Offspring – Vayyera
Like all Jewish parents, Abraham and Sarah wanted offspring.
It doesn’t always happen that a couple have children. In that case their immortality is cultural rather than biological.
Cultural continuity comes whether you have children or not, provided you work out your ideas and ideals and dedicate yourself to them. This self-dedication is generally the keynote of the eulogies that are given when you die.
You never find a sentence like “He had … number of cars, … houses, … dollars in the bank”. A eulogy speaks of what kind of person you were.
If you had material possessions the eulogy asks whether you made your money ethically and how you used it for the benefit of the community.
