Parshas Chayei Sarah: The Pious Portable Toilet Service Technician

Grief, generosity, and grounded choices shape the arc from Sarah’s passing to Rivka’s arrival at the well—and they also shape our Mondays. We walk through Chayei Sarah as more than history: it’s a diary of decisive moments that refuses to preach in bullet points. Instead, the text slows down at each crossroads—buying a burial plot in full view, drawing water for strangers, finding comfort after loss—and lets us learn how courage and kindness look when money, honor, and family are on the line.

From there, we tackle a big question: if the goal is to form character, why doesn’t the Torah simply command it? Enter Mesilas Yesharim’s closing chapters. The Ramchal argues that the mission is constant—bring true satisfaction to the Creator—while the path shifts with your role. A rabbi, an employee, and an independent contractor face different tests, yet each can reach the same center of the maze through integrity, restraint, and presence. We apply this frame to a real-world pivot from the study hall to real estate: taking calls, honoring contracts, resisting the urge to undercut a rival, and finding a focused Mincha in a glass-walled conference room.

Along the way we make practical ethics concrete. Choshen Mishpat comes alive when a commission is disputed. Rivka’s quiet generosity becomes a checklist for our own small acts. Abraham’s transparent purchase becomes a model for clean deals. Even the humblest work holds dignity when done for the sake of family and with clean hands. The takeaway is simple and demanding: the maze changes, the mission doesn’t. Wherever you stand—office, train, kitchen, or jobsite—treat it as holy ground by choosing well in the moment in front of you.

If this resonated, follow the show, share this episode with a friend who’s navigating a transition, and leave a review with one work habit you plan to elevate this week. Your stories help others find their way through the maze.

