Uplifted Beauty: Serving Hashem through Tiferes

1“And the life of Sarah was a hundred years and twenty years and seven years: the years of the life of Sarah.”¹ Rashi says: “At a hundred she was like a woman of twenty in regard to sin … and at twenty she was like a girl of seven in beauty.” The commentators on Rashi, among them the Gur Aryeh, raise a question. It is easy to see why “at a hundred she was like twenty” is remarkable, since she never once stumbled in any sin or flaw; but what is remarkable about her being as beautiful at twenty as at seven? After all, “Grace is false and beauty is vain.”² What, then, is the verse teaching us? There is also a wider question. Scripture often mentions beauty in praise of the holy Avos and Imahos, the Matriarchs. It does so here with Sarah our mother, and earlier Avraham Avinu said to her, “Behold now, I know that you are a woman of beautiful appearance.” Of Rivkah it is written, “And the maiden was fair to look upon,” and of Rachel, “beautiful of form and beautiful to look upon.”³ Of all the praises and virtues of the Imahos, why did the Torah choose to single out their beauty, when “grace is false and beauty is vain”?

2But we can explain it as follows. The Noam Elimelech, by R' Elimelech of Lizhensk, writes that the words “at twenty she was like seven in beauty” hint at a lesson.⁴ A person must be extremely careful to guard himself from every sin and wrongdoing, so as never, Heaven forbid, to transgress any positive or negative commandment. And even permitted things, such as eating, drinking, clothing and the like, he must bring entirely into holiness, intending them for the sake of Heaven. That is what is meant about Sarah our mother. “At a hundred she was like twenty”: she never blemished herself with any sin against a positive or negative commandment. And beyond that, “at twenty she was like seven in beauty”: even in a physical matter like beauty, she rose to a higher level. Just as a little girl of seven gives no thought at all to beauty and adornment, so at twenty, when she was grown, Sarah raised the middah of tiferes, the quality of beauty, to the honor of His Name, blessed be He. This is in keeping with the verse “Hashem made everything for His sake,” as Chazal expounded it.⁵ That is the gist of his holy words.

3In this light we can understand a story in the Gemara: “R' Elazar fell ill, and R' Yochanan went in to visit him. R' Yochanan saw that R' Elazar was lying in a dark room. He bared his arm, and light shone out.⁶ Then he saw that R' Elazar was weeping, and said to him, ‘Why are you weeping? If it is because of the Torah you did not learn in abundance, we have learned: one who does much and one who does little are alike, as long as he directs his heart to Heaven …’ R' Elazar said to him, ‘I am weeping over this beauty that will waste away in the earth.’ R' Yochanan said to him, ‘Over that you surely have reason to weep,’ and the two of them wept.”⁷ Why did R' Elazar, lying ill and in pain, see no need to weep over his suffering, while over R' Yochanan's beauty the two of them wept? Surely “grace is false and beauty is vain”!

4But, as we have explained, a person can serve the Creator, blessed be He, through beauty and splendor, raising the beauty up to Hashem by directing his heart to Heaven. And we do find that R' Yochanan served the Creator in this way, as Chazal tell: “R' Yochanan would go and sit at the gates of the immersion places. He said, ‘When the daughters of Israel come up from their mitzvah immersion, let them meet me, so that they will have sons as handsome as I …’”⁸ If so, when R' Yochanan passed away, this service would disappear from the world. And such a service is “a difficult service in the Beis HaMikdash.”⁹ That is why the two of them wept: over a form of avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem, that was destined to disappear from the world.

5We find the same idea with the Imahos. It is written, “And Yaakov kissed Rachel,”¹⁰ and on this verse the Kedushas Levi quotes the holy Maggid of Mezritch, zt"l, who taught:¹¹ Yaakov Avinu, as is well known, served Hashem with tiferes, the middah of beauty.¹² So when he saw Rachel, in whom there was a spark of splendor, he lifted up the beauty that was in her, raised it to Heaven, and served Hashem, blessed be He, with it. Those are his holy words.

6With this we can answer our question about why the Torah praised the Imahos for their beauty. The praise is that they used it to serve Hashem through the middah of tiferes, for the honor of the Creator.

7The Imahos handed this power down to the generations after them, so that we too should serve Hashem in every area of life. In the words of the early Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu, “When will my deeds reach the deeds of my fathers?”¹³ In this way we will be able to resemble their holy ways, at least to a small degree.

8May the Holy One, blessed be He, help us to serve the Creator, at least in some small measure, with the middah of tiferes, and to bring the redemption closer. Amen, may it be His will.