1.
I assume that those who have written before and after me in this supplement have elaborated extensively on the agreement in Lebanon and its implications. I would like to take a step back and turn to the eternal sources of our people and to examine the present through their lens. This is what our people have done through the generations, whether confronting existential challenges or navigating the struggles of daily life.
The repetition of the weekly Torah portions for thousands of years stems not only from the obligation to do so but also from a profound need tied to our personal and national identity. Each reading raises questions, and the answers shift with the generation, the times, and the deeds. The rule bequeathed by ancient tradition is: "Prophecy that was needed for future generations was written down" (Megila 14a). This is not merely the foretelling of the future, but a historical formula imbued with the eternal spirit of our people.
2.
Isaac, our second patriarch, contends with the Philistines (Genesis 26). From a historical perspective, the name "Philistines" serves as a generic term for all who have contested our hold on the land. The Vilna Gaon wrote that the Philistines in the Bible sought to prevent us from establishing sovereignty in the land. Employing a historical dialectic, one might say that the Philistines awaken our dormant national strength – strength that, when it erupts, deepens our grip on the Land. From this, we derive a timeless lesson: rather than resent the challenges we face, we should embrace them and take the opportunity to deepen our roots here.
"Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year" (Genesis 26:12). Isaac grew wealthy, "until he grew very wealthy," and his possessions multiplied, "so that the Philistines envied him." Here lies the historical formula: the Jew contributes to the nation's economy, prospers along the way, and then becomes the target of envy and hatred. The accusation is invariably that this wealth was gained at the expense of the non-Jewish citizens, obtained through exploitation or theft. The result, in most cases, is pogroms or expulsion.
3.
Abimelech said to Isaac: "Go away from us, for you have become mightier than us." This is an order given many times in history by the variable ruler the constant Jew destined for expulsion or extermination. "For you have become mightier than us" implies not only that Isaac had grown wealthier but that his wealth has been derived at our expense (in Hebrew, the other meaning is: "For you have become mightier because of us"). Midrash Rabbah (64:16) interprets Abimelech's words as follows: "All the might you have gained—was it not from us? Once, you had but a single flock, and now you have many." Isaac labored, sowed, harvested, and traded through his own toil, yet, from the perspective of the people within which he lived, his wealth was taken from them.
In the following generation, Jacob, too, would hear similar accusations from Laban's sons after twenty years of being deceived and having his ability to make a living restricted: "Jacob has taken all that was our father's, and from that which was our father's he has built up all this wealth" (Genesis 31:1). In their eyes, it was not legitimate for a Jew to become wealthy. The cruel irony of history is that even after we were expelled in blood and fire, we were never left in peace. Just last week, the head of the Catholic Church publicly called for an inquiry into whether the Jews, fighting for their lives in their own land, are committing "genocide." His predecessors once called for inquiries into whether Jews were mixing the blood of children into their matzot. We remember the results.
"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" (Genesis 26:15). Fresh, living water in the desert brings blessings to all but our neighbors believe that if the wells belong to the Jews, it is better to block them and fill them with earth to erase every trace of their existence. They prefer to leave the land desolate rather than let Isaac benefit from the water. Look around us at the situation today: our neighbors often prefer ruin and death as long as the Jews suffer. This behavior resembles that of one who pretends to be the true mother in King Solomon's judgment but, when the moment of truth arrives, declares: "It shall be neither yours nor mine; cut it in two!" Thus, she reveals herself as the false mother.
4.
Isaac moves to another place, just as Jews have done throughout history. In Italy, for example, there are over a thousand locations with traces of a Jewish presence. The Natziv, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, who lived in Volozhin during the second half of the 19th century, interpreted these verses as reflecting the restrictions imposed by the Russian czarist authorities on Jewish settlement and movement in his time – the "Pale of Settlement." He writes: "And the Torah recounts, for so it shall be in exile, that barriers will be placed upon us, preventing us from dwelling freely throughout the land."
Dispersed across the four corners of the earth, we have contributed to the prosperity of the world. Even as we were persecuted and treated cruelly, we continued to believe in humanity and strive for the betterment of the world (Tikun Olam). During the Holocaust, when her persecutors were hunting her, Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Jewish-Italian scientist, carried on her experiments from her hiding place. She would later win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of nerve growth factor.
Isaac, too, did not despair and persisted in his efforts for the benefit of humanity: "Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up." They blocked the wells, and he dug them anew; They destroyed, and he rebuilt. Our sages in the Midrash derived an enduring lesson from this: "The righteous are great, for they dedicate themselves to building the world."
5.
Europe destroyed and expelled its Jews, even though their faith and culture were not so foreign to its own. Today, the old continent is struggling – without much success – with migrants whose faith and culture are far removed from its own. The words of Hillel the Elder (1st century BCE) are fulfilled: "… because you drowned others, they drowned you" (Tractate Avot 2:6) – a punishment fitting the crime, measure for measure. And yet, even now, when we are distant from Europe, it continues to offer us advice on how (not) to fight our enemies and those who seek our destruction. Worse, it presumes to place us on the defendant's bench (witness the outrageous antisemitism of the prosecutor in The Hague). Europe believes that we are assigned a specific role in history: to be eternal victims.
In his new abode, Isaac finds water and continues to accumulate wealth. His enemies watch from afar, astonished by his success, and realize they made a mistake by driving him away. They desired to form a treaty with him, but Isaac confronts them with the timeless accusation that Jews have directed at the nations of the world throughout history: "Why have you come to me, seeing that you have been hostile to me and have driven me away from you" (Genesis 26:27).
It is remarkable: the world is rife with conflicts and bloodshed far greater than the conflict between us and our neighbors. Yet global attention is focused disproportionately on Israel, or more precisely, on the world's desire to curb us even in our own land. Over the past decade, the United Nations General Assembly has passed resolutions against various countries as follows: 8 against Iran, nine against North Korea, 11 against Syria, and 24 against Russia; the nations of the world, however, have voted 156 times against Israel! Meanwhile, the UN has not passed a single resolution in that time against countries like China, Qatar, Cuba, Turkey, and Venezuela.
6.
The Philistines' response to Isaac was: "We have indeed seen that the Lord has been with you." In the same fashion, we, too, will one day witness our enemies coming to seek our forgiveness, admitting that their forebears bequeathed them lies. Isaac continued to dig wells, providing life-giving water for humanity, while the Philistines (Palestinians…) of his day quarreled with him over water and the land's rightful ownership. He names the wells Esek ("Contention") and Sitnah ("Accusation"), yet he does not give up. He persists in his efforts to improve the world right up until the final well: "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 the Lord has granted us ample space to increase in the land" (Genesis 26:22).
The solution does not lie in treaties or agreements with our neighbors but in our actions, our faith in ourselves, and our understanding of our historical role: "We have now seen plainly that the Lord has been with you." This holds true today.
