Frank
Zappa once said: Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom
is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music
is the best.” I’m not so sure about the implied hierarchy here but I am certain
that information, and even knowledge, are not wisdom. My mind reels when I
consider how many sources and outlets there are for information, many at my
fingertips thanks to a computer. But again, information and knowledge are not
the same as wisdom. And alas! We cannot google wisdom and it is wisdom to need
to live meaningful and purposeful lives.
Marcel
Proust wrote, “We are not
provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through
the wilderness which no one else can take for us, and effort which no one can
spare us. (In Search of Lost Time Vol. II: Within a Budding Grove, 1919)
Isaac’s
life exemplifies this principle. Isaac, who once lay beneath the blade of a
knife, has a perspective and experiences most of us lack. He lives a quieter,
less dramatic life than either his father or son, but within the quieter
parameters, we find he is every bit as active in his search for divine wisdom.
In this
week’s parashah, Toldot, there is much talk of wells. I suppose that shouldn’t
come as a surprise given the arid desert in which the narratives take place. Proust’s
wilderness? Water that comes from the arid earth is like wisdom, so difficult
to acquire; and digging wells reminds us that the search for wisdom—genuine
wisdom— is arduous. But it’s worth the effort because wisdom, like water, is life
sustaining.
The Sfat
Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of
Ger, 1847–1905) comments:
Regarding the wells the patriarchs dug: the word be’er (well) should be read in the context of, “Moses agreed to explain/clarify (bei’eir)
this teaching” (Deuteronomy 1:5). In
the same way, even before the Torah was received [at Mt. Sinai], the patriarchs
explained/”welled” the wisdom of Creation, since everything was created through
Torah and for God’s glory. We have to contemplate all of Creation in order to
understand the Creator’s purpose. Abraham our Father explained/”welled” how to
derive the love of God from all of Creation.
This passage is
easier to understand in the original Hebrew than it is in translation. I hope I
can succeed in explaining what the Sfat Emet is teaching us. He connects the
word “well” (b’eir) in our parashah
with the use of bei’eir, written
precisely the same way in un-pointed Hebrew, which means to explicate,
elucidate, clarify, or explain. The Sfat Emet thereby imagines the word “well”
to be a verb, explaining that what Moses is doing when he teaches Torah to the
Israelites is “welling.” Hence Isaac, in his flurry of well-digging, is
explaining Torah, as Moses did. But Isaac lived long before matan Torah (the Giving of the Torah at
Mount Sinai), so we might well ask: How could Isaac teach a Torah that hasn’t
been given yet? The Sfat Emet offers us a beautiful response to this question:
Torah existed before Creation; the Rabbis tell us (Bereishit Rabbah 1:1) it was the blueprint with which God fashioned
the world.
The Sfat Emet’s
comment is a prescient reminder about torah
(I write torah with a lower-case
“t” to connote divine wisdom, which is not necessary explicitly articulated in
the Five Books of Moses). There is torah all
about us: divine wisdom we learn from the world and from within. S’fat Emet
reminds us that [capital “T”] Torah, the Five Books of Moses, and many would
include the Talmud, or [lower case “t”] torah,
divine wisdom from many sources, is available to us if we but dig for it.
We can
see the many wells recounted in Parshat
Toldot as signposts reminding us of seven sources of divine wisdom.
First, Isaac
digs anew the wells of his father Abraham:
So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the
wadi of Gerar where he settled. Isaac dug anew the wells that had been dug in
the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after
Abraham’s death, and he gave them the same names that his father had given
them. (Genesis 26:17-18)
Isaac re-dug
the wells of his father Abraham. The generations before, and the sacred books
and traditions they bequeathed us, have both Torah and torah to teach us.
The second,
third, and fourth sources of wisdom we learn from the well of fresh spring water that
Isaac’s servants find. (Genesis 26:19-21) As water is the metaphor for Torah—mayim chaim/life-giving waters, the well
of fresh spring water reminds us that torah
wisdom comes, as well, from new interpretations. The herdsmen of Gerar
claim that the spring is theirs, as if to say, “This water, this wisdom, is
ours.” The third source of wisdom is other traditions and cultures that possess
valuable wisdom. Isaac drank their water.
Fourth is the wisdom gleaned from pain and suffering. The wells of Esek
and Sitnah reflect the contention and struggles between Isaac and the herdsmen
of Gerar. I’ve yet to speak with someone who has gone through a crisis, or
experienced trauma, or survived a dangerous situation who has not gleaned
wisdom from their experience.
Next
Isaac moves on and digs a well he names Rehoboth, saying, “Now at last the Lord has granted us ample
space to increase in the land” (Genesis
26:22). Rehoboth means, “wide, open space.” So, too, the world itself is
the fifth source of divine wisdom, and it is ours if we dig within and open
ourselves to make space to receive it.
Sixth, Torah
tells us:
From there [Isaac] went up to Beer-sheba. That
night the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham.
Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your offspring
for the sake of My servant Abraham.’ So [Isaac] built an altar there and
invoked the Lord by name. Isaac pitched his tent there and his servants started
digging a well. (Genesis 26:23-25)
A sixth
source of wisdom comes to us from our relationship with the One, God who is
ultimate, accessible, a well of compassion, justice, love, and wisdom that
never dries up—whether we encounter God as being beyond us or within us.
Avimelekh
arrives in Beersheba to make a peace treaty with Isaac. The following day Isaac
digs two more wells.
Early in the morning, [Isaac and Avimelekh)
exchanged oaths. Isaac then bade them farewell, and they departed from him in
peace. That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had
dug, and he said to him, “we have found water!” He named it Shiv’ah; therefore
the name of the city is Beer-sheva to this day.[1] (Genesis 26:31-33)
The
seventh source of divine wisdom emanates from living in the community of others,
both those like us and those different from us. Isaac digs a well in Beersheba,
where his parents had lived and where his descendants would live, but also a
place where many other peoples would live. Isaac breaks ground for a new
community to blossom and thrive. (Genesis 26:32-33)
From how
many of these seven sources have you drawn wisdom? Is there one or more that
have not been on your screen but perhaps have something to offer you?
Isaac
works hard to find wisdom, and even harder to employ it in his life. He is not
always successful any more than we are. He lives by the adage:
Don’t wish life were easier; wish you were better.
Don’t wish for fewer challenges; wish for more wisdom.
I imagine
that Isaac’s daily prayer might be, “God, grant me strength to wrest
wisdom from every corner of life in this universe, and the ability to use that
wisdom in all that I do each day!”
© Rabbi
Amy Scheinerman
[1] This
passage depends upon a pun in the Hebrew: Beersheba’s name is derived from a pun. The “Seven Wells” (sheva = seven) are also the “Well of
Oath” (sh’vu-ah = oath).
Yasher Koach!
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