You Dig?
by Rabbi Shafner of Bais Abraham Congregation (aka Bais Abe) in St. Louis
In this weeks Torah portion, Toldot, the Torah tells us that, "Isaac re-dug the wells his father Abraham had dug, for the Philisteins had stopped them up. Isaac renamed the wells just as his father Abrahm had." If the Torah carefully picks and chooses what it tells us about our ancestors, why bother to tell us that they dug wells? What are we meant to learn from this?
The word for "well" in Hebrew is "Ba'er" which can also mean "to explain" or "to bring meaning to". The Sefat Emet tells that our ancestors dug wells for water but that the Torah also means to tell us that they "dug into" the world to explain it to us in a unique way, to illuminate its spirituality which is often hidden. This is the legacy our ancestors started and the gift they each gave to us in their own particular way through their "digging". How do you dig the world to uncover its depth and spiritual meaning?
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