(1) There was a famine in the land—aside from the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham—and Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. (2) The LORD had appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land which I point out to you. (3) Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; I will assign all these lands to you and to your heirs, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. (4) I will make your heirs as numerous as the stars of heaven, and assign to your heirs all these lands, so that all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your heirs— (5) inasmuch as Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge: My commandments, My laws, and My teachings.” (6) So Isaac stayed in Gerar. (7) When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful.” (8) When some time had passed, Abimelech king of the Philistines, looking out of the window, saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah. (9) Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is your wife! Why then did you say: ‘She is my sister?’” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.” (10) Abimelech said, “What have you done to us! One of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” (11) Abimelech then charged all the people, saying, “Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall be put to death.” (12) Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. The LORD blessed him, (13) and the man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: (14) he acquired flocks and herds, and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him. (15) 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. (16) And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” (17) So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled. (18) 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. (19) But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, (20) the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek, because they contended with him. (21) And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. (22) 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.” (23) From there he went up to Beer-sheba. (24) 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.” (25) So he built an altar there and invoked the LORD by name. Isaac pitched his tent there and his servants started digging a well. (26) And Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his councilor and Phicol chief of his troops. (27) Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you have been hostile to me and have driven me away from you?” (28) And they said, “We now see plainly that the LORD has been with you, and we thought: Let there be a sworn treaty between our two parties, between you and us. Let us make a pact with you (29) that you will not do us harm, just as we have not molested you but have always dealt kindly with you and sent you away in peace. From now on, be you blessed of the LORD!” (30) Then he made for them a feast, and they ate and drank. (31) Early in the morning, they exchanged oaths. Isaac then bade them farewell, and they departed from him in peace. (32) That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him, “We have found water!” (33) He named it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.
(יט) אברהם הוליד את יצחק עַל יְדֵי שֶׁכָּתַב הַכָּתוּב יִצְחָק בֶּן אַבְרָהָם הוּזְקַק לוֹמַר אַבְרָהָם הוֹלִיד אֶת יִצְחָק; לְפִי שֶׁהָיוּ לֵיצָנֵי הַדּוֹר אוֹמְרִים מֵאֲבִימֶלֶךְ נִתְעַבְּרָה שָׂרָה, שֶׁהֲרֵי כַמָה שָׁנִים שָׁהֲתָה עִם אַבְרָהָם וְלֹא נִתְעַבְּרָה הֵימֶנּוּ; מָה עָשָׂה הַקָּבָּ”ה? צָר קְלַסְתֵּר פָּנָיו שֶׁל יִצְחָק דּוֹמֶה לְאַבְרָהָם, וְהֵעִידוּ הַכֹּל אַבְרָהָם הוֹלִיד אֶת יִצְחָק, וְזֶהוּ שֶׁכָּתוּב כַּאן יִצְחָק בֶּן אַבְרָהָם, שֶׁהֲרֵי עֵדוּת יֵשׁ שֶׁאַבְרָהָם הוֹלִיד אֶת יִצְחָק:
(19) אברהם הוליד את יצחק ABRAHAM BEGAT ISAAC — Just because Scripture wrote, “Isaac, son of Abraham” it felt compelled to say “Abraham begat Isaac”, because the cynics of that time said, “Sarah became with child of Abimelech. See how many years she lived with Abraham without becoming with child”. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He shaped Isaac’s facial features exactly similar to those of Abraham’s, so that everyone had to admit that Abraham begat Isaac. This is what is stated here: that Isaac was the son of Abraham, for there is evidence that Abraham begat Isaac (Tanchuma).
Chizkuni (13th Century, Europe)
כשמות אשר קרא להן אביו, “as had been their names when his father had named them.” He wished to draw attention to the fact that the success of these wells had been and continued to be due to the merit of his father. In order to prove that this was so, when he left the vicinity of Avimelech’s capital and settled where Avraham had lived for a while and demonstrated that the success depended not on the quality of the earth and the skill of its farmers, but on the goodwill enjoyed by them in the heavenly spheres.
