Today’s Torah portion has a lot to teach us about strength. Stamina and resilience. We know the story. Isaac loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob. How many of us have said, “Mom loved you best.” In this case apparently it was true. But we know that it isn’t a very good way to parent. We also know that the power of the press belongs to he who owns it. So this story becomes a pivotal story in our history. But it also forces us to look at a really big question, what is truth? Is seeing (or in this case feeling) really believing? It would appear not. This question has serious echos today. As a former journalist I think about this a lot. How do we tell the story of the modern state of Israel. Do we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut or mourn the Nakhba?  How do we distinguish misinformation particularly on social media? In the early days, even Biden and Netanyahu were fooled. Do we know what is really happening at the Shifra hospital? How do we respohd. Isaac thought he was really touching and then really blessing Esau. It turns out it was Jacob, living up to his name, who tricked him. 

This portion is about generations. And we see in this portion, repeated pattens from one generation to the next. Abraham told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister. Not once, but twice. Isaac does the same thing. Rebecca is his sister, right? The ruse didn’t go well for Abraham and it doesn’t go well for Isaac either. Ultimately, Abimelech, himself recognizes the ruse and Abraham, and then Isaac, come out alright. (No real word on the long term effects on Sarah or Rebecca!). 

Then Isaac and his men dig wells.  

But the Phillistines became envious… And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. 

Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them. 

But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek, because they contended with him.  

And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.  

He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now at last יהוה has granted us ample space to increase in the land.” 

Eventually Abimelech and Isaac cut a covenant, a treaty, a pact. And they sat down and they feasted.  

This is not modern day news ripped from the headlines. But it could be. Those well have to be dug again and again and again. Acfess to water is even fought over. Place names remain the same. Be’er Sheva, Seven Wells for example.  

Water is a critical resource, especially in the desert. Just listen to how some American states argue over water rights with the Colorado River.  

Rabbi David Wole, now the Rabbinic Fellow for ADL said this week,  “My father once wrote a letter to all four of us (I am one of four boys) telling us that over the course of his life the single quality he believed was essential was stamina.  Struggling once, succeeding once, creating once – it was not enough in life.  You had to do it over and over again.” 

Isaac and his men had to dig those wells over and over again.  

Like Issac we are at a moment where we seem to be doing things over and over again. Yes, agreeing with Wolpe’s father, it demands stamina. It requires us to renew all sorts of things that we thought maybe we were past. Fighting against anti-semitism, Wolpe thought that was his father’s rabbinate, not for our day. Routing out Hamas. Didn’t we do that before?. Justifying the very right for Israel to exist, for Jews to exist? Making sure that people have water—both physical, clear drinking water, and the deep mystical mythical healing waters, mayyim chayim, living waters.  All of this takes courage, dedication, and determination.  

As Wolpe points out, “In mystical teachings, Isaac’s digging of the wells is an indication that he was seeking the depths of existence, the buried secrets of spirit. One of those secrets is that the world is still being formed and we, all of us, have a hand in creating it.  Hatred is on fire across the globe and the end of the war will not end the hatred.  We in the ADL together with our allies, no matter how tired we may be, must take a shovel in hand to redig the wells that our ancestors dug. To dig new wells is to produce living waters demanded yet again in a parched and needy world.” 

This story is not the only story of wells and hope. When Abraham banished Hagar and Ishmael and they ran out of water, she cried out, “Don’t let me look on while the lad dies.” Let me be clear. No one wants to watch their child die. No one should have to. No Israeli mother. No Palestinian mother. Not here in Illinois. Not there.  

Yet the story of Hagar doesn’t end there. She puts the child under a bush. G-d hears the cry of the lad, opens Hagars eyes and she sees the spring that was there all along. It is about finding another way. Doing something again and again and again. This fills me with hope.  

We saw some of that hope on Tuesday. Regardless of how many people were in Washington, 290K, 300K, 350K, which ever number you use, since the National Park Service is no longer doing official crowd counts, t is estimated that one out of three American Jews were present on the mall. This brings me hope. 

Hope is what I feel when even when the world seems pitted against Jews, again, people want to formally join the Jewish people. Some even right here at CKI.  

Hope is also what I feel when people reach out to us and ask what they can do to help. Hope is what I feel when you all show up. When we continue to plan for the Chanukah extravaganza. When we teach our littlest kids. When we create joy and light. 

So let’s keep digging those wells and looking for other ways to share our birthright not to sell it.