חיי שרה כ"ג:א
“Sarah’s lifetime was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years; the years of Sarah’s life.”
The Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 138:3) relates; R’ Akiva was once giving shiur and the tzibbur began to doze off. He wanted to wake them up so he said a piece of Torat Remez. It was the norm do to this in order to arouse people back to the learning since people like to learn remazim since they are easy to understand without hard thinking (Etz Yosef). So he said; why did Ester merit ruling over 127 medinot? See that she was a descendent of Sarah who lived for 127 years, and therefore she ruled over 127 medinot.
How was this supposed to arouse the people in R’ Akiva’s shiur? The Chiddushei HaRim explains; we see from this that Sarah lived for 127 years and in that zchut Ester ruled over 127 medinot. This means that in the zchut of one year, there was a future medinah for Ester. If this is so, then perhaps for every week there was a city. And for every hour there was a village; all of which amounted to number in the thousands. If so, when a person lets himself doze off, from his Torah and avodah, he might be losing all of this in the thousands as well! Upon hearing this R’ Akiva’s talmidim woke up.
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