A Taste of Torah in honor of Shabbat
from Rabbi Avi Weiss

Parshat Chaye Sarah
NOVEMBER 24-25, 2000/ 27 CHESHVAN 5761

TRUE OWNERSHIP COMES ONLY THROUGH PERSONAL EFFORT

Years ago I was privileged to be in Rav Ahron Soloveichik's shiur (Torah class).  Although most know him for his extraordinary Talmudic knowledge, it was his Thursday classes of Hashkafah in which he taught the portion of the week that I especially loved.

To this day I remember the class he gave on this week's portion.  He asked a very simple question: Why did Avraham have to acquire land - the cave of Machpelah in Chevron - to bury Sarah?  Over and over God had promised the land to Avraham.  The acquisition process seems unnecessary. 

Here, Rav Ahron distinguished between legal ownership and psychological ownership.  The former means that one has the legal contractual right to a particular object or piece of land.  The latter means however, that the property which is mine was acquired through personal effort, extraordinary input and a serious expense of energy. 

From this perspective, an inherited business is legally owned.  It's the heir's even if the inheritor has not toiled in the business.  But it is only psychologically mine if I have worked through my own efforts to create the business. 

In this spirit, the Talmud declares that if one is given a bushel of apples to watch and the apples begin to rot, it is best not to sell them for good apples.  The Talmud explains that the owner would prefer to have returned the original apples that he produced rather than those that were the work of someone else.  (Baba Metzia 38a) 

I can still hear Rav Ahron as he illustrated this point with a delightful tale.  In Europe, Yeshivot were often engaged in good-natured competition.  The Telshe Yeshiva was known for its sharp students who were geniuses in pilpul and whose logic sometimes turned on the splitting of a hair. 

As the story goes, a student in a competing Yeshiva declared that in Telshe they'd even ask how tea became sweet.  Is it the pouring of sugar into the water or is it the actual stirring.  The conclusion reached in laughter was that at Telshe it would be said that it is the stirring that makes the tea sweet but with one pre-requisite - that the sugar was first placed in the tea.

With a smile Rav Ahron declared that for him it is the stirring that is paramount.  When you stir the tea you are using energy and thus you feel you have invested part of yourself in the making of the tea.

This difference between legal and psychological ownership especially resonates for me.  I especially appreciate having had the opportunity to grow along with our congregation and with the students at our new Rabbinical School.  The Torah I treasure most is that which I have the privilege to work through -- realizing what Rav Ahron would call psychological ownership. 

And so it is with life.  And so it is with that that is most precious.  The more we toil, the more we struggle, the more it becomes ours. 

No wonder Avraham acquires Chevron.  And no wonder our nations sacrifice for Chevron makes many feel that Chevron is ours, not only legally but psychologically. 

Shabbat Shalom!