Transcript

Sarah’s Passing And Burial

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Harshisha Isara recounts Sarah's death at 127 years old, and Avram Avenu's acquisition of the burial plot for her. That's named Ma'oras Hamachpela. Avram sends his servant Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzhak, and at a well Rivka appears, fulfills Eliezer's signs, gives water to him and his camel. She returns to Kanan, they get married, Yitzhuk and Rivka. Yitzhuk is comforted in the place of his mother's death. Avram marries Keturah, fathers more sons, sends them off, and names Yitzhak his lone heir. Avram Avenu's life comes to an end at a very wholesome 175 years old, and he is buried beside his wife by Yitzhuk and Yeshmael. And that puts a cap on Parsha's Khaisara. The Parsha is well, it reads like a diary and of a holy person. As if somebody took the pen, opened up his diary at the end of a long day. Or maybe an elderly statesman took his quill and started to write down the happenings of his life over the past five years. And he goes through it day by day, he explains details of how he got married, how he tried to find a son, how he tried to find a marriage partner for his son, how we dealt with different challenges. And so much of Parshas and Safer Boracius is part of this same theme. Where it isn't the Torah acting like the Torah, which literally Torah means instruction. It means a manual, a guidebook. It means Hora'ah. That's what Torah means. It means psych. It means instruction. Safer Bracius has nearly none of the blatant instructions that Jews call mitzvos. Safer Bracious is the narratives, the storylines of our ovos, of our four fathers, and three four mothers. The diary inserts, insertions, paragraphs of the holiest people, it really feels like. If you think about it. His fulfilling of mitzvos or his struggle to leave his land. To sojourn elsewhere. Elsewhere. He fights with his brother. He's in pain about what happened to his son. Is Yosef alive? We're gonna hear about all these stories. And there are not instructions about how to live life, but diary inserts, diary expositions about how the greatest people felt in the moments that challenged them. Our parsha caps it off. When you hear literally about the shiddah struggles, the childlessness struggles, the scrabbles and wrangles of the holiest people. Why is the question? Why would the Torah, a guidebook, the Torah, the Psakhohira on humanity, not simply tell us the point of safer Boratius and give it over in the form of a mitzvah? If you'd like to posit that the entire Boracius is to teach lessons of Midos, Midos Tovos, Tikun Haolam, standing up in the moments that challenge you, that's wise of you to suggest. So then I'll ask you, why not just command it? Why not say? And God created the world and he commands you to act with peace and with justice? Why don't we just have a mitzvah that says, any point in which you're looking for a shidduch, if something should happen, you should look for this? Why don't we have a commandment that if a person should be childless, Ahmad, God heaven forbid, we wish it upon to no one? Why don't we just have a commandment that says, act like Avram and Sarah and have hope and have faith and believe in the impossible that God makes it possible? Why do we have to have the story told from the other angle? The prolonged version, the detail diary-like version of all of the struggles of Avram, Gitzhak, Yaakov, Sarivka, Rachovalea. I want to suggest an answer. And it's an answer that I didn't stumble upon, but it's an answer that I was told to look at. I asked my Roshiva Rab Nusinstein last week, what should be my perspective about transitioning from the yeshiva world into the workforce force world? I spent the first five years of my married life trying to build a bias naman beisra, le sham ultiferes, in which all of my children that I was blessed to have should grow up in a house that has a bedrock of Jewish faith that's built upon daddy being involved in Torah, and therefore the whole home should be elevated, and the entire talk of the house should be nothing but Torah and Mitzvos. And now I'm adopting my next responsibility in my life, which God wants. It's not just about me, it's about my children now. So when I asked the question to the Russia Shiva, trying to figure out what would be the mindset in the next step of my life, after signing a contract, an independent contractor to join the Imperial Real Estate Agency in Lakewood, New Jersey? I asked Rabnusenstein, my holy Russia Shiva, who's been there for me in my worst moments and in my best moments, what should be my Hashkupha, my perspective? Should I feel sad that I have to move on? Should I feel happy and excited about the new chapter? All he told me was learn the last two chapters of Ramchal's Mesilas Yesharim and then come back to me. So I did just that. And I'd like to learn the two chapters with you today. Chapter 26 of Ramchal's Mesilas Yesharim, Vzeposhet. Ramchal says it's obvious. Every person according to his occupation that he has acquired, whatever your job is, whatever your profession is, so too you need to have the straightness and the clarity in your job and in your path. His type, the Rebbe's type of piety, is different from the piety that's required from the man who is engaged in real estate. And also this type of piety that the rabbi should have, that the independent contractor should have, is also different from the employee who doesn't work for himself, but for somebody else. Everybody has their own chasidos. And so to all of your other happenings, all your other specific scenarios that you'll find in your life. Depends upon where you are in life and what you have been tasked and even required to do. As if the contractor, independent contractor, has one type of chasidos, but the baseball player has a different type of chasidos. Because the goal is to bring satisfactory smells, the proper satisfaction to your creator. That God should be able to declare unto you, good job. It's the same goal for everyone. So Hasidis doesn't change. So what does it mean? Aval Ho'il continues Ramchal. Since Ma'a Nosim, every situation, Mishhtanim, it changes. Therefore, each path to get to the true to the proper giving of satisfaction, each path changes to get to the taqhlis. Each person is standing in the maze in a different area, but still trying to get to the same center. Everyone can be their own type of chasid. A full chasid. That same person's piety. Kim Mo can be just like Mishim ibn Sarka, who baw malacha phusa somebody else, who is doing the lowliest profession. They both can bring satisfaction to Hashem. And they both, it sounds like even the rabbi is tasked with mimicking Kim Mo, like the bringing of the satisfaction that the employee, that the independent contractor, that the person who has an osik that's phusa, that that person can bring Nachasurah to Hashem. Usiv says Ramchal, citing Shlomo Amelech, Kol, Poel, Hashem, Ma'anehu, each action, each creation that Hashem made according to its situation. God created it for a reason. Behold the Rach of Do'eu, and in everything you should know God. Ramchal's message here is powerful. His Yas is judding. Every scenario that you have in life bring you different chances to be able to bring Nachas Ruach to Hashem. God creates everything for a reason. The way Ramchal understands it, pick up on this subtlety. It's not that every item God created for a reason, but every situation is the way Ramhal is learning that phrase from Mishlay 16.4. Each situation that God puts you in is another ability to capitalize on that opportunity to be Mekadashim Shemaim and to bring about a new revealing of something higher, of something better, of a job well done in this world. The same goal is there for everyone to bring Nachas Ruach to Hashem. But there's a certain type of Nachas Rah that you can do when you're