In Sarah Imeinu’s concise eulogy, the Torah tells us only her age, where she died, and that Avraham came, eulogized and wept over her.

Rashi, quoting Chazal, adds to the picture by telling us that Sarah’s age is not mere biographical information. She was not just 127; she was one hundred, and twenty, and seven. At the age of one hundred, she was free of sin like a twenty year old, and at the age of twenty, she was beautiful like a seven year old.

This is Sarah’s eulogy; her life’s work is distilled into these two core accomplishments.

While this midrash certainly adds depth to the Torah’s terse summation of Sarah’s life, it also raises numerous questions.

In this midrash, what do Chazal want us to appreciate about Sarah Imeinu? That she was free of sin even at the age of one hundred is obviously an important accomplishment, but why is it important to know that at twenty she was beautiful like a seven year old?

Is beauty really so important?

Even if beauty is important, is it an accomplishment?

What does it mean to be beautiful like a seven year old?

Rav Eytan Kobre, author of מטעמי מרדכי, answers these questions with a keen observation:

“The most salient difference between the beauty of a twenty-year-old and the endearing appearance of a seven-year-old isn’t in physical appearance; it is in the “knowing-ness” of the former versus the blissful unawareness of the latter. Her complete absence of guile and knowledge about the world and how it relates to beauty is intrinsic to the child’s own beauty.”

That Sarah Imeinu was beautiful was not an accomplishment in its own right; her accomplishment was that her core identity was not modified by her beauty.

Most beautiful 20 year olds are not only aware of their beauty, but their self-perception and behavior is to some degree altered by that knowledge. Sarah Imeinu, even at twenty years old- perhaps the most self-judging period of life- lived on a higher plane.

There has perhaps never been a more self-conscious time in world history. The internet and social media, aling with other societal trends, contribute to our general preoccupation with how we are perceived by others.

Sarah Imeinu is a model for all of us, men and women, of living without this preoccupation, of focusing exclusively on how we are perceived by Hashem. Whether it is our beauty, intelligence, middos, knowledge or anything else, we learn from Sarah Imeinu to work hard and achieve, while at the same time being blissfully unaware of how our successes may appear in the eyes of others.

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