Digging for Water

Parshas Toldos

Posted on November 27, 2024 (5785) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

What do we really know about Isaac, the second of our three patriarchs? The Torah presents vivid and detailed accounts of the lives of his father Abraham and his son Jacob, but Isaac himself always remains an obscure and mysterious figure. We see Abraham prepared to sacrifice him on the mountaintop. We see Abraham seeking a bride for him. We see him bless his sons when he feels death approaching. And in the between, we see him embroiled in a dogged dispute with the Philistines. Isaac digs wells, and as soon as he finds water, the Philistines fill them or claim ownership for themselves.

 

What was so significant about the incident of the wells that the Torah saw fit to record it for all time? What does it tell us about the person inside this enigma named Isaac?

 

The commentators explain that the life work of each of the patriarchs was to blaze a path along which the Jewish people would be able to draw closer to the Creator. Abraham, the paragon of kindness, hospitality and unbounded love, demonstrated that a relationship with the Creator could be forged on the basis of a heart overflowing with compassion. But Isaac perceived that more avenues were required, that it was far too limiting to expect all future Jewish people to derive their spiritual and religious energies from the emotional outpourings of the heart. What would happen if circumstances deprived people of sufficient emotional resources? What if they suffered burnout? Would they also lose their religious and spiritual bearings?

 

Isaac understood that his mission in life was to complement rather than just duplicate his father’s achievements. He bore the awesome responsibility of adding an important new dimension to his father’s revolutionary work. Isaac therefore focused on introducing a solid foundation of discipline and rigorous observance. This would provide religious stability, so that emotional expansiveness and inspiration could then bring a person to the most transcendent levels of spiritual experience.

 

These extraordinary qualities of determination, perseverance and relentless self-discipline were amply illustrated by the incident of the wells. Although the Philistines filled up his newly dug wells with rocks and soil, he was not discouraged. He dug a second set, and once again found water. When the Philistines deprived him of these wells too, he was nonetheless undaunted. He dug a third set of wells, and finally the Philistines, realizing the relentlessness of their opponent, acquiesced. Isaac applied this very same determination to his conduct of his relationship with the Creator, providing his offspring for all time with the paradigm of stable and steadfast devotion.

 

The mystical teachers also discern a deeper symbolism here. They see the entire affair of the disputed wells as a metaphor for the constant struggle that characterizes the human condition. The water represents the pure spirituality of the soul that lies buried deep underneath the suffocating soil of physicality. A person’s life is an unceasing effort to penetrate that physical shell and connect with the spirituality underneath. And unfortunately, success carries no guarantee of permanence. New layers of soil can inundate the liberated water and buried it once again.. Then the process begins again. It takes discipline and determination and a tenacious refusal to concede defeat. With every spade of dirt that was excavated in the search for water, Isaac was sending a powerful message down the halls of time. Never give up. There is water down there. If you refuse to abandon the search for water, you will undoubtedly be rewarded.

 

The young man was very excited. He had been invited to a Passover seder for the first time in his life, and he couldn’t wait to experience this celebrated feast of freedom.

 

As the seder began, the young man waited eagerly as the Haggadah was read and discussed. When would the feast begin? he wondered. Soon, he became impatient, but he was determined to stay. Finally, the meal seemed about to begin, but to his dismay, all the people were just eating matzoh and bitter greens.

 

Disgruntled, he slipped away from the table and made a quiet exit. The next day, his host met him in the street. “Why did you leave?” he chided. “Had you stuck it out a few more minutes you would have been served the most wonderful feast!”

 

In our own lives, we all aspire to bring out the beautiful spiritual and esthetic qualities we harbor deep in our hearts. But just when we feel we have brought them, the grind of daily existence buries them once again under a veritable mountain of rubble. It is terribly discouraging, but it is the way of the world. Life is an unending struggle, and as our patriarch Isaac showed us, determination and perseverance are the keys to ultimate success. Failure is only a temporary setback, and if we dig hard enough and long enough we will reach the sparkling water.

 

Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

 

Entirely Up to Us

Parshas Toldos

Posted on November 28, 2019 (5780) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah| Level: Beginner

And the children struggled within her, and she said, “If so, why is this to Me?” And she went to inquire of HASHEM. (Breishis 25:19)

 

And the children struggled within her: When she passed by the entrances of Torah academies of Shem and Eber, Jacob would run and struggle to come out; when she passed the entrance of a temple of idolatry, Essav would run and struggle to come out. Another explanation: They were struggling with each other and quarreling about the inheritance of the two worlds. – Rashi

 

One could easily argue that Essav was placed in a disadvantageous position in life. He had a prenatal disposition for idolatry. Later he was born ruddy, an indication that his tendency was to spill blood. The poor guy! Why in the world should he be judged and titled as a Rasha- Wicked!? This was who and what he was! This was not the result of his free willed choosing.

 

Then on the other end of the spectrum the same question can be asked. How can Yaakov be crowned a Tzadik? He too had a prenatal disposition, but his innate drive was to learn Torah. So how can he be rewarded as a Tzadik? It wasn’t his doing! He was born intrinsically excellent.

 

This question I presented to Rabbi Ezriel Tauber ztl. many years ago. He explained as follows.

 

There are two general ingredients that make a person into what he is. One is nature and the other is nurture. Sometimes a person is born with difficult nature but he has to counter balance that a warm and loving nurturing environment. Sometimes a person with a very good nature has a rugged and challenging environment.

 

Now we can look at Essav. Although he naturally had terrible tendencies, look at the quality of people that surrounded him. His grandfather was Avraham Avinu. If we would could see Avraham Avinu for one split second, our lives would never be the same. Take any 100 Rebbes and put them together and then multiply their holiness times 1 million and maybe – maybe we have a sense of who he might have been. Then he had a father Yitzchak Avinu and a brother Yaakov Avinu. His mother was one of the 4 great Imahos- Matriarchs that we bless our daughters to be like every Friday Night. He grew in the midst of the greatest of the greatest people that have ever walked on the planet. Yet his heart remained cold and distant.

 

The Talmud declares, “One who is greater than his friend, has a bigger Yetzer Hara –negative inclination.” Great people are not born great. They often have to struggle to overcome some overpowering negativity. In the process they not only achieve goodness but they rise to greatness. A friend told me recently that someone took a handwriting sample of Reb Chaim Kanievsky Shlita to a handwriting expert to be analyzed. The expert said, “I don’t know too much about this person but I can tell you one thing, he can’t sit still for a moment and he has no power of concentration!”

 

The person who brought the sample was astonished. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Reb Chaim learns the entire Torah every year and when there’s a leap year, an extra month, he writes a Sefer. Probably, no one on the planet has proven to have greater power of concentration than Reb Chaim Kanievsky, the greatest Talmud scholar alive today. This man later gave a ride to Reb Chaim and he reported to him the surprising findings of the handwriting expert. Reb Chaim was not surprised. He told him, ”This is my nature but I changed it!”

 

What was Yaakov’s great merit, that he deserved to titled Tzadik? Look at who he had as a near neighbor, a twin brother, Essav, one of the most charismatic fakers of all time. His accomplishment was to remain uninfluenced. Life is dense with advantages and disadvantages. What we become is entirely up to us!