learning Torah. And there's another situation called bringing Nachas Ruach to Hashem, where you're standing in a different situation in the maze trying to get to the same center, that you now have a chance to make a cold call, and you hear from a prospective client that they've hired a certain agent, and you can quite easily convince that seller, that client, or not convince him, but inform him of why your services are better. And the person that he signed a contract with, well, let's just say the elevator doesn't get to the top floor. But you choose not to do that because he's a fellow Jew and he also needs Parnassa. But instead say, wow, what a great individual. I hope it works out, and you can make the next phone call because God sends Parnassa through many different areas and cheating and lying. It doesn't bring Nachas Ruach to Hashem. Pressuring and destroying others doesn't bring Nachas Ruach to Hashem. But you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to be aware of the new opportunities. You have to be aware of when things have changed. Because there's a certain type of avoda that you can do in Kolo. I spent five years trying to immerse myself in Torah. And sometimes Mariv is easy after you've spent an hour trying to immerse yourself in Torah. But Mincha and Marv is a whole lot harder after you've spent four hours trying to convince people that own houses that need to be condemned, destroyed, so that you can acquire their property, convincing them why they should sign a seller's agreement with you so that you can then flip the property and make 10, 20 grand. It's a lot harder to go from that mentality into a mincha and a Mariv. But you know what? What we've learned from Ramkal is that that is not necessarily a step back, but just a different situation in a different section of the maze in which you can bring about new covet shemayim and new Nachas Ruach and choose to go about it in the situation that you have been placed to stand there and bring Nachaz Ruach to Hashem, in that I still concentrate on the first blessing in the middle of a busy work day in an office where I'm divening in a conference room, it all is still there as a new opportunity. Torah has been broadened. A friend told me that Torah has been broadened when he was brought into the workforce because now Choshan Mishbutt became practical and he had passed on a deal between one person to the next. Now, hoping for his commission, the fellow denied the commission, saying it wasn't you. I could have made that connection by myself. A classic situation, a classic quagmire and conundrum. So they pulled up the Choshan Mishbut, they pulled up the local Orthodox rabbi, they went through the sugya and the shak and the Taz, it all was practical because we're trying to get to the emission to the truth, and we're trying to bring Nachas ruach to Akadish Barku in no matter what section we are in the maze. But somehow people think that Torah stops when you leave the base Madris. People believe that Torah stops once they leave the study hall, that when they're driving or when they're negotiating, God doesn't reside there. They are brutally mistaken, and they are wrong. Even the pious, portable, toilet service technician, the man who uses his pump to suck out all of the feces that's sitting in the bottom of a porta potty. I can't think of a lower occupation. That person who can't make a bracha near any sort of connection to this profession, he still has a chance, says Ramchal. I quote him, he still has a chance. This person who has a lowly occupation, but he does it because God requires that he make a profession, he makes some money so that he can bring out more covet shamanim and support his children and his family. That person is now placed in a situation of cole poyal hashem lama'an. God created that for a reason, and you get to choose how you respond in that situation, and you get to choose how you clean yourself off, take off your gloves, move away from the bad stench, and go dab in a strong mincha. There are different situations, and I can't say it enough that doesn't change, but where you are in the maze of life changes. And you are judged based on how you act in a given situation. And means that in every situation, that situation was created just for you to decide whether or not you're going to be Mekadeh Shem Shemayim and make the right call. It's this that is an answer to our original question. Why does Baratius deal with such specific diary-like chapters? Why not just give over the Hashkafa in a mitzvah, say Chayev Adam, or Hashem commands that each person have good midos in each situation? Because we learn much better. When we see how the great ones act in every special and small situation of Kol Poya LaShem Lama'ane. If you go through safer voracious, we have kind of the tip of an iceberg of every sort of struggle and emotional challenge that a person could have. We get to see hands-on how you deal with shidukem. We get to see hands-on the minute details of how the greatest man to ever live deals with fights with his brother. We get to see line by line how a mother responds to somebody who's bothering his children. Go through every peric and you'll start to understand how the Rishonim, they learn Khumish with such an in-depth, fine-toothed comb because every single word is there to coach you in each situation of your life, how you should respond. And we learn better. Don't we all learn better when you have case study, situational awareness, where it is specific and you know how the greatest ones acted in each scenario? God is giving us a chesed and then showing us how kol poya lashem la ma'anehu can manifest itself in every different way. And here is the guide of how to act and make the most of every scenario. We don't all get to stay in the study house for our entire lives. We're required to do many different things, to guard, to protect, to invest, to drive, to schlep, to go, to travel, to nurse, to change and to stay. But each situation is another opportunity to see how you will respond with a kulpoyal ashem lama'an to be able to manifest the nachas ruach waakhaju no matter where you are in the maze of life. No matter which situation you have. You could be giving shir, like a Rosh Shiva, or Davening Mincha, in your office, and you have the equal responsibility and the equal obligation to make the most of it if you want to bring Nachu Akhtar Kadish Baru. Wherever you are listening to this in your office, in your colonial two-story townhouse, on the train, on the bus, in a fancy Manhattan penthouse. You stand on holy ground. You must remove your shoes to understand that where you stand is Admas Khadesh and your decisions they're the same as the very greatest Rosh Yeshiva. It either will bring Nachas Ruach to Hashem or it will disappoint Hashem. And it's your choice. It's your choice how you act. It's no one else's. You must recognize in every scenario if the scenario has changed. If it's time that God has put you in a new situation, well then you must be aware of that. And you must be aware of your new obligations and how to fully manifest. So you understand how to do it right and make the most of the opportunity. Let us all make the most of every opportunity that we have and every situation that we encounter, no matter where it is, to take the lesson of the Avois and the Imhos of Sefer, Braishis, and Parshas Khayasara. Act like them. Study the khumish so you can know deeply and truly how the greatest ones acted and how they brought Nachas Ruach to Akadish Barakhu so that we can internalize how we can do the same. That's how you make the most out of your life. You recognize that the scenario has changed, but the goal is still the same. Each and every one of us. We all are just trying to bring the Nachas Ruach, the satisfactory aroma to our omnipresent creator. And in Mirthashem, we should all be Zoha to do just that.