The עקידה (Binding) should have been the greatest moment in the lives of אברהם and יצחק, his son. אברהם was prepared to give up the son through whom every promise was meant to continue, and יצחק was prepared to give up his own life. Nothing was held back.
And then שרה dies.
Her death is connected by חז״ל directly to hearing what had happened at the עקידה. That itself is difficult. שרה was not lacking in אמונה (faith) or ביטחון (trust). She knew that everything comes from הקב״ה. Yet she heard what had happened to יצחק, she cried, and her life came to its end.
Why should the עקידה lead directly into the death of שרה? And why is the פרשה called חיי שרה, the life of שרה, when almost immediately the תורה tells us that she died?
Perhaps the entire פרשה is asking one question: what happens after the עקידה? A person can have one overwhelming moment of closeness to הקב״ה. He can even be prepared to give up everything. But can that moment become a life? Can מסירת נפש (self-sacrifice) become תורה, marriage, a בית, children, and finally a מסורה (transmission) that survives into the next generation?
Death creates interruption. An אונן (mourner before burial) is occupied with the מת and is therefore removed from the ordinary structure of מצוות. The danger after the עקידה is therefore not that the עקידה itself will somehow be undone. The danger is that it will remain only a moment, unless the בית can carry that קדושה (holiness) across the break and make it live again.
From the Mountain to the מערה
The first movement of חיי שרה is into a מערה (cave). אברהם had been promised the land by הקב״ה, yet when שרה dies he does not simply take a burial place. He negotiates, pays כסף מלא, and makes a קנין (acquisition). What was promised from שמים now has to become acquired below.
That is very close to the structure of תורה שבעל פה (Oral Torah). תורה comes from שמים, but לא בשמים היא. It must become ours through עמל (toil), קנין, understanding, and מסורה. What comes from above has to enter the human כלי (vessel) deeply enough that it can become part of a person and then be given to another.
And specifically, the first קנין is a מערה, a hidden place that one has to enter into from the outside. The עקידה took place on a mountain, in an upward movement toward שמים. Here חיי שרה begins by moving downward into the earth. Perhaps that is not a descent away from קדושה at all. It is the next stage. What was revealed above must now enter the hidden places of human life.
That is the world of רשב״י, who enters a מערה, removed from ordinary life, and there תורה is acquired through extraordinary עמל. The מערה looks like a place of burial, yet from that hidden place comes tremendous תורה.
There may already be a bridge here from the קנין of the מערה to the marriage that will dominate the rest of the פרשה. The גמרא learns the קנין of קידושין through קיחה קיחה משדה עפרון. The same פרשה moves from אברהם acquiring the שדה and מערה to establishing the next בית. Here קנין is not possession for its own sake. It is taking what has been given and making it capable of enduring.
זֹאת הַתּוֹרָה אָדָם כִּי יָמוּת בְּאֹהֶל
This is the Torah: when a man dies in a tent.
במדבר יט:יד
אֵין דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה מִתְקַיְּמִין אֶלָּא בְּמִי שֶׁמֵּמִית עַצְמוֹ עָלֶיהָ
Words of Torah endure only in one who gives himself over completely to them.
ברכות סג ע״ב
For יצחק this is not merely a דרשה. At the עקידה he was prepared literally to give up his life. But the תורה does not leave him on the מזבח. The next stage is אדם כי ימות באהל.
The עקידה teaches יצחק how to die once. תורה teaches him how to live with that same מסירת נפש every day. That may be why חז״ל place יצחק in the בית מדרש (study hall) after the עקידה. The fire of the עקידה has to enter the אהל.
But יצחק cannot create that אהל by himself. That is where the center of the פרשה begins to emerge. The question is not only whether יצחק can carry the עקידה forward. It is who will create the בית in which he can do so. That was שרה. After שרה dies, it will have to become רבקה.
The קול of שרה
There may be an even deeper reason that שרה stands at the center of this transition. The first אשה was חוה. After the חטא, it is הקב״ה who says to אדם:
כִּי שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל אִשְׁתֶּךָ
Because you listened to the voice of your wife.
בראשית ג:יז
With שרה, the language is almost reversed:
כֹּל אֲשֶׁר תֹּאמַר אֵלֶיךָ שָׂרָה שְׁמַע בְּקֹלָהּ
Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice.
