Torah blog of the week: Drawing from the well of inner strength

There's a challenge that we're constantly faced with everyday. This challenge, whether we recognize it or not, it plays an incredibly powerful role in our lives. It's the challenge of finding inner meaning and strength. When a person takes a step back and takes a good honest look at themselves and the lives which they have played out, it doesn't take long for them to realize how incredibly complex this thing we call "existence" is. This "existence", in fact, can get so complex that we can often consciously and subconsciously decide to ignore it, to shy away from the challenge of seeking meaning, an ultimate purpose, a task which binds us all together. We are capable of living out our lives and never once having a true taste of existence merely based on the fact that such a concept scares us senseless. So instead, we set up a "puppet life", a scenario with which to play out our time, to shield us from what's really going on around us; a candle-lit cave of shadow puppets distracting us from the sun-lit meadow outside. The Torah, on the other hand, rejects such ideas. It seeks for humanity to take a good look at world around them, to question all that they perceive and know. It offers parables and analogies with which to understand Divine knowledge, consciousness, and mission. It also provides the tools with which to generate changes and maintain sources of strength we never thought possible. This week's parsha is an example of such resources.

This week's parsha, parshas Toldos (generations) shows us the life of Isaac in the wake of his parent's passing and in his marriage to his wife, Rebecca. It also shows us the birth of his two sons, Jacob and Esau, and the beginning of the conflict that ensues between the brothers. We see Isaac maintaining a covenant with G-d and continuing his father's work, a fundamental foundation in the family life of the patriarchs and matriarchs. All of these events of the help explain it's title, Toldos (generations); these are the records of history, strength, and tradition being passed down through the mantle of generations. It's interesting, then, to see that the majority of Isaac's work was going back and redoing everything that his father had done, all the while carrying on his father's mission.

What's interesting about Isaac, however, is that while he carries on what his father started, he is in many ways the exact opposite of Abraham: his father went out and sought followers while Isaac never made any attempts to, his father traveled across many different lands while Isaac remained in the land of Israel. In kabbalistic and chassidic traditions, Abraham is often likened to the Divine attribute of kindness while Isaac to severity; Abraham was all about going out into the world and spread Divine consciousness while Isaac remained in isolation, taking the time to mediate in the fields of his land and work on himself. In this comparison we see the two fundamental paths of avodah (spiritual service) that a person can have: a person can be inspired and spread that inspiration, going out to help people, seeking the welfare of others and constantly making sacrifices (Abraham) or they can focus on self-refinement, laying the ground work of discipline, constantly seeking to go further and further into their core from which they can pull out essential strength. This is reflected in a task that Abraham and Isaac both undertook: digging wells.

What is a well? A well is a deeply dug hole in the ground that allows those using it to pull up water that was once concealed. This is the idea of self refinement, of digging down into ourselves past the mud and rock (spiritual dirt) and finding a wellspring of strength from which to draw. When Abraham dug his wells, they were filled up with soil by the Philistines. The hebrew root for Philistine is "pey-lamed-shin" (these are the sounds of the hebrew letters), meaning "to penetrate" or "to break through borders". This is likened to the boundless, ungoverned hedonism, the ultimate act of break boundaries and rules set up to maintain conscientious and thoughtful existence. It is this obsession with the tangible, felt existence of imagined, puppet reality. By the Philistines filling up Abraham's wells it shows that while Abraham was great at inspiring others, his method of spreading Divine consciousness didn't seek to draw the goodness and inspiration from within others. Isaac's, on the other hand, re dug his father's wells and the Philisitines were unable to fill them in. This was Isaac's method: to force people to confront their psychological stumbling blocks, dig deep down through the layers of history, of emotional scars and hang-ups. Where Abraham's message to a person would be "come and quench your thirst from the holy waters of G-d" Isaac's would be "let those waters strengthen you for the task ahead. Get down into the dirt, start digging, and, with much diligence and determination, you will find the holy waters within yourself and never be thirsty again."

These are the two forces that govern our lives. Sometimes we feel inspired. This is good; we use it to motivate ourselves to keep going and to reach out to help others. This is a very necessary path of avodah in our lives, otherwise we would only care about ourselves. However, we must be able to help ourselves before we can help others, to constantly keep seeking to refine ourselves until we discover the wellspring of our inner essence. In this weeks parsha it refers to the well as "mayim chaim", living waters. May we all have the tools and strength necessary to be able to dig deep into ourselves, draw out the living water, and quench the thirst of others. Have a focused day.
with all my love,
Zach