“Sarah lived 127 years, the years of Sarah’s life.” (Gen 23:1)

Rashi explains: The years of Sarah's life were all equally good.

This can be explained, on a deeper level, in several ways:

  • The years of her life were all equally good. Sarah experienced many hardships and challenges, but they were not her life, her focus. Her life's purpose was to fulfill her Divine mission, and she remained consistent in her devotion to G‑d throughout her entire lifetime. In this respect, all the years of her life were equally devoted to goodness.
  • Every year of Sarah's life was as complete and perfect as it could possibly have been. Although her later achievements made earlier ones pale in comparison, she lived up to her fullest potential at all times.
  • The time Sarah spent preparing for her Divine mission was just as valuable as the time she spent fulfilling it. Education and preparation are themselves an integral part of Divine living.
  • Although Sarah constantly achieved ever-higher degrees of goodness—and it would therefore seem that any given period in her life was, in this respect, superior to the period preceding it and inferior to the period following it—all her years can nonetheless be regarded as being equally good. Her every achievement built upon and perfected her previous accomplishments and, complementarily, prepared her for the greater heights she would eventually reach. In this way, Sarah succeeded in breaking through the boundaries of time and creating a cohesive oneness out of the different periods of her life. This last interpretation teaches us that what we do today affects not only the present, but the past and future as well.

Sarah's life should serve as an inspiration for us all.