Isaac is one of the Torah’s most mysterious characters. With barely two significant narratives to his name, we can feel short-changed that one of them is about digging wells — quite the anti-climax compared to the chronicles of high drama surrounding his father Abraham and son Jacob. By delving deeper into Isaac’s fleeting minutes of fame, a fascinating pattern emerges.
Recently, we read of Isaac’s binding. The common misconception portrays him as a helpless child led to an untimely demise by a fanatical father. However, the classic commentaries, as well as the implication of scripture itself, indicate that Isaac was 37 years of age when he set off to climb Mount Moriah on that father-son bonding (binding?) trip.
This is revelatory: Isaac was a fully-grown man independently accompanying his ageing father. Throughout the ordeal, Isaac doesn’t utter a word of protest. He is capable of overpowering Abraham and fleeing. But he doesn’t. He remains totally passive.
Beyond this, uniquely and again in total contrast to his father and son, Isaac’s wife Rebecca is chosen for him.
After settling in Gerar, Isaac becomes the target of biblical anti-immigration sentiment. In contrast to Abraham’s vociferous protestations against similar abuse decades earlier or Jacob’s indignation at Laban decades hence, Isaac ignores the injustice, turns the proverbial cheek and passively accepts his fate by relocating his entire camp no less than four times.
Passive in the face of death, his future and injustice. Why?
The key to this lies in the one episode when Isaac behaves proactively; our titular verse. Incredibly, his lifetime “innovation” is to re-dig the same wells dug by his father a generation earlier. And then, with the entire lexicon at his fingertips, he presses Ctrl + V and gives them the same names too!
In light of the above, Rabbi Bachya ben Asher notes: what was so remarkable about Isaac? The fact that he was unremarkable.
Let that sink in. Isaac is the second Jew. The faith and everything it will become is at his mercy. He is at liberty to cast off Abraham’s style of practice and emerge from beneath his father’s shadow by forging a bold new approach.
But he doesn’t. He becomes passivism embodied, withdrawing even further into his father’s legacy, copying and pasting with calculated precision Abraham’s every act. Wilde was spot on, almost. Plagiarism isn’t merely the sincerest form of flattery. Sometimes, plagiarism is the sincerest form of loyalty and humility.
In an age where the clamour to achieve 15 minutes of fame predominates and the Instagram influencer reigns supreme, Isaac teaches us a profoundly humbling lesson: true charisma is found in humility, while loyalty is the key to continuity.
And sometimes, less is more. So much more.
