Shelishi - Bereishis/Genesis - Parshas Toldos 26:13-22

א׳ (26:13, on the pasuk)

Maamarim Melukatim vol. 1, "VaYizra Yitzchak" (Shabbos Toldos, Mevarchim Kislev 5727): Question: Why does the verse say "great" three times: "the man became great, and kept growing greater, until he was very great"? And how does it follow from the verse before it, "Yitzchak sowed... and he found a hundredfold, and Hashem blessed him"? Answer: The two things in the verse of sowing ("he found a hundredfold" and "Hashem blessed him") concern the crop. Here the verse adds that through "Yitzchak sowed", the general service of studying Torah and keeping the mitzvos, Yitzchak himself grew, in his whole being: "the man became great". The three "greats" match those three things. "The man became great" is the flow that matches the effort from below ("he sowed"): the light that fills the worlds. "Kept growing greater" is the flow beyond the measure of the effort ("he found"): the encompassing light; that is why it says "going" (holech), for "going" belongs to the encompassing light, which is above the order of the worlds. "Until he was very great" is the flow from the place the effort from below cannot reach ("Hashem blessed him"): the flow of the Essence; that is why it says "very" (me'od), for true limitlessness is in the Essence.

Likkutei Sichos vol. 30, Toldos 1 (sec. 2): Question: Yitzchak's trait is awe, "the Fear of Yitzchak". Yet several things about him are bound up with kindness and joy: he was born on Pesach, the festival that corresponds to Avraham; his name means laughter and joy; and "the man became great... until he was very great" is the height of kindness and greatness. Answer: Love brings the lover close, but his own self is felt in it, so the closeness is limited. Awe brings self-nullification, and the purpose of that nullification is not that a person remain nothing, but that he become a vessel for G-dliness beyond all measure and limit: "Let my soul be as dust to all; open my heart in Your Torah." That is why it is precisely Yitzchak, the man of awe, who received greatness without limit ("until he was very great") and open joy.

ב׳ (26:13, on Rashi)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 25, Toldos 2 (sec. 6): Question: Avraham left the Land of Israel and went "from city to city and from kingdom to kingdom" to make G-d's Name known in the world. Yitzchak, "an unblemished offering", was told "Do not go down to Egypt", and stayed in the Land of Israel all his life, "within". How then did Yitzchak affect the people of the world? Answer: Yitzchak's way was to stay in his place in the Land of Israel and draw the world to himself, like a great torch that draws the sparks to it: "settle the Shechinah in the land". This is what the verse tells: "the man became great... until he was very great", "for people would say, Better the dung of Yitzchak's mules than the silver and gold of Avimelech": his greatness was seen by all. And further in the parsha: at first Avimelech said "Go away from us", but after Yitzchak built an altar and "called in the Name of Hashem", "Avimelech went to him from Gerar" and said, "We have plainly seen that Hashem was with you." That is why the parsha is called "Toldos" (offspring). When one brings others close by going down to them, they are "the souls that they made"; when one raises them to one's own place and level, they are "offspring", resembling the father. The lesson for every Jew: those who are busy bringing others close must also set themselves "within", in the study of Torah, and precisely through this they make true "offspring".

ג׳ (26:18, on the pasuk)

Torah Ohr, Toldos, "Eileh Toldos Yitzchak": Question: Avraham's trait was hospitality, and Yitzchak dug wells; what does digging wells mean? And Avraham too dug wells; what is new in Yitzchak's digging? Answer: Avraham is a drawing down from above to below, revealing G-dliness below, so that even the Arabs would recognize G-d's greatness. Yitzchak is a revelation from below upward, from hiddenness to revelation, like a well in which the water is hidden until digging reveals it. The Philistines stopped up Avraham's wells, and Yitzchak dug them again "and gave them names (shemos) like the names (keshemos) his father had given them". The first "shemos" is spelled in full, with a vav; the second, "keshemos", without it. For through Yitzchak's digging their flow was never cut off again, and the six attributes, which are the vav (numerical value six), are drawn down and flow; so "shemos" is full. Avraham's "names" lack the vav, because the Philistines stopped the wells and the outside forces draw nurture from them. And in the Time to Come they will say to Yitzchak, "For you are our father": the flow from above to below has a limit, while Yitzchak's level, from below upward, has no end or limit.

Likkutei Sichos vol. 15, Vayera 2: Question: The Zohar counts "the well of Yitzchak" as one of three witnesses, from the verse "so that it may be a testimony for me"; but that verse speaks of the well that Avraham dug! The Ramaz answers that the well Avraham dug is in essence Yitzchak's well. The Rebbe's father explains the opposite: the well is Avraham's, but the Philistines stopped up Avraham's wells after his death and Yitzchak dug them again ("Yitzchak again dug..."), so it is attributed to Yitzchak; and he refers to Torah Ohr at the start of Toldos. Answer: Avraham's service is in the line of kindness: love, delight and joy, with expansiveness. "Pelishtim" is from "mavui hamefulash", an alley open at both ends: the scoffing that comes from an excessive openness of heart. So they could stop up Avraham's wells, for "each trait of the other side can oppose only the trait that corresponds to it in holiness". And only "after Avraham's death": when the holy love had departed and only the openness of heart remained. Yitzchak's wells, awe and acceptance of the yoke, they could not stop up. More than that: even Avraham's wells, once Yitzchak had dug them, never stopped flowing again. For love carries a sense of one's own self, and its holy expansiveness can slide into frivolity; when it also contains awe and acceptance of the yoke, which is self-nullification, the outside forces can draw nothing from it. The lesson: service should be with love and joy, but for the joy to last, it must be preceded by awe and acceptance of the yoke of Heaven.

