Musar su Genesi 26:41

How pleasant is the Musar of Love. Anyone whom Hashem loves, God brings down upon them suffering. You find three good gifts that God gave to Israel; and they were only given by way of suffering. These are them: Torah, the Land of Israel, and the World to Come.

Now, when these three powers are gathered within a man, his soul is drawn by its very nature to love the Creator, blessed be He. When he loves Him, his service will be completely perfect. For from that love there will come fear, for whomsoever a man loves, he also fears. It is also possible for a man to fear someone he does not love. Therefore, I say that fear is contained within love, but love is not contained within fear. Now, we have found that the service of our father, Abraham, peace be upon him, was completely perfect, for it says concerning him (Genesis 18:19), “For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord.” This is clear proof of his great righteousness. Moreover, the Creator, blessed be He, testified concerning him after his death, when he said (ibid., 26:5), “Because Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws,”.

On Genesis 26,12: ויזרע יצחק בארץ ההיא וימצא בשנה ההיא מאה שערים, ויברכהו ה', Bereshit Rabbah 64,6 comments and Rashi quotes that the meaning of מאה שערים is one hundred times what was reasonably to be expected. Rashi adds: "our sages say that this estimate was necessary in order to determine the amount of tithes to be given from that harvest."

Rashi tells us in Genesis 26,5, that the term חק is used in the Torah when the legislation is such that it offers Satan an opportunity to challenge its logic. He quotes the prohibition of eating pork as an additional example.

We are taught in Chulin 91a that the choice of that word, i.e. אבק, dust, indicates that the dust stirred up during this struggle rose all the way to the throne of Glory -which is not complete, as we shall set out to show. The meaning of the word "he touched," is similar to the English "he touched a sore point." Samael had found something in Jacob's lifestyle which he thought he could turn into an accusation against him. This was the fact that Jacob had married two sisters while both were alive. He should not have done so, since the patriarchs had accepted for themselves the laws of the Torah which had not yet been officially formulated. Nachmanides writes about this at length in his commentary on Genesis 26, 5 where the Torah credits Abraham with having observed all of G–d's statutes. According to Nachmanides the patriarchs assumed this obligation as valid only while they resided in the land of Israel; the word מפשט used in the verse is by definition legislation that varies from country to country. G–d's משפטים apply only in G–d's country, ארץ ישראל. When Jacob married two sisters he did not live in the land of Israel. Samael's accusation was by necessity based on the yardsticks that Jacob claimed to live by. He argued that a man of Jacob's stature whose features were engraved on G–d's throne should not have taken advantage of the fact that technically he was allowed to marry two sisters, for did he not carry the atmosphere of ארץ ישראל with him wherever he went? We are familiar with such expressions as אבק רבית, something not actually an interest payment but nonetheless giving the impression that someone rendered a service for free which would have been charged for had the recipient of the service not been a lender to the person rendering the service. We have a similar expression when dealing with the laws of לשון הרע, evil gossip. The Tosephta Avodah Zarah 1, 10 describes four areas in which the term אבק is used halachically. All of them are not transgressions that are dealt with by the Courts, but are matters of individual piety. When the Talmud described the "dust" of the struggle between Jacob and the guardian angel of Esau as having risen to the throne of G–d, what is meant is that the issue was such a paralegal impropriety committed by Jacob as marrying two sisters outside the boundaries of ארץ ישראל.

This is the meaning of: ושמרתם את המצות, אל תקרי המצות אלא המצוות. This statement is not a suggestion to read the text differently, but when reading this verse, not to restrict its meaning to the particular מצוה of unleavened bread, but to use the example of how we fulfil this מצוה as a model for the way we relate to all מצוות.

גור בארץ הזאת ואהיה. Isaac accepted all his difficulties with the Philistines with great forbearance. Whenever the shepherds picked a quarrel about the wells, Isaac rather moved away than to feud with them. Even when it had become obvious, after he had been expelled, that his wealth had never been obtained at the expense of the Philistines, and the king and his Chief of Staff wanted to make a treaty with him, he not only agreed but prepared a feast for them. This peace-loving trait in Isaac is something that we must use as a model for our own conduct throughout life. We must strive to overcome our natural reactions when peace is at stake.

