The stories we tell

As a chaplain, my work is listening to people’s stories. I know that telling and retelling the story of their illness can be reparative. When I first meet a patient I generally ask something like, “Why are you in the hospital today?”

Usually, the answer begins with the medical details. Quickly, I remind them that I’m not a doctor and try a transition that sounds something like, “How is all this affecting your heart, your spirit?”

Often, this is when the patient will begin to share their story. But after a few seconds, they hesitate and say, “But you don’t want to hear all this.” I explain that I love stories. The longer, the better.

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The Torah is notoriously concise. It spends only 34 verses on the creation of the universe; and the Holiness Code, which teaches ethics and social justice, has 37. Yet in this week’s parsha, the nameless servant of Avraham is given 41 verses to retell the story the reader has just heard about the journey he took to find a wife for Yitzhak. What can we learn from this retelling?

At first glance, the two versions of the servant’s story are remarkably similar. But I know that changes in the telling of any story can teach both the teller and the listener.

Narrative therapy, developed by Michael White and David Epston in the 1980s, rests on the premise that people make sense of their lives through the stories they tell about themselves. By retelling their life stories in their own words, individuals can begin to reframe their experiences and find healing.

The servant does not simply recount the facts. He retells his story to persuade Rivka’s brother Lavan to release her to marry Yitzhak, thereby fulfilling the mission Avraham entrusted to him. He cannot change what happened at the well, but he can choose how to tell it. And in that choice, we discover something important about the relationship between storytelling and transformation.

When the servant first encounters Rivka, he recognizes her as the woman he has been sent to find. Her extraordinary kindness at the well confirms it.

When the servant arrives at Lavan’s house, Lavan welcomes him warmly (24:31) announcing that he has prepared the house and a place for the camels. But the very next verse (24:32) tells us that ha-ish — the man, the servant himself being the only one referred to as ha-ish in this narrative — unloads the camels, provides fodder for them, and supplies water for washing his own feet and those of his entourage. Lavan had spoken generously, but the work fell to the guest himself. Lavan’s words promise much more than his actions deliver.

The contrast with Rivka is striking. She does not simply speak kindly or offer to help. She draws water, again and again, until all the camels have finished drinking. Lavan’s welcome promises generosity without delivering it. It seems Rivka developed an unusual capacity for chesed that her home does not appear to model.

When the servant sits down to explain his mission, his account is almost a verse-by-verse retelling of what we have already read. Almost, but the differences are revealing.

In verse 12, the servant prays that God will grant him success and show chesed/kindness to Avraham. When he recounts this prayer to Rivka’s family in verse 42, he emphasizes the success of his journey. The mentioning of chesed disappears.

In verses 22 and 23, the servant gives Rivka jewelry before asking about her family. In verse 47, he reverses the order: He first asks whose daughter she is, and only then places the jewelry on her. The details are the same, but the sequence has changed. In the retelling, the family connection came first.

Most striking is the change between verses 27 and 48. In the first story, the servant blesses God for not abandoning God’s chesed/kindness and emet/ trustworthiness toward Avraham. In the second, he blesses God for leading him on the derekh emet, the way of truth, to finding a wife for Yitzhak. The word emet remains, but its meaning slightly shifts.

These changes are not merely differences in wording. The servant is choosing which parts of his experience to emphasize and which to leave aside. He has seen Lavan’s response to the jewelry, and he understands that wealth and ties to his own family may be more persuasive than an appeal to kindness. He shapes his account accordingly, hoping to secure the family’s agreement.

These changes invite us to consider what happens when we tell our own stories. We may begin with the facts: the diagnosis, the surgery, the loss. But when we retell the story, we make choices, sometimes consciously and sometimes without realizing it. We decide what to accentuate and what to leave aside. The facts remain, but our understanding of them may transform.

I think about the patients who begin to tell me about their illness and then stop themselves: “But you don’t want to hear all this.”

The Torah gives Avraham’s servant 41 verses to tell and retell a story. The length of his account reminds us that the tellings themselves really matter. We need not dismiss a story because we have heard its facts before. There may be something in the retelling that was not available to us the first time.

This is one of the lessons of Chayei Sarah: living through an event is only part of the process. Telling the story is another. We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we can discover new ways to understand and bear what has happened. PJC

Rabbi Kara Tav is rabbi of spiritual care at Congregation Beth Shalom and is a chaplain at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital. This column is a service of the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Clergy Association.