Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 1 Kislev, 5784
Parsha Toledot: (Genesis 25:19- 28:9)
Third Portion: Genesis 26:13 – 26:22

So; yesterday I realized I “double dipped” and did two portions instead of one.  If you read yesterday’s portion? This may be a bit of a repeat. I went back and edited the portion yesterday to close it out at the end point of the second portion.  So if you are joining us for the first time? I encourage you to read “Part 1” of these thoughts yesterday here.

As we enter this new moon cycle – the cycle of Kislev; the Orchestra has now tuned up and the symphony is about to begin.  Are we ready to receive it?  As we begin today’s portion, let’s keep in mind the tapestry of our lives is getting rewoven in this new cycle.  Here’s how the portion starts about Isaac (Genesis 26:13-14)

13And the man became great, and he grew constantly greater until he had grown very great.

14And he had possessions of sheep and possessions of cattle and much production, and the Philistines envied him.

Isaac was blessed. The lie of Rebecca being his sister was rewarded. And. This really does look like a blessing doesn’t it? And yet the story isn’t over.

Isaac and Rebecca don’t live happily ever after.  Because the story made the Philistines envious. Here’s what happened next (Genesis 26:15 -16):

15And all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father the Philistines stopped them up and filled them with earth.

16And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become much stronger than we.”

So let’s look at this from the Philistines’ perspective.  Isaac lies to them and Abimelech almost takes Rebecca as his wife.  Certain destruction.  Abimelech tells the people “don’t touch these people who almost brought destruction on us.  Leave them alone.” And, as they are left alone? They prosper. They dig wells and bring water to their crops and food and cattle. And the people get envious of this.  They even start to fill in the wells they are so envious.

How does this apply to our lives?  Can we handle abundance in our lives that would cause our neighbors to feel envious? How do we navigate envy from others? Do we take it personally? Do we feel guilty? Do we want to fight it? Think about Isaac. He dug these wells. He was prosperous.  And. The people filled them in. Blocked his abundance. The king of the people sees this and sees what is happening – he knows; Isaac and his family haven’t done anything to deserve this. But the King wants peace. He tells Isaac to move away.  And Isaac? Instead of fighting for the land he had built abundance on?

He left.  The land wasn’t something for Isaac to fight over. He listened to the king. He left. Let’s keep reading”

17And Isaac went away from there, and he encamped in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there.

18And Isaac again dug the wells of water which they had dug in the days of his father, Abraham, and the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them names like the names that his father had given them.

19And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and they found there a well of living waters.

They left. They trusted. And – they continued to dig wells. I wrote about this last year.  The wells aren’t JUST physical wells.  They seem to be connected to “spiritual awakenings.” Isaac’s servants trusted, and they found a well of living water.

For my Christian friends who believe Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the “well of living waters” um.  Maybe Isaac dug and found Jesus in the ground – but I don’t think that is true.

I think Isaac and his servants figured out the living water of Hashem.  That the lesson and takeaway here was that the chaos leads to beauty (as we discussed yesterday entering into this new moon cycle of Kislev).  We can choose to fight, or we can allow.

And even when we are afraid – the author of our lives is poetic.  Bringing us back to a starting point each time.  Because Isaac was brought back home – to where his father had dug wells.

It would seem (in my opinion) that the point of our story is this – taking the risk to leave “home” to go out into the world and engage. Then, when things get hard; and chaotic; we come home again.  And lest Isaac get possessive of the well? We close the portion with this:

20And the shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s shepherds, saying, “The water is ours”; so he named the well Esek, because they had contended with him.

21And they dug another well, and they quarreled about it also; so he named it Sitnah.

22And he moved away from there, and he dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, and he said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

Esek means “argument” and Sitnah means “harassment.”

Isaac contended with the well of living water. People came for it. Argued over it. Harassed him about it.  But instead of fighting? He just dug another well. And then moved far away from home again and dug yet another well.  “The Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

I think about my process of spiritual awakening.  My first one led to a LOT of arguments.  I wanted to be “right.” I had lived my entire life one way – had major epiphanies – which led to a LOT of spiritual arguments. That led me to New York (from California).

My second awakening led me to be less argumentative – but that led to harassment. I had to move again.

I am getting ready to enter a time I believe the Lord is “making room” for me. And I will be fruitful in the land. I am trusting this process. I wonder if that is for all of us? Have we been in a fight, digging wells for ourselves that are constantly filled in by those around us who are envious? Do we fight over the well? Or do we just move to the next one?

So – if you have found the well of living water; but are arguing over it with (or facing harassment from) others? Maybe it’s time to move away and dig ANOTHER well – make room. Be fruitful.

The takeaway? Stop fighting.  And THIS is what I want to add to our learning.  Let’s review our lessons over spiritual liberation and freedom:

• The Path of Ascension begins with curiosity and not judgement
• If someone’s curiosity causes doubt and defensiveness, be curious about our own doubt and defensiveness and NOT their motives for curiosity.
• The tree of life is within us. Choose life within with curiosity and not judgment
• Learn to balance the comfort of stumbling, with the challenge of pushing ourselves towards spiritual growth.
• Let go of a stable life. Freedom is accepting “what is” as a blessing. We can’t control what happens. We can only navigate it with bitterness or flow.
• Freedom requires balance – emotions vs intellect, humility vs confidence, thinking as an individual while staying meaningfully connected to others.
• Freedom comes from expansion and not contraction – but contraction is important to the process of expansion
• To live free, we must circumcise the foreskin of past trauma and feel the pain of healing so that our higher selves can appear to us, and we can co-create miraculous NEW life for us and others.
• To be free, we must understand what love requires vs the world around us. 10%.  Just start there. Freedom is seeing the 10% and moving to 11%. Not being trapped by the daunting 90% we feel guilt and shame about.  The 90% is slavery. The 10% is freedom.
• Receive the Universe. Don’t Resist it. This is the path to freedom and liberation.
• We must be vulnerable and ask for the Universe to provide. And. We don’t need to ask because the Universe knows. This is freedom.
• We must accept and receive our role in co-creating moments with Hashem.

