Since October 7, we have felt the absence of Rabbi Sacks’ public voice with particular acuteness. In moments of crisis, we miss the reassuring timbre, the moral guidance that illuminated a path forward. Yet his teaching on grief offers direction: loss can only be processed when it is transformed into building. That is what this week’s parsha teaches.
Chayei Sarah opens with death and then turns toward life. “Sarah’s lifetime was 127 years… Sarah died in Kiryat Arba” (Genesis 23:1–2). Abraham mourns – but then “Abraham rose from the presence of his dead” (Genesis 23:3).
The Midrash reads this moment within a wider rhythm: “The sun rises and the sun sets” (Ecclesiastes 1:5). The Sages teach, “Before the Holy One causes the sun of one righteous person to set, He causes the sun of the next to rise.” Before sunset, there is sunrise waiting. The world is not left without light.
That image names what many of us carry. Since October 7, our community has held grief both personal and collective – lives lost, families shattered, a sense of safety that may never return. Torah does not deny this grief; it shows us how to live through it.
Rabbi Sacks observed that at this moment of loss, “Abraham mourns and weeps, and then rises up and does two things to secure the Jewish future. He buys the first plot in the Land of Israel, and then he secures a wife for his son Isaac, so that there will be Jewish grandchildren – Jewish continuity.”
The parsha lingers over these acts. God had promised land and descendants, yet Abraham owns nothing and has just one unmarried heir. Rabbi Sacks draws the lesson: “God promises, but we have to act.” The covenant moves forward through human responsibility – through the decision to begin.
That is what hope looks like now – not a feeling we summon at will, but a choice to keep building. Rabbi Sacks often quoted the Holocaust-survivor psychotherapist Viktor Frankl: “He who has a why in life can bear almost any how.”
Our why is to renew Jewish life – to steady our families, educate our children, strengthen our communities, support Israel. In the language of tradition, that work takes the form of chesed, loving-kindness as deed.
Yet there’s another challenge in this moment. The grief feels distant, and the problems impossibly large. The wars unfold beyond our reach, driven by political forces we cannot control. We feel the pain deeply, yet we struggle to respond because it all seems so much bigger than us. To this, the parsha offers a different model.
When Abraham’s servant arrives seeking a wife for Isaac, Rebecca does not solve his problem directly. She does not even know his mission. She simply sees a stranger at a well and offers water to him and to his camels. Abundant, unnecessary kindness to whoever stands before her. This is how Rebecca enters the story: through chesed to a person she does not know, addressing a need she can meet.
This is the answer to overwhelming darkness. We need not combat distant crises directly or fix what feels unfixable. We simply add light wherever we can. Offer kindness to anyone within reach. Visit someone lonely. Help a neighbor. Teach a child. The world’s darkness does not diminish when we fight it from afar – it diminishes when we fill our own corner with light.
Chayei Sarah ends without closure. Abraham does not live to see the great nation or the full inheritance of the land. Yet the Torah says, “Abraham expired and died in a good old age, old and content, and he was gathered to his people” (Genesis 25:8). Why does the Torah call this fulfilment?
Rabbi Sacks explains: “Abraham had taken the first step. He had begun the task, and he knew his descendants would continue it.” This is the answer to incompleteness. We need not finish. We need only begin, trusting that others will carry it forward.
That is the deepest answer to absence – both Rabbi Sacks’ and those lost since October 7. We miss their voices, yet we become their echo. The sunrise before sunset means their legacy becomes our responsibility. We remember not through memorial alone, but through renewal. We honor the dead not through grief alone, but by building for the living.
Abraham purchased one field. He found one wife for one son. Rebecca offered water to a stranger. Each took just one step, added just one light. It was enough to call a life full. And it is enough for us.
The question Chayei Sarah poses is simple: can we, like Abraham, rise up from before our dead? Can we add one act of kindness today? Can we strengthen one relationship, teach one idea, offer one moment of presence?
We need not solve everything. We need not carry burdens too large for us. We need only begin. We need only add light to our corner of the world. That is what Abraham did. That is what this moment asks of us. That is how the world is not left without light.
Rabbi Matt Marks is Executive Head of Tribe UK, the youth arm of the United Synagogue, and a PhD researcher specialising in the thought of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. He lives in Brighton & Hove with his wife and their four daughters, where he also serves as a Strategic Adviser for Jewish Life and works with the UK Jewish Chaplaincy team.