בראשית כא:יב
The תיקון (repair) of חוה is not that the קול of the אשה must disappear. It is that the קול itself must be repaired. With חוה, human speech became detached from the command of הקב״ה. With שרה, the human קול becomes so aligned with רצון ה׳ that הקב״ה Himself tells אברהם to שמע בקולה.
That is תורה שבעל פה. The wonder of תורה שבעל פה is not that human speech replaces the דבר ה׳. It is that the human קול can become the כלי through which the דבר ה׳ continues to live in this world.
The תיקון of חוה is not silence. It is תורה שבעל פה.
Once שרה dies, the danger becomes obvious. תורה שבעל פה lives through people. A living מסורה survives only when one generation gives what it has received to the next. If the bearer of the קול dies, what happens to the תורה?
The answer of this פרשה is that the קול does not survive on its own. It survives in a בית. A repaired קול still needs an אהל in which it can be heard by the next generation.
Perhaps שרה’s death itself belongs to the תיקון of חוה in an even deeper way. The curse of חוה includes:
בְּעֶצֶב תֵּלְדִי בָנִים
In pain you shall bear children.
בראשית ג:טז
The צער of motherhood is attached to bringing a child into the world. But what could be more painful than bringing a child into the world and believing that he has been taken from you? שרה waited her entire life for יצחק. She gave birth to him at ninety. Now she hears that this בן, through whom the entire future was meant to continue, had been taken to the מזבח.
The פסוק itself gives us the language of תמורה:
וַיַּעֲלֵהוּ לְעֹלָה תַּחַת בְּנוֹ
And he offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.
בראשית כב:יג
The איל is brought תחת בנו. I do not know if we can say that שרה herself was literally a תמורה (substitution) for יצחק, but perhaps there is something deeper taking place. יצחק was prepared to die, the איל dies תחת בנו, and at that exact transition it is שרה whose life comes to its end.
There is even a striking parallel in the language of חז״ל. Here פרקי דרבי אליעזר describes יצחק at the עקידה with פרחה נשמתו (his soul departed), while רש״י describes שרה upon hearing what happened with פרחה נשמתה (her soul departed). I do not know if we can make more of that, but the parallel is difficult to ignore.
At birth, the mother suffers as the child enters life. At the עקידה, it is שרה that dies as יצחק enters a new life. Until now he has been the בן of אברהם and שרה. Now he must become capable of becoming an אב himself.
Blessed בכל
וְאַבְרָהָם זָקֵן בָּא בַּיָּמִים וַה׳ בֵּרַךְ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם בַּכֹּל
And Avraham was old, advanced in days, and Hashem had blessed Avraham with everything.
בראשית כד:א
In what sense did אברהם have בכל? It was שרה who had just died. יצחק was not yet married. There was not yet another generation. Everything seemed unfinished.
Here רש״י brings:
בַּכֹּל בְּגִימַטְרִיָּא בֵּן. וּמֵאַחַר שֶׁהָיָה לוֹ בֵּן הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַשִּׂיאוֹ אִשָּׁה
The word בכל has the numerical value of בן, “son.” And since he had a son, he needed to marry him to a wife.
רש״י בראשית כד:א
Precisely because אברהם has the בן, he now needs an אשה through whom that בן can build the next בית.
But חז״ל bring another reading:
בַּת הָיְתָה לוֹ לְאַבְרָהָם וּבַכֹּל שְׁמָהּ
Avraham had a daughter, and her name was בכל.
בבא בתרא טז ע״ב
The רמב״ן sees in that בת the deeper feminine מדה of מלכות (Kingship). The two readings meet in the very next task of the פרשה. The בכל is the בן who can receive everything that came before, and it is the feminine כלי through which that everything can become a new בית.
Even at the moment שרה has died, אברהם is described as having בכל. Now that שרה is gone, what she built does not have to disappear with her. The מקיף (surrounding presence) of the בית can pass into the next generation if there will be another אשה capable of building it again.