All these three gifts are directly related to the patriarchs. The gift of Torah commenced during the lifetime of Abraham, as we know from Sanhedrin 97, in which the 6000 years designated for the history of man in this world are divided into 2000 years of Tohu, followed by 2000 years of Torah. This latter period began when the Torah reports both Abraham and Sarah as having converted people to belief in monotheism in Genesis 12,5: ואת הנפש אשר עשו בחרן. The gift of ארץ ישראל began to be real when Isaac was forbidden to leave that country even during periods of famine, and G–d explained that this was because this land was given to him and his descendants (Genesis 26,2-3).

This explains the whole matter of Isaac digging up the wells which Abraham had dug and which the Philistines had stopped up again after Abraham had left the district. The whole episode is puzzling, as the Torah had previously reported Isaac as experiencing a supernatural amount of blessing (26,12). Why should this be followed by hostility on the part of his neighbors? Another difficulty is why the Torah supplies a reason for the names Isaac gave the wells only for the first and third well, whereas the Torah does not mention why the second well was named Sitnah, harassment (26,21). Another difficulty is the word עתה in 26,22. It would have sufficed for Isaac to name that well רחובות by saying כי הרחיב ה' לנו ופרינו בארץ.

We deal here with an allusion to the three Temples that will be home to G–d on the soil of this land. Isaac had been an unblemished total offering on the site of the future altar in the Holy Temple. This is why the names of the wells allude to that event. Nachmanides explained it in these words: "The Torah elaborates on this matter of the wells, although, when reading the plain meaning of these verses, they do not appear to be particularly relevant, nor to confer much honor on Isaac. All we are told is that Isaac did the same in his time as his father Abraham had done at the time he had lived in the land of the Philistines. There is, however, a mystical dimension to all this. The Torah reveals here some historic events of the future. The words באר מים חיים in 26,19 refer to the Holy Temple which Isaac's descendants will erect. We know from Jeremiah 17,13 that G–d is described as מקור מים חיים, "the Fount of living waters." Isaac called the first well Essek, an allusion to the first Temple, over which the Gentile nations engaged us in many disputes. They attacked Jerusalem and the Temple repeatedly until eventually it was destroyed. The second well, called Sitnah a name reflecting even greater harassment than the first, refers to the second Temple. During that period that very name שטנה appears in the early years of the reign of Ahasverus. We find Ezra 4,6 describing that period: "They wrote Sitnah against the inhabitants of Yehudah and Jerusalem." This hostility against the Jewish state and the Temple continued throughout practically all the time that it stood. Eventually, our foes destroyed the Temple and we were consigned to a bitter exile. The third well, רחובות, is an allusion to the third Temple which will be built in the future, and which will not be subject to strife and hostility from our neighbors. At that time G–d will expand the borders of our country as He has promised in Deut. 19,8. Concerning this Temple it is written in Ezekiel 41,7: ורחבה ונסבה למעלה למעלה, "and a widening; it will keep winding and encompassing upwards." The last words in Genesis 26,22 will then be fulfilled, ופרינו בארץ, "we shall then be fruitful in the land." This means that all of the nations will serve G–d, as per Tzefaniah 3,9. Thus far Nachmanides on our verses.

I shall now explain the meaning of the words: עד כי גדול מאד "until he was very great," in 26,13. Bereshit Rabbah 64,7 on that verse states that when people wanted to describe excessive wealth they used to describe it in terms of the silver and gold possessed by Avimelech. After Isaac had become rich, they described excessive wealth in terms of the dung of Isaac's mules. This seems a curious comparison. How can we assume that Avimelech's wealth did not even amount to the value of the dung of Isaac's mules? Another difficulty is the Midrash's comment on the words מצא את הימים, in Genesis 36,14. These yeymim are described by Bereshit Rabbah 82,15 as half-donkey and half-horse. Anah who crossbred horse and donkey to produce mules is severely criticized for interfering with G–d's plan of maintaining the purity of the species. How can we assume that Isaac a) kept or raised such animals, b) was the first one to crossbreed, seeing that the Torah reports this as something new much later and in Jacob's lifetime?

The overwhelming number of מצות recorded in this portion of the Torah do not apply in our times and can be fulfilled only during periods when the Temple is functioning. Even such commandments as פתוח תפתח, "keep opening your hand, to the poor," can only be fulfilled by people who are economically capable. A person who hardly has enough to get by cannot even fulfill this commandment. Even when the Temple was standing one could not fulfill the directive to give tithes and consume the second tithe in Jerusalem unless one owned a farm and grew crops. How then can a person attain his perfection when we have said that fulfillment of the 613 commandments of the Torah is the key to such perfection? When the Torah begins this portion by saying in 11,32: "Observe all these statutes and social laws which I place before you this day," and goes on to say in the same breath: "These are the statutes, etc., which you are to observe to do in the land," the Torah clues us in to the answer. In 11,32 the Torah mentions first שמירה and עשיה of the respective statutes and social laws, whereas in 12,1 the Torah mentions the statutes and social laws before the directive to observe and perform them. This is similar to the way the Torah (Genesis 26,5) describes Abraham as having observed G–d's various types of commandments. Clearly, Abraham could not have done this (in the form of fulfilling an obligation) as the commandments had not yet been revealed.