Like Water, Like Torah
For it was taught: 'And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water,15 upon which those who expound verses metaphorically16 said: water means nothing but Torah,17 as it says: Ho, everyone that thirsteth come ye for water.18 It thus means that as they went three days without Torah they immediately became exhausted. The prophets among them thereupon rose and enacted that they should publicly read the law on Sabbath, make a break on Sunday, read again on Monday, make a break again on Tuesday and Wednesday, read again on Thursday and then make a break on Friday so that they should not be kept for three days without Torah.'19 BT, Baba Kamma, 82A
Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, "Digging Our Parents' Wells"
What can we learn from the image of a well that has been intentionally filled with earth so that it no longer functions as a well? If water is life-giving, then a stopped-up well is the opposite. Why, then, did the Philistines, as we read in this week's parashah, Tol'dot, stop up the wells that had been dug in the days of Abraham and tell Isaac to leave the region? (Genesis 26:15) Why were they ready to make their own land uninhabitable? It is not a logical action and seems contrary to normal human behavior.
Nehama Leibowitz suggests that there must be more to the matter than what is literally stated, that this action of the Philistines must be understood to imply something symbolic. She cites Jacob Zvi Mecklenburg in HaKetav Vehakabbalah, who suggests that the wells were symbols from the beginning and that each time Abraham dug a well, he gave it a name that taught a lesson about the true nature of God. Each well served as a means of bringing idolaters under the wings of the Divine Presence. After Abraham's death, the local folk reverted back to their idolatry and stopped up the wells in order to erase his teachings from their memory. When Isaac returns to dig anew the same wells, he gives them the same names that his father did "in order to restore the crown of the true faith to its former glory."
Isaac's digging the same wells that his father dug shows us how he takes his place in Tol'dot, the family story that becomes our national history. He understands the need to reclaim his father's traditions and to ensure their survival. It is an act of maturity that he crowns with further honoring his father's memory giving the wells the "same names that his father had given them." (Genesis 26:18) Only then did Isaac's servants find "there a well of spring water" (Genesis 26:19). The term used in the text is mayim chayim - "living water," the waters of life.
As we mature, we identify with Isaac's actions: We learn to understand and to seek to reclaim the traditions handed down to us by our parents and, when possible, to honor their work and their wisdom. The lessons we learn from the generations that preceded us are as life-giving as is a well of living water.
https://reformjudaism.org/digging-our-parents-wells
Like Water, Like Torah
Words of Torah are compared to water: “Everyone that thirsts come to the water” (Isaiah. 55:1). As water reaches from one end of the world to the other, so Torah reaches from one end of the world to the other. As water gives life to the world, so Torah gives life to the world. As water is given without cost to the world, so is Torah given without cost to the world. As water is given from heaven, so Torah is given from heaven. As water is given with thunder, so was Torah given to the accompaniment of thunder (at Sinai). As water restores a person's spirit, so Torah restores a person’s spirit. As water cleanses a person from uncleanness, so Torah cleanses an unclean person from his uncleanness. As water comes down in many drops and becomes a mighty river, so Torah; today a person learns two Halakhot, tomorrow two more, and so on, until he becomes like a bubbling brook. As water leaves a high place and flows to a low place, so Torah leaves him whose opinion of himself is high and cleaves to him whose spirit is lowly. As water is not kept in vessels of silver or gold, but only in the The Rabbinical Assembly Talmud Torah: Mitzvah, Mission and Meaning Page 3 cheapest of vessels, so Torah abides only in one who regards himself as lowly as an earthenware vessel. As when thirsty, a grown man is not ashamed to say to a child, "Let me have a drink of water," so in studying Torah a grown man who is unlearned should not be ashamed to say to a child, "Teach me a chapter or a verse or a word," or even "Teach me a single letter." As with water, if one does not know how to swim in it, he will end by drowning, so with words of Torah: if one does not know how to swim in them and teach them, he will drown in the end.
BT. Eruvin 54a
Rabbi Adam Lavitt, "Digging Wells for Generations"
According to psychological research, “The more children [know] about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.” Despite all our displacement, this research tells us that in order to thrive, we need to reclaim our sense of belonging – wherever we are. Can we, like Isaac, begin to uncover the wells of our ancestors? How do we settle more deeply into the feeling that we belong, whether we consider ourselves to be living in a promised land, diaspora, or exile?
As we drink the water from these wells, the stories of our ancestors give us perspective on our daily experience. Learning these stories, we become more resilient. For me the water is the book of midrash my great-great grandfather wrote, the journal my great-aunt kept, and the family tree my mother has been assembling. As I open the covers of these wells, I prepare to nourish my roots, and ground myself more deeply in the soil of this moment of my life.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/rabbis-without-borders/digging-wells-for-generations/