Water from a Deeper Well

Back in the day, the patriarch Isaac was a thirsty man looking for a good drink.

In Toldot, the parsha or Torah reading for this week, we hear how Isaac can't access the wells which his father Abraham had dug, because they had been filled in with dirt. So now, he needs to get water for himself.

There is water to be found in those wells, to be sure, but as is often the case with biblical wells, there is metaphor to be found down there as well. Those are wells of water -- and of wisdom. Isaac knows those wells once nourished his father, but now he's not able to access them.

In many ways, Isaac was facing the same challenge that any of us might face when trying to engage with Judaism.

For Isaac, the wells of his ancestor, Abraham, were blocked, and for us, the pathways that seemed to be a source of nourishment for earlier generations simply aren't easily accessible to us.

The hasidic master known as the Sefat Emet tells us that the wells are the source of חכמת הבריאה קודם קבלת התוראה, the wisdom of Creation that came prior to Torah, and indeed, in trying to dig these wells, Isaac is seeking more than simply something to drink.

Even though they were stopped up, Isaac didn't abandon the wells. A loyal son who was confident there was water in his father's wells, Isaac went back to the wells of his father and dug them up. But he wasn’t satisfied with simply redigging his father’s wells. After digging his father's wells, he went further, and dug his own well.

He calls the new well רְחבוֹת / rechovot meaning “wide place,” for as he says "now God has made room for us!”

Only then, after digging through his father’s wells and digging his own does the Holy One appear to him, saying: "I am the God of your father Abraham; fear not, for I am with you and I will bless you."

As Jews in the 21st century, we inherit wellsprings of wisdom and comfort and joy, and we are well served to redig the wells, even when they appear stopped up and the richness that is in them seems inaccessible.

Yet, we also have to take just as seriously the second part of Isaac’s example and know that we need to dig our own, new wells that speak to the reality of our lives - not our ancestors. We are also well served to be aware of and sensitive to the our own experience and our own realities.

Only with both parts of Isaac's example - the past and the future - can we hope to say that the Holy One has made room for us.