At the beginning of Chaye Sarah, this week’s Torah portion, we learn of Sarah’s passing away. We read:

And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years; [these were] the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kiriat Arba, which is Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to eulogize Sarah and to bewail her.( Genesis 23:1-2)

It seems strange that the text does not just say that Sarah was 127 years old when she died. Why say “years” three times? On this Rashi quotes the Midrash which says:

The reason that the word “years” was written after every digit is to tell you that every digit is to be expounded upon individually: when she was one hundred years old, she was like a twenty-year-old regarding sin. Just as a twenty-year-old has not sinned, because she is not liable to punishment, so too when she was one hundred years old, she was without sin. And when she was twenty, she was like a seven-year-old as regards to beauty. (Genesis Rabbah 58:1)

Sure this is interesting. Reaching the end of life makes one reflect about all of life’s stages, but is there more to this than a lovely eulogy for a life well lived?

I was thinking about this recently when listening to Lies a beautiful song by Stan Rogers. As I have written about in the past, I have been listening to the music of Stan Rogers from time to time over the past few years to connect to the memory of my father. Since his passing I have come to understand that I know very little about him. My father introduced me to his music. In many ways listening to Rogers’ music has been a mediation on my father and a means to exploring the man he was. I invite you to listen to this melancholy song which speaks of love, sorrow, and the passing of time:

There Rogers sings:

Is this the face that won for her the man
Whose amazed and clumsy fingers put that ring upon her hand
No need to search that mirror for the years
The menace in their message shouts across the blur of tears

So this is beauty’s finish! Like Rodin’s “Belle Heaulmie’re”
The pretty maiden trapped inside the ranch wife’s toil and care
Well, after seven kids, that’s no surprise
But why cannot her mirror tell her lies

Rogers sings about a woman who is old now reflecting back on her life. How is she seen?

Rodin’s sculpture Belle Heaulmie’re depicts a woman of wizened appearance whose features are both ugly in a prototypical sense but also beautiful given the artist’s expressiveness and suggestion of spiritual strength of the woman. Rodin’s masterpiece is also called “The Old Courtesan”. She who was the helmet-maker’s once beautiful wife, but what is she now?

For Rogers, the woman is old and beautiful. Her wrinkles (lines) portray her age and betray(lies) how her husband sees her. The rancher loves her despite or because of those lines.

Perhaps this is also true in the midrash that Rashi brings to explain the Torah’s language around Sarah’s age at her passing. I thought Rashi was expressing how we should look at Sarah. In some objective reality Sarah “was without sin. And when she was twenty, she was like a seven-year-old as regards to beauty.” But inspired by Rogers I want to read this Rashi in the context of the rest of Chaye Sarah. She dies and Avraham is busy trying to bury her. It is possible that Rashi’s commentary is less a description of Sarah and more an insight into how Avraham saw Sarah. She was the love of his life. Objectively Sarah might have been old and looked like Belle Heaulmiere, but in Avraham’s eyes she was still as pure and beautiful as the day they got married.

My mother had been sick for many years already when my father what was still going to work every day at 83 died suddenly from a heart attack. Rashi and Rogers give me a deeper appreciation for how my father loved my mother at the end of his life when she was so ill. He could see in her face the woman who he married. She was his source of life and happiness. She gave him a family, home, and community that he truly cherished. He could see reflected in her face the young man whose “clumsy fingers put that ring upon her hand.” As Mark Twain said, “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” The lines are truly lies that to not portray how we see the people we truly love. Like Avraham and Sarah and my parents, we should all be blessed to know a timeless love. I know that I am.

• Other writing on Stan Rogers: My Father’s Yahrzeit and Stan Rogers: Who Will Know?