Digging Wells
After Abraham passes away, the Torah recounts that the Philistines filled all the wells he had dug with earth (Genesis 26:15). The Talmud teaches that whenever water is mentioned in the Torah it is a remez, an allusion, to Torah itself (Bava Kamma 17a). Just as organic life cannot grow or even continue to exist without water, so too we cannot develop or truly live without Torah. Abraham’s wells were not merely full of actual water, they represented the new teachings about God and the nature of reality he had discovered and shared with the world. In the act of digging wells, Abraham symbolically delved below the surface, seeking more than a superficial view of reality. Such digging enabled him to reveal new sources of understanding and inspiration. Just as excavating a well is hard physical labor, so too spiritual advancement requires assertive action and hard work.
The revolutionary teachings promulgated by Abraham are consequently symbolized by his digging wells and discovering water. After Abraham’s death, Isaac began to re-dig these wells. This symbolizes his determination to continue in his father’s footsteps, ensuring that Abraham’s teachings took firm root in this world. Indeed, without Isaac’s labor, Judaism would have ended before it had really begun. The Philistines filling in the wells thus represents the inevitable opposition to holiness. This story contains an important message for every individual. Everybody has certain “wells” inside of them. These wells are influenced both negatively and positively by nurture and nature – the way their parents raised them, the way society influenced or indoctrinated them, and their genetic code. However, these behavioral influences and inherited factors can be overcome. Every individual has the ability to dig his or her own wells, to discover new and uncharted sources of water, like Abraham did and, as we will see below, Isaac did after him.
God commanded Abraham to leave his land, his father’s house, and his birthplace for this very reason. Only in a new land and environment would he be free of all those deeply rooted influences preventing him from culminating the unique spiritual work he had begun. Accordingly, only after coming to Israel do we see Abraham busying himself digging wells.
Just as the Philistines stopped up the wells, we too can choose to ignore the treasures given us. Indeed, in some cases certain wells have already been tainted by alien influences and are best left stopped up, so that the influences holding us back from spiritual advancement remain buried. However, in most cases, just as Abraham was told to leave his land, his father’s house, and his birthplace and go to a new land to achieve a new level of consciousness, so too are we all commanded to dig our wells in a “new land.”
At times in our youth, we do in fact dig new wells, only to abandon them or relinquish our proprietary rights out of laziness, boredom, or doubt. Knowing which wells we are better off preserving and which we are better off abandoning is one of life’s crucial skills, one which greatly influences our lives.
The Amidah, Judaism’s quintessential prayer, begins with the words: “Blessed are you God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Many commentators ask why the words “the God of” are repeated three times, when the phrase could have simply been rewritten as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” One answer given is that it was not enough for Isaac to unquestioningly accept his father’s concept of God as his own; rather, he had to contemplate and come to terms with God as “his” God. The same applies to Jacob and all their descendants.
Indeed, as we read in this Torah portion, Isaac not only re-dug Abraham’s wells, but also excavated new ones. Some wells he gave the same names his father had, while others he gave new names. Significantly, the last of the wells he named Beer Sheva, choosing the same name as Abraham, but for his own reasons. Isaac’s digging new wells was in a sense the clearest indication that he had chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps, for Abraham was the classic model of an innovator and path forger.
From the story of Isaac digging the wells we learn that metaphorically speaking human beings have three options: (1) to re-dig the wells of their forefathers; (2) to dig their own wells; (3) to re-dig the wells of their forefathers in such a way as to make them their own. We need to achieve a balance between how much to accept from our ingrained nature and nurture and how much to strike out on our own. Isaac was able to both heed the traditions of his father and strike out on his own, sometimes at one and the same time. In this lies the secret of the survival of the Torah and the Jewish people.
