Always ours

When Sarah, our matriarch, died, Abraham went to the Sons of Heth and asked to buy the Cave of Machpelah (Mearat HaMajpelah) that was in Ephron's field to make a cemetery. Ephron offered him the field and the cave in it as a gift, but Abraham insisted that he wanted to pay "the full value" and, as he said (Genesis 23:4): "I gave you the money for the field, take it from me.".

At the end of the discussion, Efron set a high price: “four hundred shekalim”And Abraham paid the full sum, with high-value money (that is, money that could be used commercially anywhere). Then the Torah says: “And the field of Ephron was raised up […] to be Abraham’s possession,” and it repeats: “And the field and the cave in it were raised up for Abraham to be a burial place.”.

What does the expression “it rose up” mean? Rashi, the father of the commentators, explains: “The field was raised up, because it went from being the possession of a simple man to being the possession of a king.” That is, there was a special acquisition.

When an ordinary man buys an object, the seller's name remains on the object. The object effectively becomes the buyer's, but the fact that the object once belonged to the seller and was sold to the buyer is recorded, so to speak. This is because the sale of the object (Kinian, A sale (in Hebrew) is a joint operation, a partnership, so to speak, between buyer and seller. The sale simply transfers ownership of the object from one person to another.

It's different when a king acquires something. The transaction completely severs the seller's name from the object, and there isn't just a change of ownership; the object becomes something else entirely—it becomes the object of a king. In other words, when a king acquires something, the focus of the transaction is on the king, whereas when both seller and buyer are ordinary people, the focus is on both equally.

Therefore, when Abraham bought Ephron's field, the field "was elevated," passing from the possession of a simple man to the possession of a king. The fact that the field had once belonged to Ephron was completely erased, as if it had always belonged to Abraham.

This explains why Avraham insisted so much on not receiving the field as a gift but wanting to buy it, because he wanted to remove all links between the field and its current owner.

Mearat HaMajpelah is one of the three places (along with the site of the Beit HaMikdash and the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem) about which our sages say in the Midrash: “The peoples of the earth cannot deceive the Jewish people by saying that we robbed them.” The commentators explain the special nature of these places by saying that now, during the exile, they are as holy as before: the Divine presence (Shekhinah) was not removed from the Wailing Wall and the prayers of the Jewish people also pass today through the Cave of Machpelah (and something similar happens with the tomb of Joseph).

What is special about Mearat HaMajpelah is that it was the first place in the Land of Israel purchased for the Jewish people. And since it was purchased for the burial of Sarah, the mother of Isaac, it is clear that it has no connection to Ishmael (patriarch of the Arabs and Muslims). From then on, it became the burial place of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah (in addition to Adam and Eve, who were already buried there). Thus, Mearat HaMajpelah also bestows strength and energy, the strength of a king, so that the entire Land of Israel remains in the hands of the Jewish people until the Final Redemption, with our righteous Messiah.