Берешит 25:11 Каббала: Zohar & Sha'arei Orah

AND THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC, ABRAHAM’S SON. ‘Why’, asked R. Jose, ‘should Isaac be referred to just here, and here only, as “Abraham’s son”? The reason is that with the death of Abraham Isaac assumed the image of his father, so that anyone looking at him could say “This is surely Abraham”, and thus would be convinced that “Abraham begat Isaac”.’

R. Isaac rose from his bed one night to study the Torah. R. Judah, who happened then to be in Caesarea, said to himself at the same time: ‘I will go and join R. Isaac in the study of the Torah.’ He accordingly set out along with his youthful son Hizkiah. As he was nearing R. Isaac’s threshold he overheard him expound the verse: “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac his son; and Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi” (Gen. 25, 11). ‘The connection between the two parts of this verse’, he said, ‘is obscure, but may be explained as follows. It was necessary that God should bless Isaac, because Abraham had not blessed him, and the reason why Abraham had not blessed him was to prevent that blessing being transmitted to Esau. Hence the task of blessing fell, so to speak, to the Almighty. The text thus continues: “And Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi” (lit. the well of the living and seeing one), that is, as the Aramaic paraphrase has it, “the well where appeared the Angel of the Covenant”, to wit, the Shekinah, to which Isaac became attached, thereby drawing upon himself the blessing of the Almighty.’

(The word “living” is similarly used in the verse “And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a living man” (II Sam. 23, 20), i.e. a righteous man who illumines his generation as the living Deity above illumines the universe.) So the well constantly looks to the “living one” to be illumined. Further, the statement that Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi teaches the same lesson as the statement “And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah” (Gen. 25, 20), and abode with her and was united with her, symbolising in this way the union of darkness with night, as it is written: “His left hand under my head” (S. S. 2, 6). Observe now that after Abraham’s death Isaac remained in Kiriath-arba; how, then, it may be asked, can it say that he dwelt in Beer-lahai-roi? The answer is, to indicate that Isaac attached himself and held fast to that well in order to awaken the attribute of mercy, as already explained.’