“This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac.” (Genesis 25:19) If Isaac is Abraham’s son, why do we also need to be told that “Abraham begot Isaac”? Rashi interprets the repetition here as an indication that Isaac was not only Abraham’s son, but was physically identical to him. This was a precautionary measure, says Rashi, lest anyone suspect that Isaac had been conceived when Sarah was kept prisoner by Avimelech and therefore was not Abraham’s true son.
The anxiety implied by Rashi here suffuses Parshat Toldot. Isaac is Abraham’s son — and his imitations and repetitions of Abraham’s choices are a major theme. The narratives of Toldot suggest that Isaac does not take after Abraham only in appearance: Isaac’s life in many ways parallels Abraham’s.
Just as Sarah was taken captive by Avimelech of Gerar, so too was Rebecca. Fearing that if Avimelech’s courtiers discover he is Rebecca’s husband, he will be killed, Isaac protects himself with the same lie as his father. And when it is discovered that he is not, in fact, Rebecca’s brother, Avimelech apologizes as he did to Abraham, and Isaac is offered Avimelech’s protection and grows rich — just as Abraham did before him.
After both of these conflicts in Gerar, both Abraham and Isaac have conflicts over wells. In Abraham’s case, “Abraham reproached Abimelech for the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.” But when Avimelech insists in reply that he knew nothing about this, he and Abraham make a pact.
Isaac’s conflict excavates — quite literally — the same themes as his father’s. After being pushed away from the people of Gerar because he has “become far too big for us,” (Genesis 26:16) “Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them.” (Genesis 26:18) Isaac continues digging up further wells, but finds, again like his father, that there is tension: “The herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, ‘The water is ours.’” This pattern repeats until eventually Isaac’s people dig a well that is not the subject of dispute.
Soon after, Isaac is — once again, echoing Abraham’s interactions — approached by Avimelech. But here, his choices diverge from his father’s. While Abraham seems to accept Avimelech’s excuse that he did not know about the actions of his people, Isaac confronts the king: “Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, seeing that you have been hostile to me and have driven me away from you?’” Isaac is not pacified by Avimelech’s mere presence — he insists on acknowledgement of and accountability for the harm that has been done to him.
Both of these moments are cited by the Sifrei as evidence that “rebuke leads to peace.” But it is only Isaac’s story that actually concludes with peace: “And they departed from him in peace.” (Genesis 26:31) Abraham’s story, on the other hand, does not have a satisfying ending — while he offers an initial rebuke, he does not insist on a real reckoning on Avimelech’s part. Perhaps this is what leads to this same cycle of conflict over wells only one generation later. There has been no true resolution, because Abraham has not demanded true repair.
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I know I am not the only one who has been tempted in recent days, weeks, months, and years, to throw up my hands and abandon Jews who think too differently from me. It is so painful to be seen as evil, misguided, or not Jewish enough by people who share our beloved Torah, and it can seem safer and easier to simply give up on insisting that we are all still somehow in a shared project.
But this is not a liberatory attitude. The organizer Monica Cosby, quoted by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, teaches that an abolitionist requires a “refusal to abandon” — an insistence that each person matters, that we cannot get free if we give up on anyone. Tochecha (rebuke) offers us a way to do that.
We can keep repeating patterns, re-digging wells, poking the same sore spots. Or we can be like Isaac and insist on looking at the harm, on saying “this is where wrong has been done.” Letting hurt slide, like Abraham, locks us into a cycle where we separate ourselves from others by refusing to address problems. But this does not fix anything, and we find ourselves back in the same place again and again.
Hayes and Kaba write:
“We are sold punishment as justice and annihilation as progress, and many people cannot imagine anything else. But just as we do not abandon people we love who are in crisis, we have not given up on humanity. We have witnessed transformation too often to dismiss its possibility, and we have an obligation to that possibility in individual lives and in larger groups of people….Being present for people will always mean being there for the mess created by human conflict and trauma.” (Let This Radicalize You)
Refusing to abandon each other means being there for the mess. It means being willing to push one another and to be pushed. It requires the bravery and softness of revealing our hurt and our anger, and being open to receiving the hurt and anger of others.
The paradigmatic verse anchoring the mitzvah of tochecha, reads: “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account.” (Leviticus 19:17) Many commentators, the Ramban among them, read the first and second phrases as related: Rather than holding our angst quietly in our heart, we must tell those we are upset with — this has the power to prevent hatred.
Leaning in to tochecha is a way toward, rather than away, from relationship. And, like Isaac, who stepped away from learned patterns and created something new, this kind of relationship can lead to peace.
Rabbi Avigayil Halpern (she/her) is a Jewish educator and writer who is passionate about the wisdom that emerges in the conversation between our own lives and traditional texts. She writes regularly on Judaism, feminism, and queerness at Approaching, and is a contributor to Jewish Currents’ Parshah Commentary column. Avigayil regularly teaches online courses and is working on a book about the halakhah and theology of queer niddah.