A D’var Torah for Parshat Toldot by Avner Gvaryahu
The election of Joe Biden in the United States, and President Trump’s efforts to ignore, undermine, and reverse the election result, raise important questions. Assuming the Biden administration is able to take office, will it be merely a return to the “old normal,” or will Biden be able to lead with enough vision to move the country forward and reverse the wrongdoing of the Trump administration? Can the damage that Trump’s intransigence has done to American democracy be healed, or are the pillars of the United States forever weakened?
I invite you to delve into Parshat Toldot and see if there are answers — or at least inspiration — to be found there.
In the parshah, we learn about the life of Isaac — the forefather whose contribution to the history of our nation is most often overlooked. Isaac was the second-generation immigrant, son of the rags-to-riches celebrity who very nearly sacrificed him on an altar, but for a last-minute heavenly call. He was also the father of the man who impersonated his brother in order to get the blessing he felt he deserved. Parshat Toldot gives us a fleeting glimpse of the life of Isaac himself: “This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham…” (Genesis 25:19)
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There is a certain tension between the character of Abraham, the real estate giant who in last week’s parshah bought the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron “at its full price” (Genesis 23:9) — along with the role the Cave plays in our national historical narrative — and his son Isaac, whose character as told in Parshat Toldot seems to stand in contrast to that of his father. Isaac is not bound to a specific place. He wanders throughout the land digging wells, an act which enrages the locals. Each time the local Gerarites try to fight him for the water he finds, he simply moves on — until he eventually makes a peace treaty with Avimelech, the king of Gerar.
A closer reading of the text paints Isaac in a different light. Isaac is not just a wanderer; he continues in his father’s path. The wells he digs are ones which his father had dug years beforehand, and were since blocked up by the Philistines. “Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham.” (Genesis 26:18) Isaac dedicates his professional career to restoring the water sources his father had created.
Rereading the parshah, I thought about all the biblical characters who spent their lives wandering between the River and the Sea, a place which many centuries later I would come to call home. They were migrants, nomads. They lived off what the ground produced, dependent on the intensity and timing of the seasonal rains. As a city dweller, like most Israelis and Palestinian are, it’s perhaps difficult for me to identify with Isaac’s lifestyle. My understanding of it comes from the Palestinian and Bedouin farmers I’ve had the privilege of getting to know who live in rural Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. Many of them are at imminent risk of being evicted from their homes on the pretext that the area is needed as an IDF “firing zone.”
From them I learned that nothing, let alone wells, can be taken for granted; even the most seemingly enduring thing needs care and attention.
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How does Isaac’s redigging differ from his father’s first pass? The 20th century Torah scholar Nechama Leibowitz comments on the Torah’s description of Isaac’s success: “Isaac planted and found ‘one hundredfold’ (me’a she’arim) because he dug wells and found flowing groundwater; he did not become rich through trade and bargaining, and not by exploiting other people, but rather by capturing unclaimed land and through God’s blessing.” He takes similar actions with a new awareness of his impact on others and is able to advance beyond where he started.
The Cave of the Patriarchs in its context today drives this point home. It is not just a historical site or a political flashpoint: It is part of a city. Thousands of Palestinian families live in the shadow of the Cave and the Israeli settlement established alongside it. From the 1929 Massacre of Jewish residents of the city, to the 1994 Massacre of Muslim worshippers in the Cave at the hands of a Jewish terrorist, the struggle over the rights to the shared patriarchs’ legacy has fueled endless cycles of bloodshed between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael. The lives of the Palestinians living in close proximity to their forefather’s resting place have been forcibly embittered in a human-made act of brutality that has persisted consistently for several decades now. Those who see themselves as the rightful heirs to the Abrahamic tradition have used systematic violence to bring untold suffering to those who see themselves, too, as the rightful heirs to the Abrahamic tradition.
So too in the struggle over democracy. It is not just about big ideas, levers of power, or sums of money: It is about human lives.
The 15th century Yemenite Torah commentator Rabbi Zecharia HaRofeh in his Midrash HaChefetz notes, with regard to the Torah’s insight that Isaac dug his father’s wells anew: “Great are the righteous people who spend their time dealing with the [needs of] the people of the world.” The wells were dug for everyone’s benefit.
As we anticipate a future that may look suspiciously like the past, I pray that we take Isaac as a role model. That we may find the wisdom not to exploit people in our endeavors. That we hold a broader horizon in mind. And that, when we go to cement blessing for our people, we do it not by impersonating our brothers or dispossessing them, but by striving together with them.
Avner Gvaryahu served as a sniper team sergeant in the paratroopers brigade, and is today the executive director of Breaking the Silence. He holds a B.A. in Social Work from Tel Aviv University and an M.A. in Human Rights from Columbia University, New York.