Rabbi Steven Bayar
This week’s Torah portion is Toldot: Genesis 25:19–28:9
Isaac has always been considered a “tweener” in the Torah. He is the link between Abraham and Jacob. Some biblical scholars have gone so far as to suggest that Isaac is a fabricated persona, necessary to bind the Hebrew tribes who celebrated Abraham as their founding patriarch and the other Hebrew tribes who accepted Jacob as their patriarch. Isaac is the bridge between two narratives.
They propose this theory because Isaac’s life, in comparison to his father and son, seems unfulfilled. He wanders from well to well, dwelling in the shadow of his father’s greatness and eclipsed by his son who manages to trick him into giving the blessing to the wrong child.
This is too simplistic a view of this great man. For great he is. In his own way, Isaac is just as important as Abraham, his father, and Jacob, his son — in some ways perhaps even greater.
To fathom Isaac’s importance, we need to look at the text, to study its wording. Let’s look at Isaac’s greatest accomplishment, the one that made him rich.
“Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. The Lord blessed him and the man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy … 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. He gave them the same names that his father had given them …” (Genesis 26:12–18)
God blessed Isaac, making him very wealthy. This is all the more fantastic because the text relate there is a great famine in the land. No wonder everyone thought that Isaac was blessed by God. His crops never failed.
Isaac was wealthier than his father. He had accomplished more, with less, than Abraham ever had. Under similar circumstances Abraham left to try his fortunes in Egypt.
Isaac is the second generation in the “Goldina Medina” (the “Golden Land”). He is the son of immigrants, who achieves so much because of his parent’s sacrifices. So many of these second-generation children found their parents shameful reminders of their past. They were embarrassed by their parents’ accents and their parents’ manner. They were ashamed of their parents. They did their best to hide their heritage and leave the past behind.
But Isaac did not turn his back on his father. He not only dug the wells that his father had but he also called them by the same names. He acknowledged his debt to his past, to his parents.
Isaac is a necessary part of the biblical narrative: He consolidated the achievements of his father setting the stage for his son to become Israel.
Steven Bayar is the rabbi emeritus at Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, New Jersey, and currently serves as rabbi at B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Maryland. He is the author of several books and curricula on tikkun olam.
