Yitzchok and Rivka Build a Family
Death is not only
tragic for those intimately affected it also always poses problems of
succession and reorganization of the family, company or institution. Avraham
and Sarah, the founders of the Jewish nation pass from the scene in this week’s
parsha. They are succeeded by Yitzchak and Rivka and in fact the majority of
the parsha concerns itself with how Yitzchak marries Rivka and they establish
their new home together.
In personality,
temperament and action Yitzchak and Rivka differ markedly from Avraham and
Sarah. Whereas Avraham and Sarah devoted themselves to reaching as many
outsiders as they could and were actively engaged in spreading the idea of
monotheism in the surrounding society, Yitzchak and Rivka seem to take a more
conservative approach. They attempted to consolidate what they accomplished and
to build a family nation rather than to try to attract more strangers to their
cause.
As we will see in next
week’s parsha the struggle of Yitzchak and Rivka is an internal family struggle
as how to raise Eisav and Yaakov and guarantee the continuity of the ideas and
beliefs of Avraham and Sarah through their biological offspring. Eventually it
is only through Yaakov that Avraham and Sarah continue and become the blessing
that the Lord promised that they would be. The
world struggle that engaged Avraham and Sarah becomes a struggle within Avraham
and Sarah’s family itself.
It becomes abundantly
clear that the main struggle of the Jewish people will be to consolidate itself
and thus influence the general world by osmosis, so to speak. The time of
Avraham and Sarah has passed and new times require different responses to the
challenges of being a blessing to all of humankind.
There are those in
the Jewish world who are committed to “fixing the world” at the expense of
Jewish traditional life and Torah law. Yet the simple truth is that for the
Jewish people to be effective in influencing the general society for good there
must be a strong and committed Jewish people. King Solomon in Shir Hashirim
warns us that “I have watched the vineyards of others but I have neglected
guarding my own vineyard.”
The attempted
destruction and deligitimization of the Jewish people or the State of Israel, G-d
forbid, in order to further fuzzy, do-good, universal humanistic ideas is a
self-destructive viewpoint of the purpose of Judaism. Without Jews there is no Judaism and without Judaism there is
no true moral conscience left in the world. Therefore it seems evident to me that
the primary imperative of Jews today is to strengthen and support Jewish family
life, Jewish Torah education and the state of Israel.
We are in the generations of Yitzchak and Rivka and therefore
we have to husband our resources and build ourselves first. We have as yet not
made good the population losses of the holocaust seventy years ago! If there
will be a strong and numerous Jewish people then the age of Avraham and Sarah will
reemerge. The tasks of consolidation of Jewish life as represented by the lives
of Yitzchak and Rivka should be the hallmark of our generation as well.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
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