Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

37
Chayei Sarah
Two Titles
Rav Daniel Hartstein
A t the beginning of our parsha the Torah relates how Avraham approaches
Ephron and the children of Cheis with the intent of purchasing the Cave of Machpelah
as a burial ground for his wife Sarah and for future generations. We learn that both
Ephron and the children of Cheis offer this property to Avraham for free, saying it
would be an honor to have a ‘prince of God’ among them. In what appears to be an
unwise business move, Avraham refuses the offer and insists on paying for the land.
Avraham further elaborates that he would be willing to pay full price for the Cave of
Machpelah, which Ephron happily values at four hundred shekels of silver. The Talmud
in Bava Metzia (87a) notes that Ephron was not offering the land in the generally
used shekels but the ‘centinaria’ shekel which is worth 100 regular shekels. It seems
perplexing that our forefather Avraham has paid forty thousand standard shekels for
the land that was originally offered to him for free. This difficulty is highlighted by the
fact that Hashem has already promised the entire Eretz Yisrael (including the Cave of
Machpelah) to Avraham and his decedents in the bris bein ha-besarim.
Rav Aharon Soloveichik ZT’L addresses this question by quoting the Talmud in Bava
Metzia (38a). The Mishnah states that if one leaves fruit with his friend, even if the
fruit begins to spoil, the friend may not touch it. This means that even if the friend
wants to be nice and sell it before it rots he may not. The Talmud comments in the
name of Rav Kahana that the reason for this is that a person prefers one measure of
his own rather than nine of his friend’s. Rashi explains that a person’s own produce is