Over 35,000 Jews flocked to Hebron over the weekend to celebrate Shabbat Chaye Sarah.

Jews around the world read the Torah portion of Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18) last Shabbat describing Abraham’s purchase of the Machpelah Cave and the fields around it from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver as a burial site for his wife, Sarah. The Biblical couples of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rivkah, and Jacob and Leah were buried in the Machpelah Cave. Jewish tradition holds that the Cave of Machpela is also the burial place of Adam and Eve and leads to the Garden of Eden making Hebron, the site of the oldest Jewish community in the world, one of the four holy cities of Judaism.