Parshat Toldot: Perpetuating the dream of Avraham

This week’s portion, Toldot, leaves us wondering about the wisdom of Yitzchak’s behavior in one of the more challenging series of events in his life.

There is, again, a famine in Canaan (Israel), and Yitzchak journeys to the coastal region of Gerar (probably today’s Gaza strip), to the king Avimelech.

Yitzchak, despite the famine, was very successful, with crops yielding 100 fold the normal yield, and he becomes a very wealthy man (26:13-14) which, of course, makes the local Philistines very jealous. So the king tells Yitzchak he has become too wealthy and powerful, and essentially demands that he leave town (26:16). Surprisingly, Yitzchak offers no argument and promptly moves to Nachal Gerar, in the valley below (26:17).

Now, all of the wells his father Avraham had dug in this area had been stopped up and filled with earth by the local Philistines (in an attempt, perhaps, to later ‘discover’ and thus lay claim to them) as soon as Avraham died (26:15).

Yitzchak re-claims these wells by digging them up anew (26:18). But every time Yitzchak digs up his father’s wells or finds fresh water springs, the Philistine shepherds of Gerar demand the water as theirs.

One begins to wonder whether the argument here is really over water, as the people of Gerar had clearly been managing without any of these new wells previous to Yitzchak’s arrival. If anything, one might have expected the Philistines to recognize that Yitzchak was making an important contribution to the area, with an influx of wealth and new wells, something that could clearly be of benefit to the entire community.

But hatred and enmity need not make a whole lot of sense; they never have and never will. Sometimes it is important to recognize when our enemies are not arguing to get something, but rather are more interested in getting rid of something: us.

Again and again, Yitzchak does not argue and moves without any fight, until finally a new well is discovered and they call it Rechovot, from the root Rachav, or broad, because: “Now, G-d has made broad space for us, and we can be fruitful in the land” (26:22).

What is going on here? What happened to the power and greatness of the family of Avraham? Is Yitzchak afraid? Did not his father, who fought and defeated no less than five kings and the mightiest army the world had ever seen up to that point succeed in teaching his son that you have to be willing to fight for what is right?

Indeed, when Avimelech, the Philistine King travels with an entourage from Gerar to see Yitzchak, without any debate or demands (26:30-31), Yitzchak proceeds to make them a party (in Oslo?) and, acquiescing, seems to repeat the same mistake his father Avraham made, signing a treaty with the Philistines, and sending them off in peace.

Why would Yitzchak sign a treaty with the Philistines, when it had just been made abundantly clear to him that the treaty wasn’t even worth the paper it was signed on? After all, these were the same Philistines who just blocked up all of the wells guaranteed Avraham in the treaty he signed with them a generation earlier?

We need to understand who Yitzchak really was, and what differentiated his purpose and mission, from that of his father, Avraham.

The difference between Yitzchak and Avraham may be very simple: Avraham was the first; the beginning; Yitzchak was the one who had to follow up; he was the continuation; these are two entirely different roles.

Avraham arrives on the world scene as a lone voice in a very lonely desert; the world is a morass of pagan idolatry, which believes in many gods, and worships the world of nature. Avraham’s mission is to introduce to the world the idea that there is One G-d; he is the beginning.

Yitzchak, on the other hand, inherits the challenging task of ensuring that this idea does not die. He is not the creator of a new idea, but he is nonetheless its bearer.

This concept lies at the heart of the human experience. Rav Eliyahu Dessler suggests that every human endeavor and experience contains three parts, represented by the three forefathers of the Jewish people: Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. Every experience will always have a beginning, middle, and an end.

The beginning, represented by Avraham, is always a powerful moment, full of energy and excitement. But it always needs to be followed by the long hard work of Yitzchak.

In fact, this is how life itself is created. A man and a woman come together, and in an enormous burst of energy, full of passion and excitement, she becomes pregnant. But life is far from being born; now the woman, through a long period of gestation, must carry that seed to term, allowing it to grow and develop, until it is ready to be born. At that point, the original seed, combined with the long hard months of pregnancy, come together in an intense experience of labor (represented by Yaakov), and the baby is born.

It is interesting to note that often, just before the end, things seem to get worse, even ready to fall apart. But just when it looks like it is all over, when the woman is screaming in labor, and you cannot imagine anything good could possibly come out of this ordeal, the baby, in one last push, is born, and darkness and pain are transformed into joy and light.

Avraham represents the idea of beginning. But the Jewish people is not yet ready to be born, because with the death of Avraham, begins the long hard journey of Yitzchak. Indeed, this is why Avraham’s life is so active, and Yitzchak’s is so passive. Avraham journeys far from home to a new land and a new time; Yitzchak never leaves the land of Israel.

Avraham has to offer his son up on the altar, but Yitzchak is the passive sacrifice.

Avraham digs wells and signs treaties, but Yitzchak simply (for the most part) re-digs the wells his father has already dug, because that is the entire point: Yitzchak’s mission is essentially to continue to cultivate the fields his father had planted. And this is perhaps the most difficult part of the journey; it is neither the departure, which holds with it the excitement of embarking on a new path for points unknown, nor is it the fulfillment of arrival, with the knowledge that the long hard journey has been worthwhile.

Only when Avraham and Yitzchak have fulfilled their missions, are we ready for Yaakov. Yaakov is the synthesis of the beginning of Avraham, and the long hard journey, the months of pregnancy of Yitzchak. Yaakov is the birth of the Jewish people.

Every experience in life carries these three components. In fact, if one of them is missing, then most often that means something is wrong. If you write a book, and you know you experienced an ‘Avraham,’ and feel you arrived at a ‘Yaakov’ with a book ready to be published, you have to ask whether you really experienced a ‘Yitzchak’; did you really put in the work?

The same is true of our relationships. If you meet someone and experience the excitement of Avraham, before you are ready to allow a marriage (Yaakov), ask yourself whether you have experienced Yitzchak; have you put in the work necessary to ensure that this will be a healthy relationship?

Which brings us back to our story: Yitzchak names the town he settles in Be’er Sheva; but he is really re-naming it since Avraham named it Be’er Sheva many years earlier! And it is precisely because Yitzchak, in the second generation, re-names it Be’er Sheva, that it continues to be called Be’er Sheva until this very day. The long hard work of Yitzchak is the important component necessary for the dream to become a reality.

And perhaps this is why Yitzchak is not fighting Avimelech, because that is not what Yitzchak is about. His job is to perpetuate the dream of Avraham, by demonstrating that he is not there by virtue of his mighty army, but by virtue of the fact that his father dug the wells. His goal is not to have the wells in this generation; his goal is to perpetuate the claim of the Jewish people to those wells, in the land of Israel forever.

We would do well in our challenging times, to learn carefully the messages of the life of Yitzchak.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,

Binny Freedman

Rav Binny Freedman, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta, lives in Efrat.