That is the meeting of בן and ב״ן. The בן receives the עולם of the אב and carries it forward. ב״ן, as נוקבא (the feminine receiving aspect) and מלכות, is the receiving כלי through which continuation becomes possible. The אשה as ב״ן creates the כלי inside which the בן can receive everything that came before and become the next bearer of it.
This also throws ישמעאל into sharp relief. He is described as:
יָדוֹ בַכֹּל
His hand will be against everyone.
בראשית טז:יב
His בכל reaches outward. He takes hold of everything. אברהם, by contrast, is:
וַה׳ בֵּרַךְ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם בַּכֹּל
Hashem had blessed Avraham with everything.
בראשית כד:א
His בכל is ברכה. It can be received, contained, and carried forward.
The תורה introduces ישמעאל as:
וְהוּא יִהְיֶה פֶּרֶא אָדָם
He will be a wild man.
בראשית טז:יב
The פרא comes first. The raw כח is not yet contained by the אדם. There may even be a רמז in the letters themselves. פרא and פאר contain the same letters. The same raw material can remain wild and untamed, or it can accept גבול and become refined.
That is why the later תשובה (repentance) of ישמעאל is so fitting. When אברהם dies, חז״ל understand that ישמעאל allows יצחק to precede him despite being older. The one whose beginning was ידו בכל learns how to step back and recognize a מקום that belongs to another. פרא begins to become פאר.
And יצחק is the opposite. His defining event is an עקידה. He is bound. His כח accepts גבול.
But even that גבורה is not enough by itself. יצחק has survived the עקידה and can receive the בכל of אברהם. He still needs the אהל in which that בכל can become a life.
The אהל of שרה and רבקה
As חז״ל tell us, while שרה lived, there was a נר that remained lit from ערב שבת to ערב שבת, a ברכה was found in the עיסה, and an ענן rested over the אהל. When שרה died, these things ceased. When רבקה came, they returned.
The two of them, שרה and רבקה, are not merely women who happen to live inside the same אהל. They create the אהל. They create the environment in which the שכינה (Divine Presence) can rest and in which יצחק can become what he is meant to become.
The נר, the עיסה, and the ענן almost form a miniature מקדש (Sanctuary). The נר recalls the מנורה. The ברכה בעיסה recalls the שולחן and the לחם הפנים (showbread). The ענן is השראת השכינה itself.
The connection to לחם הפנים may go even deeper. The פסוק describes the bread as:
לֶחֶם חֹם בְּיוֹם הִלָּקְחוֹ
Hot bread on the day it was taken.
שמואל א׳ כא:ז
From this, חז״ל understand in חגיגה that the לחם remained חם when it was removed, סילוקו כסידורו (its removal was as its arrangement). One שבת reaches the next without the warmth disappearing.
That is exactly what מסורה must accomplish.
And then שרה dies. The נר goes out. The ברכה ceases. The ענן departs. Then רבקה enters, and it all returns. The קדושה of the previous דור becomes alive again in the next.
That is חיי שרה.
The same word that רש״י reads as בן, the גר״א reads as a סוכה. Its three letters open the three phrases of the מצוה itself:
בַּסֻּכֹּת תֵּשְׁבוּ שִׁבְעַת יָמִים כָּל־הָאֶזְרָח בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשְׁבוּ בַּסֻּכֹּת. לְמַעַן יֵדְעוּ דֹרֹתֵיכֶם כִּי בַסֻּכּוֹת הוֹשַׁבְתִּי אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
You shall dwell in booths seven days; every citizen in Israel shall dwell in booths, so that your generations will know that I made the Children of Israel dwell in booths.
ויקרא כג:מב–מג
The ב of בסכת תשבו, the כ of כל האזרח, the ל of למען ידעו. The ברכה of אברהם is spelled out of the סוכה.
The כתבי האריז״ל describe the סוכה as an אור מקיף (surrounding light) of אימא עילאה (Supernal Mother), an אם spreading her protection over her children. The סוכה is therefore not simply another name for the נוקבא. The נוקבא is the כלי that receives and builds below; over that בית is the maternal מקיף that surrounds those within it.
That fits this פרשה remarkably well. The תורה does not say merely that רבקה entered an אהל. It says that יצחק brings her:
הָאֹהֱלָה שָׂרָה אִמּוֹ
Into the tent of Sarah his mother.
