Kislev 2, 5777/December 2, 2016
The drama of parashat Toldot focuses around the struggle between Yaakov and his brother Esav, which begins while they are still in mother Rivka's womb, and continues to this very day. This week's Torah reading opens with their birth and the subsequent sale of Esav's birthright to Yaakov, and reaches its dramatic crescendo with Yaakov'ssubterfuge and the blessing he received from father Yitzchak as a result thereof, and Esav's exasperated cries of defeat and revenge for his perceived suffering.
In between these two narrative bookends, parashat Toldot details the life of Yitzchak in the land of Israel. For whatever reasons, Yitzchak's life story seems to pale in comparison to the intense trials that were visited upon his father Avraham from youth to old age, and the subsequent struggles of his son Yaakov as he both survived and flourished in a hostile world. As a result, the taciturn and seemingly passive Yitzchak, and the significance of the life he led in the land of Israel, is often neglected.
The blessing that Yitzchak offers his son Esav before he dies, and the bitter struggle that it engendered after Yaakov interrupted and received for himself the blessing, makes crystal clear the cosmic, transcendent power and centrality of the blessing both for the nation of Israel and for all humanity. But ultimately, the power of this blessing can only be as powerful as the vessel who embodied and transferred the blessing upon his son. And this gives reason to look once again at the life of Yitzchak, whose blessing is undoubtedly the most significant and long-term blessing ever bestowed in the history of mankind.
Among the patriarchs, Yitzchak enjoyed the unique status of being the only patriarch who was born in, died in, and never left the land of Israel. He received a direct reconfirmation of the blessing his father Avraham had earlier received from G-d : "I am the God of Avraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed for the sake of Avraham, My servant." (Genesis 26:24) And bless him He did. Yitzchak traveled the arid lands of Israel's Negev desert, and despite the advent of a second famine in the land, wherever Yitzchak traveled he dug wells, reopening wells that had been previously dug by his father Avraham, (and filled in by hostile peoples), and digging new wells. In places where others tried to reach water and discovered only dust, Yitzchak's wells brought forth the living waters of the land of Israel. He sowed the land and it yielded tremendous bounty, namely in the settlements of Rechovot and Mea Shearim, names of communities which live on to this day. He traveled to Gerar and was treated there as a holy man, despite the inhabitants' jealousy of his material success.
But the great material success which Yitzchak enjoyed was merely the outward sign of the great spiritual blessing he was receiving from G-d . Every drop of water that falls from the sky or rises up from the deepest wells in the land of Israel is a direct and overt blessing from G-d . Every fruit, vegetable or grain that is grown and consumed in the land of Israel is a direct blessing from G-d . For two thousand years, following the destruction of the Holy Temple, that land of Israel was an arid, barren, lifeless desert. All those who invaded and settled the land, generation after generation, succeeded only in scratching out a subsistence level of existence, and often times not even that. Just as the Philistines had filled in the wells of Avraham, so too, G-d frustrated every attempt of other nations to bring forth any blessing in the land of Israel.
Only with the prophetic ingathering of the tribes of Israel over the last century and a half, and the reestablishment of the sovereign state of Israel, has bounty and blessing returned to the land. The father and the human source through which this blessing is transferred remains our patriarch Yitzchak. It was his transfer of this blessing to his sonYaakov which sealed the deal for all eternity. The land of Israel, its material and spiritual blessings and bounty, belong to the children of Israel, exclusively and forever, to bring forth and share with the nations.
This blessing is made manifest with each drop of rain, with each fruit harvested and with each subterranean aquifer whose precious waters reach our households. When King David dug the foundations for the Holy Temple he wished to build, he too, unlocked the hidden waters below, an eternal source of life and blessing in the Holy Temple. These most holy of waters, too, owe their existence to the blessed son of Avraham, who both lived and bequeathed this blessing in full to his son Yaakov, the father of our people:
"And may HaShem give you of the dew of the heavens and of the fatness of the earth and an abundance of grain and wine. Nations shall serve you and kingdoms shall bow down to you; you shall be a master over your brothers, and your mother's sons shall bow down to you. Those who curse you shall be cursed, and those who bless you shall be blessed." (ibid 27:28-29)
-The Temple Institute
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