Sheini - Bereishis/Genesis - Parshas Toldos 26:6-12

א׳ (26:8, on the pasuk)

Torah Ohr, Toldos, "Mayim Rabbim": Question: What does "Yitzchak was laughing (metzachek) with Rivkah his wife" mean in serving Hashem? Answer: "Yitzchak" is named for the supernal laughter and delight that will be revealed in the future ("G-d has made laughter for me"). The name Elokim conceals, and it is precisely through self-nullification, when a created being that feels itself a separate entity nullifies itself, that delight is drawn down, just as laughter comes from something new. The main work of "turning darkness into light" belongs to the animal soul, which needs refining; the soul itself needs no repair. The animal soul's root is very high, in the beasts of the Chariot ("the face of an ox"), so once refined it has the power to raise the G-dly soul, as "the beasts carry the Throne". "Rivkah" is from "a team (rivkah) of three cattle": the joining and blending of the traits. When the animal soul's traits are refined and blended into love and fear, "behold, Rivkah goes out" of kelipas nogah. "Yitzchak laughing with Rivkah his wife": the supernal delight (Yitzchak) is drawn down precisely through refining the animal soul (Rivkah); and through this "she went down to the spring and filled her jar (kadah)", the twenty-four (kaf-dalet) books of Scripture.

ב׳ (26:8, on Rashi)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 20, Mikeitz 1: Question: Rashi explains that Avimelech "saw him with his wife", yet there was a famine then ("there was a famine in the land"; Rashi on 26:12, "a year of famine"), and Rashi himself writes (Mikeitz 41:50), "from here we learn that it is forbidden to have marital relations in years of famine". The commentators answer that it is only a pious custom, or that the childless are permitted, or that it applies only when the Jewish people are in distress; but none of this is hinted in Rashi, and his words "from here we learn that it is forbidden" imply a real prohibition, for everyone. Answer: "From here" shows that this is a different prohibition from Noach's in the Ark, "because the world was in distress". Rashi says precisely "years of famine", not "the year of famine": a single year of famine is a passing event, but "years of famine" are a chazakah, an established period in which Heaven is conducting the world against its settlement, and then there is no place for "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth". As long as there is no chazakah, on the contrary, one may not set aside the mitzvah of having children because of a doubt. With Yitzchak there was only one "year of famine", so there was no prohibition; Yosef, however, knew for certain that "seven years of famine" were coming, so for him it was forbidden at once.

ג׳ (26:12, on the pasuk)

Maamarim Melukatim vol. 1, "VaYizra Yitzchak" (Shabbos Toldos, Mevarchim Kislev 5727): Question: "And Hashem blessed him" comes after "he found... a hundredfold", so it must be something more; but with what did He bless him? And the hundredfold too was a blessing above nature, yet the verse attributes it to Yitzchak ("he found"), and only the blessing after it to Hashem. And how does this lead to "the man became great, and kept growing greater, until he was very great"? Answer: "Yitzchak sowed: sowing means charity", all mitzvos are called charity, and Torah is called sowing; sowing is a descent for the sake of ascent. A person's work is to "sow" the intellect and traits of the G-dly soul into the animal soul and into the deed of the mitzvos. "A hundred she'arim" are the fifty gates of Binah twice: the traits of Tikkun (the G-dly soul, measured by intellect) and the traits of Tohu (the animal soul, with unlimited force). Refining the animal soul draws down both together, and this is called "he found": a find beyond what the effort deserves. "And Hashem blessed him" is higher still: like Avraham, who after standing ten tests was blessed "with everything" (bakol), the inner Kesser, "a place the arousal from below cannot reach"; so too Yitzchak, after he stood his test in the days of Avimelech. Matching these three, "great" is said three times: "the man became great", in proportion to his work (the light that fills the worlds); "kept growing greater" (holech), beyond proportion (the encompassing light, "going"); "until he was very great", from the Essence, without limit.

