Shabbat Parashat Chayei Sarah - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Chayei Sarah - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  They dwelt from Chavilah to Shur, which is near Egypt, toward Assyria, over

  all his brothers he fell. [Bereishit 25:18]

This is the last verse in the portion, describing where the descendants of Yishmael

ended up. The last word is nafal, which usually means fell. What is it telling us here?

We could read the verse as "over all of it, his brothers fell" meaning that Yishmael

and his family had dominion over this region. Or we could read it "Yishmael ruled

over all his brothers", referring to dominion over people rather than territory. Ibn Ezra

tends toward the first option, that "it fell as his portion".

Many, including Onkelos, Rashi and Ramban understand the word to mean "dwelt",

that the verse means Yishmael and his descendants lived in the region. All seem to

agree, though, that the first word of our verse, vayishkenu means "and they dwelt",

so it seems odd that the same verse would use two words for one meaning, in

particular where one of those words typically means something quite different. It also

seems repetitive and an odd structure in the verse if the two words mean the same

thing. Rashi does offer a possible explanation for this from Bereishit Rabbah [62:5],

that "as long as Avraham had not yet died, the verse states he shall dwell. Once

Avraham died, it says, he fell" meaning that once Avraham died, the quality of the life

of Yishmael declined. Bereshit Rabbah also gives the explanation that in this world

Yishmael dwells, but in the world to come he falls.

Although it is not clear, Onkelos seems to hint that our verse is in fact saying two

separate things, first that the descendants of Yishmael dwelt in that region, and second

that they were residing in the vicinity of their other kinsmen, meaning various Canaanite

tribes and the family of Yitzchak.

Radak translates our word nafal as fell in battle, derived from Shoftim [7:12]. Rav Hirsch

differentiates between vayishkenu and nafal that they are different degrees of the same

idea. Vayishvu would be a true settling down, vayishkenu is more temporary, and nafal is

to "alight somewhere where one does not belong, where through the ordinary course of

events they would not have planned to come." Vayishkenu and nafal then are more in

line with the nature of the nomadic life of the Yishmaelim. He relates nafal to the nefalim,

the giants who wandered and lived wherever they wished. Thus our verse means that

they were wandering around the region, sometimes a little bit more settled, sometimes

less so.