Adrian A. Durlester


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Random Musings Before Shabbat - Toledot 5758

Like Father, Like Son

Like father like son.

It wasn't enough that Abraham lied to "protect his wife." Isaac had to do it too. And probably with the same King his father tried to fool. It seems, however, that Isaac is not to be honored and taken care of like his father. For this time, it is not God that exposes the lie. It is Isaac's own carelessness, foolish enough to be caught fondling his wife where Abimelech could see them! (Now one could argue that God made Isaac deliberately stupid-or excessively horny, but to me that seems unlikely.)

Like father, like son.

Isaac redug the wells at Gerar that had once been his father's. He named them with the same names his father had given them. Surely a symbolic act in many ways. Isaac drinking from his father's wells, carrying on the family traditions. Isaac restoring the good name of his father to these wells, a name taken away when they were stopped up after Abraham's death. Isaac drinking from the same spiritual source as his father.

Do the stopped up wells perhaps represent Isaac's estrangement from his father after what happened in Moriah? And is Isaac's restoring them symbolic of some level of posthumous reconciliation?

Isaac then tried digging some new ones in the same general area, only to have them disputed by local herdsmen. So he moved away to a location nearby and tried again-this time successfully. It is only after all these things that God finally speaks and tells Isaac him that God is with him.

So Isaac had to both recognize his father, yet also establish his own identity before God would speak to him and remind Isaac the God intended to fulfill his promise to Abraham-and that Isaac was an instrument in this.

Much is made of how Isaac seems so insignificant when compared to his father and his younger son. In these simple acts Isaac fulfilled his purpose. To be the son of Abraham. To be the father of Jacob.

Surely there are lessons to be gleaned from this.

We can't all be an Abraham, a Jacob, a Moses. Some of us are meant to be Isaacs. To be that link that maintains continuity in an ever changing universe. It is never an easy role, and not a glorious one. But its reward should be clear to each of us today. For were it not for Isaac, we would, none of us, be here today. Though he was not sacrificed to God by his father, Isaac gave the ultimate sacrifice-himself-his life-so that the line of Abraham could be carried on and God's promises fulfilled.

This Shabbat, dig up a few of your ancestor's wells. And start a few new ones of your own. Perhaps then you too will be ready for God to talk to you.

Shabbat Shalom,

Adrian
©  1998 by Adrian A. Durlester


Some other musings on this parasha:

Toldot 5765-Purposeless Fire
Toledot 5764-What a Bother!
Toledot 5763-Not Sticking in The Knife
 Toledot 5762-Winners and Losers
 Toledot 5761-Is This All There Is?


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