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THE MEANING OF THE NAME “MACHPELA”
The name “Machpela” given to the Field and the Cave has been largely expounded upon by our sages:
· “Machpela” means “Multiple.” - housing multiples of couples: Adam & Eve, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob & Leah. (Tract. Eruvin 53a)
· The cave has a double structure:” Two houses, one inside the other” or, ”a house with another floor above it”. (Tract. Eruvin 53a)
· The virtue of whoever is buried there: ”Whoever is interred there has multiple reward” (Br. Rab. 58).
· Adam was buried there by the All-Mighty (Br. Rab. 58).
The mystical book of the Zohar elaborates on the question of the meaning of the term “Machpela” as it analyzes the contextual usage of this term: Sometimes the word is use as “The Field of the Machpela” and other times as “The Cave of the Machpela.” The Zohar reports:
“Rabbi El’azar asked his father Rabbi Shimon :The term multiple cannot possibly refer to the cave because it is written, ”The cave of Machpela” and later on it is referred to as the Cave of the Field of the Machpela, hence the name “Machpela”-multiple refers only to the Field. Rabbi Shimons’ response: ”They are both called the Machpela”.
One way to explain Rabbi Shimon’s response is that the word Machpela means both “multiple” and “folded.” The Zohar describes the following:
“The Cave of the Machpela. Take note, Jerusalem and all of the Land of Israel was folded under it”.
This symbolic description expresses the meaning of the purchase made by Abraham . This purchase therefore included the purchase of the land which was “folded and multiplied under the Cave”.
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