ד׳ (26:19, on the pasuk)

Torah Ohr, Toldos, "Vayachperu Avdei Yitzchak BaNachal": Question: "All the springs in the world flow from the ladder of the Peras": the water bores its way beneath the ground, until with a little digging one finds "a well of living water". But this is puzzling: why is it called "a well of living water" when its main source is the river Peras? Answer: "A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden": the "river" is accepting the yoke of Heaven in prayer and the Shema, and the "garden" (gan, numerically fifty-three, the sedarim of the Torah) is the Torah one studies right after prayer. Afterward one is busy with the world and forgets that contemplation; so we were given mitzvos to do all day long, whose holiness is in themselves and does not depend on one's intent. When a person does a mitzvah because he remembers that he has already accepted the yoke of Heaven, even though he does not have the "river" now, this is "a well of living water". The water that leaves the river and bores through the thickness of the earth is called "living water" because it is refined and purified by forcing its way out through the physical earth. And because he has considered how far he is from G-d, this small measure of serving G-d is very sweet to him: "to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet". This is "a well that princes dug".

ה׳ (26:20, on the pasuk)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 30, Toldos 3: Question: The Ramban writes that in the plain story the wells bring Yitzchak neither benefit nor great honor; rather, "a well of living water" alludes to the Beis HaMikdash: Esek is the First Temple, Sitnah the Second, and Rechovos the Third, "which will be built without strife or quarrel". But the Sifri already says that each of the Avos saw the Temple built, destroyed and built again. What is new in the allusion of the wells, and why specifically through Yitzchak? Answer: In a well the water comes from Heaven, without human action, yet it is revealed only through a person's toil in digging. So too the Mikdash: "I will dwell" comes from above, yet the Torah commands "They shall make Me a sanctuary", the action and toil of the Jewish people, "seek His dwelling": seek and find. That is Yitzchak's quality, avodah and toil; so the Second Temple corresponds to Yitzchak, for in it the toil was greater. The Third Temple will be "the building of the Holy One, blessed be He", eternal, and only with it is G-d's Name mentioned ("for now Hashem has made room for us"), because it comes as the result of the service of the Jewish people throughout the exile: learning Torah and keeping the mitzvos with mesiras nefesh, unashamed before the mockers.

ו׳ (26:22, on the pasuk)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 1, Vayera (secs. 13–14): Question: When the shepherds of Gerar came and quarreled over the first well, and then over the second, why was Yitzchak not daunted by Avimelech, who sat on his royal throne, hindered the digging of the wells, and took for himself wells that had been dug with great toil? Answer: Yitzchak's service is to reveal "living water": to remove everything that covers it and make the world a vessel for G-dliness, an ascent from below upward. Even when the well was taken, which in our service means that the life and warmth one has only just reached are taken into the kelipah of the Pelishtim ("an open alley"), he was not daunted, and dug again and again until he reached "Rechovos": "for now Hashem has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land". He took no account of reasoned calculations; he knew his mission was to reveal living water, and he did it with mesiras nefesh. Such service reaches the true infinity of the Ein Sof, and through it the ultimate purpose is fulfilled: "G-d has made laughter for me".

ז׳ (26:22, on Rashi)

Likkutei Sichos vol. 10, Toldos 1: Question: What does Rashi explain by quoting the Targum's words "v'nifush b'ar'a"? The commentators say he is explaining that "u'farinu" is future tense; but the converting vav is found many times in the Torah and Rashi never explains it elsewhere. And why does he also quote "in the land", when "b'ar'a" adds no explanation? Answer: "U'farinu" is from "pri", fruit, and would seem to mean children; but after "Hashem has made room for us" it cannot mean a single child, it must mean many, and Yitzchak and Rivkah had only two sons. So Rashi explains "v'nifush": Yitzchak himself will increase and grow (as with the river Pishon, "u'fashu parashav"), as it says "the man became great". He cites it in the Targum's name because the Targum renders "be fruitful" everywhere as increase. And one cannot say it means Yaakov's sons ("grandchildren are like children"), for they were born outside the land; that is why Rashi quotes "in the land". He quotes the Targum's wording because there are two versions: "v'yafshinana" (Hashem will increase us) and "v'nifush" (we will increase), and the latter is correct. The "wine of Torah": "For now Hashem has made room for us" is what comes from above; "v'nifush b'ar'a" is man's service, to add to creation and reveal G-dliness even where creation does not show it, with the power that Hashem Himself gave by "making room for us". So too "I am Hashem your G-d who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it". And "u'farinu" is not a request but a certainty; and in the words of the Targum, the language of the mundane: even in the mundane matters of the world a dwelling is made for Him.