בראשית כד:סז
It is שרה אמינו whose אהל had surrounded and formed his life. רבקה now becomes the אשה through whom that protected space can exist again.
A סוכה surrounds a person completely. One eats there, drinks there, sleeps there. Physical life is not left outside the שכינה. It is lived inside the מקיף.
That is what שרה created and what רבקה creates again. They make the אהל in which the physical life of יצחק can become a life of תורה, marriage, children, and מסורה.
That is עטרת בעלה (the crown of her husband). The עטרה is not the outer wall of the בית. It is the כלי that receives and completes what her husband brings, and through it the whole בית is crowned. The אשה creates the בית within which her husband and children can become what they are meant to become. She is not merely protected by the תורה of the בית. She creates the בית that protects the תורה.
The בן is the continuation. ב״ן is the receiving כלי through which continuation becomes possible. The אהל is that כלי made into a בית. Over it is the מקיף of the אם. And the אשה is the עטרת בעלה who makes that protected life possible.
This is why שרה and רבקה are indispensable to יצחק.
The בן Inside the אהל
My Rebbe explained from the גר״א that יצחק is bound up with the ארבעה בנים of the הגדה, as יצחק is גימטריה four times the word ב״ן. The point is not merely that יצחק happens to contain four traits. The ארבעה בנים describe the fundamental possibilities of what a בן can be. A child may be primarily one of them, or some mixture, but there is no fundamentally different fifth type. יצחק is the paradigm of the בן itself.
This does not mean that יצחק was ever a רשע in the ordinary sense. Rather, every בן has his own relationship to what he receives. The בן cannot merely be a copy of his father. יצחק receives everything from אברהם, yet אברהם is חסד and יצחק is גבורה. The greatness of the בן is to receive the same מסורה without it preventing him from becoming himself.
That is why the ארבעה בנים belong on the night of:
וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ
And you shall tell your son.
שמות יג:ח
The תורה gives one command, but the אב must know which בן is sitting before him. The same תורה has to enter different כלים.
And יצחק is also the first בן born fully into ברית מילה (circumcision), while פסח requires:
וְכָל עָרֵל לֹא יֹאכַל בּוֹ
No uncircumcised male may eat of it.
שמות יב:מח
On פסח the ברית of the אבר and the work of the פה meet. The physical כח through which another generation is created is brought into ברית, and the mouth becomes והגדת לבנך. We do not destroy either כח. We refine them through תורה and מצוות.
The words בן and בהמה share the same גימטריא: fifty-two. Perhaps the raw נפש הבהמית (animal soul) is meant to be elevated until it can become the life-force of a בן. At the עקידה that relationship is visible:
וַיִּקַּח אֶת־הָאַיִל וַיַּעֲלֵהוּ לְעֹלָה תַּחַת בְּנוֹ
And he took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.
בראשית כב:יג
The בהמה is תחת בנו. The animal כח is not destroyed. It is placed beneath the בן and directed toward הקב״ה.
That is גבורה:
אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר? הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ
Who is mighty? One who conquers his inclination.
אבות ד:א
But that refinement takes place בתוך האהל. The בית מדרש, marriage, and the בית are not departures from the עקידה. They are what allow its מסירת נפש to become a Jewish life.
A Living מסורה
This may also explain why חז״ל read אשת חיל (woman of valor) through שרה and רבקה, while רש״י can understand אשת חיל as תורה itself. The אשה and the תורה both give a צורה through which קדושה can endure.
And חיל is מ״ח. And תורה is acquired through the מ״ח דברים שהתורה נקנית בהם. Among those קנינים, in the ברייתא of פרק ו׳ of אבות, is:
הָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ
One who says something in the name of the one who said it.
אבות ו:ו
with the proof:
וַתֹּאמֶר אֶסְתֵּר לַמֶּלֶךְ בְּשֵׁם מָרְדֳּכָי
Esther told the king in Mordechai’s name.
אסתר ב:כב
That is מסורה. I receive. I make it part of myself. I speak it. But I do not erase the מקור. As מסכת אבות itself opens:
מֹשֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ
Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Yehoshua.
אבות א:א
The משנה establishes the chain of קבלה and מסירה; the later ברייתא preserves the same יסוד in בשם אומרו.