Likkutei Sichos vol. 25, Mikeitz 2: (In passing) A blessing adds good to what already exists (Radak: "a blessing is an increase of good"), unlike prayer, which asks for something lacking; as here, "and Hashem blessed him": the grain that had already grown was multiplied a hundredfold (as Rashi explains).

ד׳ (26:12, on Rashi)

Igros Kodesh vol. 24, letter 9290: In a note on his words "if in that land and that year, a hard land and a hard year, they did and achieved, how much more so... in these lands and these years", the Rebbe writes: from Rashi's "why both?" it is clear that when the two "hard" things come at once, each adds to the hardness of the other. (So too Likkutei Sichos vol. 5, Toldos 2 explains that this is why Rashi brings them together again after explaining each one separately: a year of famine makes the land "hard", and the land adds to the hardness of the year.)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 15, Mikeitz 1: (In a note) From "in that year" (as Rashi explains) it follows that each year has its own character; so in Pharaoh's dream good cows and then bad ones came up from the same Nile, for "they are seven years": the nature of one year differs from the one before, and this changes even the Nile.

ה׳ (26:12, on Rashi)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 5, Toldos 2: Question: What troubles Rashi in the plain meaning, that he brings "and our Rabbis said: this estimate was for tithes"? Everyone estimates his field to know what it will yield! Nor can he be answering the Midrash's question, "blessing does not rest on what is measured", since that is no question in the plain meaning. Answer: "Our Rabbis said" (rather than "and said our Rabbis") is a differing explanation. In the first, the field was estimated before it grew and yielded a hundred times the estimate; in "our Rabbis'" explanation the estimate came after the grain was finished (only then does an estimate for tithes make sense), and after it was measured it suddenly multiplied a hundredfold. Why is this needed? Because "in that land, in that year", a hard land and a hard year, the estimate was very small, and a hundred times that is no great bounty. So by our Rabbis' reading there were two blessings: it grew as in a good land and a good year, and then it multiplied a hundredfold. Why a miracle after the growth, with no foothold in nature? Because it came in the merit of tithing, which is due only after the harvest. That is why this explanation is "our Rabbis'" (derush), while in the plain meaning the blessing came during the growth. The "wine of Torah": a hundred she'arim are fifty gates twice, in drawing down from above (miracles with a foothold in nature) and in ascent from below (miracles above nature). Tithing, which is an ascent, drew down the gates above nature, beyond even the measure the Torah set. Lesson: "Who are kings? The Rabbis": a Jew who learns Torah until it becomes "his Torah" becomes, as it were, master over it ("do not turn aside, even if they tell you right is left"), and through him blessing is drawn down beyond every measure, in children, life and ample sustenance.

Likkutei Sichos vol. 5, Lech Lecha 2: Question: The Rambam (Laws of Kings 9:1) writes "and Yitzchak set aside a tithe", based on "this estimate was for tithes" here; the Raavad objects that Avraham did ("he gave him a tenth of everything"). Why not Avraham? Answer: Avraham's tithe was from the spoils of war, like the levy taken in the war against Midian, which was not for all generations; Yitzchak was the first to set aside the kind of tithe that became a mitzvah for all time. Avraham's tithe is in the line of kindness, Yitzchak's in the line of severity. Yitzchak sowed in order to give, and his tithe reveals that the property itself already belongs to Hashem, like digging a well to uncover water already there. From Avraham, who tithed physical property that stayed physical, comes the power for G-dliness to permeate even what a person pursues for its physical side. Lesson: "Tithe so that you become wealthy": tithing shows the world that Hashem runs everything and that the mitzvah itself brings blessing and wealth.

Likkutei Sichos vol. 25, Toldos 3: (In passing) Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer: "Did Yitzchak sow grain? Rather, he took the tithe of all his wealth and sowed charity for the poor." The verse does not lose its plain meaning, and Yitzchak did sow grain; but his sowing was not, in its content, a matter of grain: even this physical act was for him charity and the service of Hashem.