The word שמירה has two meanings. One is that one "keeps" i.e. observes commandments which have been given. The second meaning is "waiting." One is constantly looking forward to a certain event occurring. Abraham waited for an opportunity to observe these various מצות, The expression ושמרתם לעשות means that a person should be in a frame of mind where he looks forward to fulfilling the various commandments which he has not yet had an opportunity to fulfill. In the meantime, he observes those commandments which he has found an opportunity to observe. When he relates to all of G–d's commandments in this way, the Torah promises him an equal reward for the commandments which he has not had an opportunity to fulfill. Chapter 11,32 refers to the commandments which can be fulfilled, whereas 13,1 refers to all those that cannot yet be fulfilled for one reason or another.

Since a man occupies himself with the Torah for its own sake, and troubles himself and exhausts himself for the sake of Heaven, his two kidneys (his very vitals) will be like two fountains, and he will bring forth meanings and new laws from within himself — truths which he never learned from another and which were not given even to Moses at Sinai. As we find in the case of Abraham, our father (Gen. Rabbah 95:3), that he never studied in the presence of any man (who served as his teacher), but he himself would sit and think about the commandments, and he learned from his own heart all of the Torah and the commandments, until Scripture testified of him, "And (he) kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My Law (Gen. 26:5). And our Sages, of blessed memory, said that Abraham knew even the laws of Eruvei Tavshilin.^** The laws governing the preparation of food for the Sabbath on a holiday which falls on Friday. And our Sages also said, "Abraham our father learned four hundred chapters, and who was there to teach him all of this? It must therefore be that his two kidneys became like two fountains, and flowed forth bringing to him wisdom and Torah.

We need to appreciate that the name יעקב is in fact ישראל. The name יעקב alludes to an exalted position on earth, i.e. in this world; it reflects observance of Torah in this world, not expecting to be rewarded in this world, but being content היום, לעשותו, מחל לקבל שכרם, as we have explained earlier. The name ישראל is the direct outcome of יעקב having been what he was here on earth. Our sages have taught us that שכר מצוה מצוה, that the reward of performing a commandment is the מצוה itself (Avot 4,2). This means that the spiritual element of the מצוה one performs on earth becomes the glue with which one attaches oneself to G–d in the Hereafter. When David refers to the great reward in store as a result of observing the commandments, i.e. בשמרם עקב רב (Psalms 19,12), he points to the seemingly insignificant commandments people are in the habit of ignoring. The word Eikev means סוף, end. The word סוף also means תכלית, the ultimate purpose of life as defined by Solomon in Kohelet 12,13 in the words: סוף דבר את האלוקים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור כי זה כל האדם. "To sum up: Fear the Lord, observe His commandments, for this is what man is all about." This סוף which Solomon speaks about in Kohelet is the latter part of Jacob's name עקב, heel, itself the tail-end of a person. This יעקב was alluded to earlier in the Torah when G–d said to Isaacs, “I shall multiply your seed like the stars of the heaven" (26,4). G–d goes on to say that inheritance of the land of Israel will be due to Abraham having listened to G–d's voice and having observed His commandments, עקב אשר שמע אברהם בקולי. The word עקב refers to that part of יעקב's name.

The reason that the wine saved from גן עדן is called משומר, is that its dregs, its yeast has been removed. When Eve squeezed the grapes and gave her husband to drink she had not removed those dregs first. The Torah (Numbers 18,8) writes of Aaron, who was the rehabilitation of Adam, that he was to be the recipient of what G–d calls משמרת תרומתי, "The residue of My gifts." It is also said of Abraham (Genesis 26,5) וישמר משמרתי. Some of our sages interpret the repetition of the expression שמר in this verse as meaning that Abraham introduced "fences," preventive measures around G–d's laws so as to ensure that the laws themselves could not easily be violated. This would be similar to the Mishnah in Shabbat 20,1 permitting the suspension of a sieve i.e. meshameret on the holiday in order to catch the shemarim, sediments, yeast, of the wine.