This week we read parshat Toldot; most Rabbis and sermonizers love to talk about the relationship between Yaakov and Esav in this parsha. Instead I want to focus on my favorite person in the Torah, Isaac.
Our Torah portion begins by introducing Isaac, who the Torah tells us is the son of Avraham. Why would the Torah feel the need to say this, especially since we already know this information? This seemingly repetitious detail is here to “emphasize Isaac’s role as the sole successor of Avraham, in fulfillment of the promise that God says to Avraham in Genesis 21:12 ‘It is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you.” (Etz Chayim 146).
Throughout Chapter 26 of Toldot, Isaac finds himself reliving many of the events of his father’s life. He takes a journey south to find food in a time of famine. He claims his wife, Rivkah is his sister for his own protection. He has conflicts with his neighbors and later reconciled with them. Isaac reestablishes the wells that his father dug many years before and makes a new well and names it, Beer Sheva.
One curious instance I want to highlight, is when Isaac is traveling with Rivkah and while staying in Gerar, a few men ask him who the woman is that he is with. Isaac couldn’t know that his father had this exact same dilemma when he traveled south, however, he behaves in the exact same way. He says that his wife is his sister. Is it this natural instinct of self-preservation that causes Isaac to behave like his father Avraham did? Or is Isaac so afraid losing Rivkah, who was the only person that comforted him after his father almost sacrificed him and his mother Sarah died? Unfortunately, we will never know. We can ponder the idea that children are bound to become like their parents and even can make the same mistakes as them. The advantage the child has over their parents is that they have often seen the result of this mistake made by their parents and they can learn from it. I have a lot of feelings on how I was raised and how I wished my parents could have done things differently. I have that insight because I have spent a lot of time thinking about the choices they made and the actions they took in their lives so that I can take their good qualities and avoid making the mistakes and bad choices they made.
Was Isaac’s choice of claiming Rivkah as his sister all that bad? Perhaps not, but as someone who had the privilege of communicating with God directly and was able to converse with God, perhaps he could have trusted in the Lord more knowing that God would protect him and his wife from harm. We all need to trust in God more these days as COVID cases seem to go up everywhere. Prayer is needed more than ever during this difficult time. I ask of you this Shabbat to be the best version of yourself and as my Zadie told me, “Listen to my advice, take what you need and what works best for you, the rest is garbage.”
Shabbat Shalom, Cantor Diamond
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