Haye Sarah 5769: What is Real?

I read an article last week about a divorce. This by itself should not be big news, but the circumstances of this divorce and even where I heard it from was a bit disturbing. I thought of this week’s portion and how in the story of a marriage we find some answers about that divorce.

This week’s portion named the Life of Sarah ironically starts with her death. Abraham does some land deals to find a proper burial place for his late beloved wife, and then tells his trusty servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac back in the old country. Eliezer, seemingly not having a clue what to do decides the best thing to do is pray and to ask for a sign from God.

13. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water; 14. And let it come to pass, that the girl to whom I shall say, Let down your water jar, I beg you, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give your camels drink also; let the same be she whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that you have shown kindness to my master.[Genesis 24]

Almost immediately the sign comes to pass, as Rebecca comes to fetch water.

17. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I beg you, drink a little water from your water jar.18. And she said, Drink, my lord; and she hurried, and let down her water jar upon her hand, and gave him drink.19. And when she had finished giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking. 20. And she hurried, and emptied her water jar into the trough, and ran back to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.[Genesis 24]

After repeating this entire story, he eventually brings her back to Isaac where she is so blown away by him she falls off her camel. Isaac and Rebecca get married, move into Sarah's old digs, and Isaac is comforted from the loss of his mother. Abraham remarries, (some rabbinic sources say he marries Hagar), and has a few more kids. Even with the death of Abraham, which Isaac and Ishmael bury jointly, everybody acts like one happy family until the twins show up next week.

A friend of mine wrote a quick note stating she was disturbed with an article about an UK couple that had divorced over the husband cheating on the wife in the internet game Second Life, though never meeting his mistress face to face. Second Life is a game where you make up a character and live and explore a virtual world. These two had actually met on-line in the game, had a small real wedding then had a large wedding in the game itself. When she caught her husband cheating on her not in real life but in the confines of the game, she hired a detective in the game to find out if he had been cheating more, eventually finding he had a relationship with an American woman. He claimed he would not have needed to entertain himself this way if his wife wasn’t so involved with another similar though more violent game, the World of Warcraft. After the divorce, it was reported in the press that the two are getting remarried, he to his on-line mistress, and she to a guy she met on World of Warcraft. I wrote to my friend:

Living one's whole life in SL is disturbing. What's really disturbing is, given all that, she's dating a guy from WoW.

This started a group discussion my friend hadn’t planned on getting into. I got philosophical rather quickly:

I think the issue is misrepresentation. The question is: at what point does the potential to misrepresent make it imaginary?

At what point does the lie, regardless of the media make something unreal?

I was getting self reflective too, wondering if I was real. This conversation, just like Second Life and Warcraft happened online in the social media system known as Twitter. Twitter however is far different than those games in several respects. Primarily it is not a rich 3-d environment meant to be played on the best computer systems available. Instead it is a communication tool allowing very limited communication to accommodate anyone’s computer or cell phone. The limitations are so great that your comments, known as tweets, can be only 140 characters long. Pictures and other media need to be referenced to other systems. There are none on the system, except for a small postage stamp sized picture for an avatar. Avatars are essentially representations of the person talking. Second Life has avatars too, but the object of the game is to dress up and act the part of your avatar in glorious 3-d graphics and animation.
While I do have a photo of myself for an avatar, both of the people I was conversing with didn’t, but illustrations instead. One of them is an author I admire, though he is reluctant to publicly identify himself given the nature of his writing. To have a false name and picture protects himself and his family from any backlash against his work. Yet even photos can lie. An avatar can be a photo of someone else besides the person communicating as I quickly remembered when I got mail from some internet dating site. E-dating sites are notorious for people lying about their age or putting a picture of someone else. I’ve been on a few dates when the picture doesn’t match the person I get to meet. A friend of mine even went on a date with what he thought was an attractive woman, only to find a morbidly obese woman waiting for him. She had gotten her best friend to pose for her picture on the profile. Some articles on the Second Life divorce case showed picture of the avatars of the couple, and also their actual pictures. The lie showed well here, the avatars were very different than the real people.
Back in Genesis 24 by the well outside Nahor, Eliezer is in the same dilemma. While many of the rabbis of the Midrash believe he said something careless in his little prayer, I’m not so sure. As we will definitively learn in later dealings with Rebecca’s brother Laban, these are not the most truthful people. Deception is a way of life. As we will learn in next week’s portion, not even Rebecca is completely immune. What's a trusted servant to do?

10. And the servant took ten of his master’s camels, and departed; for all the good things of his master were in his posession; and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. [Genesis 24]

Why did he take that many camels? It would seem literally that he took a lot of goods with him. Was that ten camel’s worth? In Genesis 13:2 we know that Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. Much of Abraham’s wealth from both Pharaoh and from Abimelech was in the form of cattle and sheep. While he did have gold and silver, the bigger wealth of cattle and sheep could not be transported on camels. If that is true, what were the good things that took on the camels? There are two answers: one would be the camels themselves as invaluable transport. Yet the second is more intriguing: that all the good things for Abraham was the ability to comfort Isaac. To take all the good things means to take this mission very seriously.
Eliezer thus may not have taken this frivolously as the Rabbis claim, but took this very seriously. He took ten camels intentionally for a test. Each camel drinks up to 30 gallons, so ten of them can drink up to a total of 300 gallons. For someone to give a passing stranger say 20 ounces of water is not a big deal. Yet, for someone to volunteer to pour out 300 gallons of water is no easy feat. It requires not just an action but a commitment to continued action until the task is done.
I asked my Twitter friends an important question. What is real enough on the internet to be trusted enough to be considered reality? I can expand this to any media really, including life. While they didn’t answer me, my answer comes from Perkei Avot. Rabbi Akiba once said:

The world is judged with goodness, and everything is in accordance with the preponderance of [man's] deed[s]. [Avot 3:15]

While Akiba was discussing how God relates to us, it is true of interpersonal relationships as well. We have choices, and how we are judged by other individuals is by our deeds. While his methods and motivation may be debatable, the Midrash is clear in what Eliezer’s mission really was. The only thing that would comfort Isaac is someone to replace his mother – Isaac’s wife was to be the next Matriarch, with the commitment and the force of will that Sarah had during her life. To make sure that was the right person for this important task some beauty contest and interview with prospective brides would not do. Whoever was able to water the camels was the real thing because they acted like the real thing. It was Rebecca that passed such a test.
While I have no problem with people entertaining themselves for a few hours in a game, I do have a problem with people taking the game as real, and living their lives in this imaginary world, being someone they are not. Rebecca gave a drink to a passing stranger who asked and gave water to camels until they had their fill. Eliezer, Rebecca, and ten camels benefitted from her actions. The world of the game does not produce anything that betters anyone else except the profits of the companies running or selling merchandise in the game. While some might use Twitter in the same way as a game, many of my author, artist and even Rabbi friends use it to promote what they created. Sometimes they ask for support from the community for what they are working on. I often listen to those more experienced voices as I learn from them their tricks of the trade, and contribute some of my own at times. We may communicate via electronic communication, but we go back to the real world to do our crafts.

In the end what makes us real is we make or do something in this world which affects others. The first life is not a game like Second Life; it is about changing our world for the better, not just for ourselves, but for others. It may be a work of art, some social action, or even a smile for someone who is having a bad day. Unlike the relationships on-line, love in the real world may even make a baby or two. Next week, we’ll look at two babies and how they represent two different models of perceiving the world.