The case of אסתר is especially fitting because her world is one of הסתר פנים (concealment of Hashem’s presence), yet she preserves the מקור בשם מרדכי. It is also in her days that חז״ל say:
הֲדַר קַבְּלוּהָ בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ
They accepted it again in the days of Achashverosh.
שבת פח ע״א
The תורה is received again from within a world in which the מקור is hidden.
And רות gives us another רמז. She is the one בעז calls אשת חיל, and the בית that eventually produces דוד depends upon the תורה שבעל פה of מואבי ולא מואבית (a Moabite man, but not a Moabite woman).
Even the הגדה, on the night of והגדת לבנך, brings us to לבן, who sought to uproot the בית from which כלל ישראל would emerge. Perhaps the similarity of לבנך and לבן is only a רמז, but the danger is the same: if the בית is destroyed, the מסורה has nowhere to continue.
Hidden in Plain Sight
I was contemplating the בחינות represented by the אמהות in פנימיות התורה, and one distinction began to trouble me. The אריז״ל develops רחל and לאה into distinct פרצופים, each with her own place and function as one of the two נוקבין of ז״א (the six מדות from חסד to יסוד). Yet we do not find parallel פרצופים or ספירות that directly represent שרה and רבקה.
Before asking why, an important point has to be made. The אמהות were real people, not characters created merely to symbolize abstract ideas. A person cannot be reduced to a single מדה, and neither can a מדה itself be exhausted by one human expression of it. When פנימיות התורה associates רחל or לאה with a particular בחינה, it does not mean that this was the total essence of that woman. Rather, something in her life, her role, and her spiritual character made her an appropriate human expression of that deeper structure.
That makes the question sharper rather than weaker. If רחל and לאה were incorporated into the ontology of פנימיות התורה as permanent names for distinct feminine פרצופים, why were שרה and רבקה not?
The answer cannot simply be צניעות or hiddenness. לאה herself represents a more concealed feminine structure and nevertheless appears as a complete פרצוף. Nor can the absence imply any lesser spiritual stature. חז״ל tell us that אברהם was טפל to שרה in נבואה. The issue is not greatness. It is structural function.
Perhaps the distinction lies in the way these women relate to one another.
The relationship between שרה and רבקה is overwhelmingly one of continuity. חז״ל describe the sun of רבקה beginning to shine before the sun of שרה had fully set. When רבקה enters the אהל, the spiritual reality associated with שרה returns. The זוהר goes further and says that the דיוקן of רבקה was ממש the דיוקן of שרה, and that the דיוקן of שרה became visible again when רבקה entered the בית.
This suggests that שרה and רבקה may not represent two simultaneous differentiated expressions. They represent the continuation of one sacred אהל across generations.
That does not mean they stand in the same place. For יצחק, the אם is שרה and the אשה is רבקה: one the מקיף over the בית, the other the כלי that builds within it. They are different structures. What neither has is a פרצוף of her own name. Their difference is generational, mother and then wife, not two at once beside one partner. The אשה who is the כלי to her husband becomes, for her children, the אם whose אהל surrounds them. What רבקה receives from שרה is not a position beside יצחק but the אהל itself, and in time she will be its מקיף for the next generation.
That continuity also seems consistent with the particular mode of צניעות that characterizes their role. Their greatness is not absent from the structure; it is embedded within it. The אהל is not peripheral to what they accomplish. It is the very place through which their influence is transmitted. In that sense, perhaps an independently projected פרצוף bearing their own names would be, in some manifestation, almost contrary to the nature of the בחינה they embody. Their role is not to stand apart from the structure, but to deepen it from within and carry it forward.
That continuity becomes even more striking when contrasted with the other women associated with אברהם. The זוהר emphasizes that even after אברהם returned to הגר, she did not enter the אהל of שרה. The אהל itself remained uniquely שרה’s, and the woman who truly continued it was רבקה. The sacred line was not divided. It was transmitted.
Something fundamentally different happens with יעקב.
The פנימיות התורה does not merely preserve רחל and לאה as two successive links in one chain. It preserves their distinction. They exist simultaneously, and both are necessary to the construction of the בית of יעקב. The פסוק in רות says of them, “אשר בנו שתיהם את בית ישראל.” Their difference is not incidental to the בית. It is constitutive of it.
