing the Satan's attempts to dissuade Avraham and Yitzchak, Sarah's emotional farewell to Yitzchak, the journey to Mount Moriah, the Akeidah itself, the angels' pleas for mercy, and Sarah's death upon hearing about the Akeidah from the Satan who appeared to her disguised as an old man.

The passage includes many rabbinic sources and concludes with Sarah crying three cries corresponding to the three blasts of the shofar, and her soul departing. (Sefer HaYashar, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer chapter 31)]

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2

Sarah died at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven, when Avraham was one hundred and thirty-seven and Yitzchak was thirty-seven [(this is Year 2084)]. She merited that her death was written in the Torah because she brought life to the world, the opposite of Chavah (Zohar). And Avraham acquired the cave and wrote it in a deed with five witnesses: Amigvol son of Avishua the Hittite, Elichoref son of Ashunash the Chivite, Avdon son of Achira the Girgashite, Akdiel son of Avdish the Tzidoni.

And he placed the deed of purchase in his treasury and buried Sarah with honor like the burial of kings, with fine and beautiful garments exceedingly. And there were present at her bier Shem son of Noach and Ever his son [(this requires investigation, for Ever was the son of Shelach son of Arpachshad son of Shem)], and Avimelech, and Aner, Eshkol and Mamre, and all the great ones of the land walked behind the bier. [(Sefer HaYashar) Ephron was rectified through Aravnah (see Year 2880)].

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3

Chevron is Kiryat Arba. There I saw a building between large stones twenty-eight cubits long, and the Ishmaelites light candles inside it. Below it is the Cave of Machpelah where the fathers are buried: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov; Sarah, Rivkah, Leah. I descended into it fifteen steps from outside and came to a wide cave, and inside the cave is a gate of stone, and the cave is like a hollow stone.

On the gate lie pieces of iron, large and very thick, and from there a great wind emerges and one cannot endure it for a moment and cannot enter with candles or fire. And I understood that the Patriarchs are buried there [(Benjamin of Tudela)].

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4

And the days of weeping passed, and Avraham sent his son Yitzchak to the house of Shem and Ever to learn the ways of HaShem, and he dwelt there for three years. And Avraham and his servants returned to Be'er Sheva to their home. [In Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer: "The way of the world is that Yitzchak mourned his mother, and after the way of the world he took Rivkah" (see there chapter 32).] And it was at the turn of the year that Avimelech king of the Philistines died that year at the age of one hundred ninety-two years.

And Avraham went with his men to the land of the Philistines and they comforted the house of Avimelech and he returned to his home. And the men of Gerar took Benmelech his son and made him king in place of his father—he was twelve years old—and they called his name Avimelech like his father's name, for such was their custom in Gerar [(Sefer HaYashar)].

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