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Parashat Chayei Sarah - Bereshit 23:1 - 25:18

This portion begins with the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, in Kiryat Arba.  Abraham speaks to the Hittites, asking them to sell him a burial site.  He chooses a cave, and buys the land surrounding it.  He buries Sarah here, in Machpelah, facing Hebron. 

As Abraham is now getting old, he asks his servant to go to the land of his birth to get a wife for his son Issac.  The servant sets out to Nahor, and waits at the well for the young women to come out in the evening to draw water.   He says, "Oh God … Let the maiden to whom I say, ‘Please, lower your jar that I may drink’, and who replies, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels’ – let her be the one whom You have decreed for Isaac."  Just as he finished speaking, Rebecca, Abraham’s niece, came out to the well.  Not only does she water the camels, but she offers to let him spend the night in her home.  The servant puts two gold bands on her arm, and a gold ring on her nose.  He tells her family the whole story, from Isaac’s birth to the present moment.  "The matter was decreed by the Lord," they reply, and, with Rebecca’s consent, they allow her to go with the servant to meet her future husband.

Isaac is walking in the fields as they approach.  Rebecca covers her face with a veil.  Isaac leads her into the tent of his mother, Sarah, and takes Rebecca as his wife.  "Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death."

The parasha ends by telling of the generations that came from Abraham.  Before his death, Abraham took another wife, named Keturah, who bore him several children.  Upon his death,  Isaac and Ishmael reunite to bury him in the cave of Machpelah, next to Sarah

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