Body and soul

In the parashah In this week's verse (Lej Lejá, go away) we find a strange story. Abraham (who was actually still called Avram; God only changes his name at the end of this section) travels to the land of Canaan. There is a famine there, so he decides to go down to Egypt. Just before arriving, he asks Sarah (whose name was Sarai) to say that he is her brother, not her husband, lest he be killed so they can take her, because she was very beautiful. In fact, the verse says (Genesis 12:11): “Now I know that you are a beautiful woman.” Sarah is taken to Pharaoh's house, and when he tries to touch her, he is struck with illness, until he returns Sarah and gives Abraham riches, and then drives him out of the land of Egypt.

What's strange about the story (among other details) is that Abraham is putting Sarah in grave danger by traveling to Egypt: Why did he do it? While he had great merits and she did too, it's not permissible to rely on miracles... It's not permissible to put oneself in danger.

The commentators debate this issue: Ramban (Nachmanides) says that Abraham did indeed sin by going to Egypt; he should have trusted that God could feed him in the land of Canaan. On the other hand, Or HaChaim says that Abraham only recognized Sarah's beauty upon arriving in Egypt. Had he known beforehand, he would not have gone to Egypt, but rather somewhere else to find food. Once they were there, he had no other choice.

From a mystical perspective, the story of Abraham and Sarah has a much more contemporary meaning: Abraham represents the soul, while Sarah represents the body. Between them there is a very close, mutually beneficial relationship, so to speak.

The soul is something abstract; our sages define it as “a piece of God on high, literally,” while the body is something material and tangible. The soul is sent by God into the body so that, together, they can refine the part of the world they inhabit. The soul refines the body, while the body allows the soul to observe mitzvot (since, for the most part, they are physical, material actions, such as affixing a mezuzah, eating matzah on Passover, and so on) and thus rise above the level it was at before descending and becoming inhabited by the body. In fact, this is the essence of the idea that the soul (Abraham) only realized the beauty of the body (Sarah) in the face of danger, because it is precisely there that the soul sees the potential for growth “hidden” within the body.

The benefit of Sarah's peril, then, was twofold, both for Sarah and for Abraham: the soul refines the body, but it is precisely by overcoming life's difficulties—that is, through the body's "endangerment" in facing temptations, passions, and hardships—that the soul is elevated. Moreover, this very benefit is evident in the story when Pharaoh, after returning Sarah to Abraham, bestows great riches upon him!

Life is a continuous sequence of challenges, some simpler (like learning to unwrap a candy wrapper) and others more complex (like the death of a loved one). God presents all these challenges in each person's life so they can overcome them and grow from them. As the saying goes, "nothing ventured, nothing gained": Abraham, the soul, must put Sarah, the body, in danger so that both can grow and strengthen each other. God gives each person the challenges they need to grow and the strength to overcome them. It's a matter of exercising the power of resilience.