לקוטי שיחות חלק ט״ו - תולדות ד

Parshas Toldos

1. On the words "I do not know the day of my death" (in our parsha^[1]), Rashi says:^[2] "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah said: If a person reaches the age of his parents, he should worry for five years before it and five years after it. And Yitzchak was 123 years old.^[2*] He said, 'Perhaps I am reaching the age of my mother, and she died at 127, and here I am within five years of her age. Therefore I do not know the day of my death — perhaps at the age of my mother, perhaps at the age of my father.'"

This must be understood:

a) Why does Rashi look for an explanation of why Yitzchak said "I do not know the day of my death," when Yitzchak himself states the reason just before: "And he said, 'Behold now, I have grown old'" — I have become old (and therefore "I do not know the day of my death")?

b) Why does Rashi need to mention the name of the author of the statement?^[3] What is not clear or not smooth in this explanation, that knowing it was said by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah will make it clear and understood?

2. The explanation is as follows: in the previous sedra^[4] it says "And G‑d blessed Yitzchak," and Rashi explains: "(Avraham) was afraid to bless Yitzchak because he foresaw that Esav would come forth from him. He said, 'Let the Master of blessings come and bless whomever is good in His eyes.' And the Holy One, blessed be He, came and blessed him."

Since this is so, the question arises on our verse: having the blessing from G‑d Himself, the Master of blessings, which certainly includes long life, Yitzchak had no need to think about the day of his death at the age of one hundred and twenty-three. The proof: Avraham and Sarah, who had a blessing from G‑d, lived longer than one hundred and twenty-three years.

Therefore Rashi says that Yitzchak's worry came from his having reached the age that is five years from the age at his mother's passing; and by "Behold now, I have grown old" he meant not simply old age, but a specific age, connected with "the age of his mother."

But this raises a difficulty: how does this rule fit, since Yitzchak actually lived 180 years,^[5] much more than five years "near the age" of his mother?

Rashi resolves this: there are several possibilities in this — five years before or after "the age of his parents," and "the age of his parents" itself means either the age of his mother or the age of his father. With Yitzchak, who lived one hundred and eighty years, what actually took place was the possibility of five years after the age of his father.^[6]

3. Seemingly, even after Rashi explains it with his commentary, the question still remains: the blessing with which G‑d blessed Yitzchak certainly brought an addition in the details of his life, and surely in life itself — an addition in long life, more than he would have needed to live by nature. Now, if even in the usual order a person reaches the age of the years near the age of his parents, the blessing with which G‑d blessed Yitzchak certainly added more than the number of years of the age of his parents. So the question arises:

a) Why did Yitzchak live no more than 180 years? Since this number of years is no more than what comes also by way of nature, where is the addition of long life that must come from the blessing of G‑d?^[7]

b) The same can be asked about Yitzchak's saying already at 123, "I do not know the day of my death." Since this is the sum of years he had to live at the very least, even according to the usual order of nature (five years fewer than the shorter of "the age of his parents"), and the blessing certainly added something to these years, why did he say already at 123, "I do not know the day of my death"?

4. The explanation of this: when Avraham was nearly 100 years old and Sarah nearly 90, they were then already not only "old" but also "advanced in days"^[8] — they had already come into all their days, all the days^[9] allotted to them^[10] (and that they actually lived longer was because of the blessing with which G‑d blessed them).

According to this it follows that by nature, without G‑d's blessing, Yitzchak at 105 had already reached the highest age according to "the age of his parents": five years more than the hundred years allotted (without the blessing) to his father (for "the age of his parents" means the years that are their "age," not the blessing from the Master of blessings).

Consequently — both according to the truth and according to Yitzchak's own opinion — G‑d's blessing added very many years to Yitzchak's years, the same number of years that G‑d's blessing added to his father:

In actuality Yitzchak lived 180 years — and in this, the blessing added 75 years to the 105 years he would at most have reached in the usual order (five years more than his father's allotted 100 years). And this is exactly the same sum of years that the blessing added to his father Avraham, who lived 175 years: 75 years more than the allotted hundred, as above.

So too according to Yitzchak's own opinion, who feared that perhaps his years would be five fewer than "the age of my mother." The calculation here is: the blessing had already added to him the same number of years as the blessing added to his mother. Sarah's allotted years were ninety, and through the blessing she lived 127 — thirty-seven years more. Thus Yitzchak would have lived (in his own opinion, and without the blessing) only 85 years (five years fewer than his mother), and just as with his mother, the blessing added to him another thirty-seven years. That is why he began to worry after 122 — at 123.

5. But there is still a difficulty: Rashi writes earlier^[11] that Avraham passed away five years before his time, because of G‑d's second blessing to Avraham, "you shall come… at a good old age," so that he should not see Esav going out to evil ways. Since Avraham should have lived 180 years by virtue of the first blessing, it follows that Yitzchak, who also had the blessing, and together with the five years more than the age of his father, should have lived 185 years and not only 180.

And the answer to this Rashi hints in the added phrase "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah said":

The Gemara^[12] relates about a number of Tannaim who were asked "By what merit did you live long?", and each of them stated several things about which he was especially careful, because of which he merited long life. The same question ("By what merit did you live long?") was also asked of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah, and he answered: "In all my days I never gazed at the image of a wicked man." He connected his long life with this one precaution alone: he always guarded himself from gazing at the form of a wicked man.

We see from this that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korchah holds that guarding oneself from gazing at the face of a wicked man itself equals several things that bring long life. And from the positive you may infer the negative: when one does gaze at the face of a wicked man, it brings about a reduction of long life.

So it is right that Yitzchak lived only 180 years: he did not avoid gazing at the image of Esav. And although he did not actually know that he was wicked, the gazing brought it about^[13] that from the 185 years he should have lived, the part "near the age of his father" (five years) was taken away — while the blessing of G‑d brought it about that he lived long like "the age of his father."^[14]

6. In Rashi's commentary there is also the "wine of Torah":^[15]

That Yitzchak feared that his years would be five fewer than "the age of his mother" — the lowest possibility in the order of nature (and more than this: in "the age of his mother," too, he counted only the 127 years that Sarah actually lived, not considering that she was truly destined to live longer, and that only because of the Akeidah "her soul flew away"^[16]) — has this inner reason: Yitzchak's level is the line of gevurah (severity). That is why he looked at all matters and measured them by the attribute of gevurah.

This was Yitzchak's conduct only in relation to himself. But when he blessed another, his blessing was in the highest mode of the opposite of (gevurah and) contraction: it included both the matters of "heaven" and the matters of "earth," and within them "of the dew of the heavens and of the fatness of the earth"^[17] — such blessings as are greater even than the blessing of Yaakov to his sons and the blessing of Moshe to Israel.^[18]

And this is a directive for the service of every Jew. For every Jew has Yitzchak as one of his forefathers, and therefore has something of his qualities:^[19] even when a Jew stands in a mode of conduct of the line of gevurah, and is therefore stringent and so on, this must be with regard to himself. But when it comes to another Jew, he must act according to the line of chessed (kindness), relating to him with the attribute of goodness and bestowing good upon him with a generous hand,^[20] without any contractions and limits, up to the highest measure — "of the dew of the heavens" and "of the fatness of the earth."

(From talks of Shabbos Parshas Toldos and Shabbos Parshas Vayishlach, 5728)

Key Lesson

Yitzchak measured his own years by the strictest reckoning, yet when he blessed another he gave without limit: "of the dew of the heavens and of the fatness of the earth." This is the directive for every Jew: if you are stringent, be stringent with yourself. With another Jew, act with kindness and a generous hand, without contractions or limits.