This is also reflected in the structure described by the אריז״ל. There, לאה and רחל are not simply two women with different personalities. They become names for two distinct feminine configurations, the two נוקבין of ז״א. Just as לאה is associated with the upper and more concealed manifestation, her sister רחל is associated with the lower and more revealed manifestation.
That does not mean that concealment was the entire essence of לאה or that revelation was the entire essence of רחל. The person is always larger than the particular בחינה she embodies and expresses. Rather, these were two dimensions that required distinct expression within the completed structure of the בית ישראל, and רחל and לאה became their human embodiments.
Perhaps that is why these particular distinctions emerge specifically with יעקב.
With אברהם and יצחק, the sacred feminine line remains one continuing אהל. The expression of שרה gives way to that of רבקה, and רבקה restores what had been present with שרה. Their relationship is sequential rather than simultaneous. Their individuality remains profound, but the ontology does not need to preserve them as two permanently differentiated feminine structures.
With יעקב, however, continuity alone is no longer sufficient. The בית ישראל must now emerge in its internal complexity. Multiple simultaneous expressions within קדושה are required, and therefore the distinction between רחל and לאה itself becomes part of the permanent spiritual architecture.
The question, then, is not why שרה and רבקה “do not appear” in פנימיות התורה. They certainly do. The question is why they do not appear as independently named פרצופים where one might have expected them to belong.
Perhaps the answer is that their deepest relationship is one of transmission, פנימיות, and צניעות. One אהל passes into the next. Their influence is strongest precisely because it becomes inseparable from the בית itself.
With רחל and לאה, the essential relationship is differentiation within one בית. Their distinctiveness therefore has to remain visible within the structure.
The first is continuity across generations. The second is multiplicity within a completed structure.
The Life of שרה
By now אברהם has received and built an entire עולם. But בכל does not mean that אברהם himself possesses everything. It means that what he possesses can survive him.
For that he needs a בן. And the בן needs the אשה who will create the next אהל.
It is שרה who creates the world in which the בן can become יצחק. When she dies, that world disappears with her: the נר, the ברכה, and the ענן all cease. יצחק has survived the עקידה, but survival is not yet continuation.
Then רבקה comes.
She does not merely marry יצחק. She recreates the protected world in which יצחק can live, learn, become an אב, and transmit what he received. She makes שרה’s אהל live again.
Perhaps that is why the פרשה is called חיי שרה. Her life was not only the years that she herself lived. It was the קול she repaired, the אהל she built, the בן she brought into the world, and the תורה she enabled. And חיי שרה continues when רבקה takes that אהל and makes it live again.
The עקידה teaches יצחק how to give his life to הקב״ה. And חיי שרה teaches him how that מסירת נפש becomes an actual life of תורה: to refine the בהמה rather than destroy it, to turn the כח of the body into ברית, to turn the mouth into והגדת לבנך, to sit באהלה של תורה, to receive everything from his אב without becoming merely a copy of him, and finally to become an אב himself.
But none of that happens without the אהל.
That is the depth of בכל. There is a בן capable of receiving everything, but there must also be the אשה who creates the כלי and the בית in which that “everything” can live.
It was שרה who built it. רבקה builds it again.
The נר can be lit again. The ברכה can return to the עיסה. The ענן can once again rest upon the אהל.
What appeared to be the end of the years of חיי שרה becomes their continuation.
My משגיח told me that giving up your life for Hashem and saying ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד, that’s (relatively) easy. You do it and it’s done. But being a בן תורה, learning every day, davening every day with כוונה, that consistency is hard. We all can have our עקידה moments, but the challenge is building that אהל and living in it day after day.
May we be זוכה to light that נר from week to week, carrying the קדושה of one שבת into the next. May we be זוכה to surround ourselves with the בית that our home is meant to be — both our own בית and a true מקדש מעט (small sanctuary). May the תורה we learn inspire us, everyone around us, and the generations that follow us. May our lives be filled with תורה לשמה (Torah learned for its own sake) and שמחה (joy) in everything that we do, and through that may we be זוכה to the coming of משיח צדקנו, when כלל ישראל will once again build the proper בית together.