Let’s add this:

As we experience wells of living water in our life – there will come external resistance -the path to slavery is arguing and harassment. Make space. For ourselves and others.  This is spiritual liberation and freedom.  Allowing and making space.  Spreading out.  Expansion. Not contraction.

And – one more thought on this. When you’ve spent your entire life contracting? Spreading out and expanding can feel exhausting.  It may require rest before going. If we’ve spent our life DESCENDING (Toledot) we may need rest before ASCENDING.

Wells of living water.

May THIS be the beautiful concert coming in this month of Kislev. May THIS be the beautiful tapestry coming for us. May this be the BEAUTIFUL painting being painted. May we expand. Spread out. And just trust.

And if the Philistines come to fill in our wells? Just move to the next one. Eventually we will get planted exactly where we need to be.

Those are my thoughts – what are yours?

Here is my commentary from the past two years:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 28 Heshvan, 5783

This morning I’m reflecting on the portion and the thoughts from a year ago.

I see the three wells now as potentially being three spiritual awakenings we go through in our lives. Some of us haven’t dug the well once, it flows from our youth. Some of us have dug in the wells – we debated and argued it.

And some of us have dug our third spiritual well, and it is flowing with living water.

All of this tells me to keep going. Keep digging wells. Digging into our soul. And how do we do that? Working on inner healing. Moving from our head and opening our heart.

And that is the message (I think) we are supposed to get.

What are your thoughts?

Torah thoughts for Heshvan 27, 5782

We start this portion out with Isaac prospering in the land. He gets so prosperous, the Philistines start filling in all of the wells that Abraham’s servants had dug. Abimelech pushes Isaac to leave because he has grown stronger than the Philistines.

The question that jumps to my mind was why did the philistines fill the wells? Rabbi Elimelech of Lyzhansk in the 18th century wrote;

“All the hard work that was carried out by Abraham’s servants, people who served God with fear of heaven, educating the masses about the One God and hoping to transform them into ‘wells’ brimming with the waters of spiritual life – was stopped by the philistines. The Philistines filled the ‘wells’ with ‘earth’ – they attempted to transform Abraham’s enlightened followers into materialistic ‘earthly’ individuals by desensitizing them to spirituality, leading them to serve God half heartedly.”

Wow. I’m sitting with that. The wells I’ve dug in the past to connect with Hashem- how much have some of them filled up with “earth” so that I avoid them and serve God half heartedly?

That is the goal here. We face resistance in serving Hashem as the world around is filling in our spiritual wells so we can’t access them. What wells have we built that have been filled in? That’s what I’m reflecting on. as we become stronger; those wells are more likely to be filled in.

Then Isaac heeds Abimelech’s request and went away – but before he left, he re-dug the wells Abraham had dug.

This gives me hope. That even if our wells are filled up, we have access to re-dig them again.

Fast forward to Isaac living in a new land (Gerar Valley). Isaac’s servants dug a well, and found a well of living waters. But the Local shepherds argued with Isaac’s shepherds over who should own the well, since it was in the Gerar Valley. Isaac named this well “argument.”

They then dug a second well and again the local shepherds quarreled, Isaac called this well “harassment.”

So finally, Isaac moved away again and dug a third well. There was no argument this time, so Isaac named it Rehoboth, because “For now Hashem has made space for us and we will be fruitful in the land.”

Some things to consider;

1. Isaac had every right to lay claim to those wells. He could have dug his feet in to fight for ownership of the wells. Instead he moved on and repeated the hard work. I’m chewing on that. How hard would it be to invest a lot of time and energy into something and make the decision to start over to avoid an argument? It seems as if the idea of living in peace withOur neighbor is critical here.
2. Nahmanides writes about the three wells and connecting them to the temple. he writes that the third temple (which has yet to be built) will be built without quarrel when Hashem will expand our borders (spacious).
3. Following up on Nahmanades, Rabbi Schneerson writes about the process of digging a well:
4. First there is a phase of intense physical effort to dig the well.
5. Second the well is actually filled with water which doesn’t require much direct physical effort; it simply floods in.

He connects this process to building the temple – tremendous human effort at first, and then the filling up of the Divine Presence. He looks ahead to the third temple that will built. He points out the Zohar talks about the third temple being built by Hashem and not by man. He challenges Nahmanades analogy here because it seems to break down when considering the third temple.

However, Rabbi Schneerson wisely points out that even the Zohar says that the third temple will be built through human effort; not through physical effort, but through dedicated acts of worship. In defiance of the challenges of exile. “The cumulative effects of these acts are depicted by the Zohar as a ‘building made by God’ though in fact, it is a building made by human acts that are totally surrender to God.”

Rabbi Schneerson concludes; “Since the Third Temple will be built from commandments performed out of utter dedication to God, it will be eternal.”

That’s something to REALLY chew on. Our connection to Hashem is part of building the third temple. When we daven, light Shabbat candles, wrap tefillin, etc; each of those are building stones for the third temple!!!

Wow!

What are your thoughts on today’s portion? What wells have you once dug that have been filled in? What wells need to be re-dug? How are you helping build the third temple? Some interesting things to consider!