This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Toldot, is grounded in the recurrent motif of wells, of reopening intergenerational connections, of unearthing the life-sustaining force of water in the desert and the moments of transformative encounter that take place at those wells. Early in the portion we learn that the Philistines blocked the wells that Abraham’s servants had dug. In the following chapter, Isaac digs those wells anew and gave them the same names as his father. And almost immediately after that, Isaac digs a new well that he names Rehoboth, declaring: “Now at last God has granted us ample space to increase in the land.”
In keeping with its impulse to search for hidden meanings and the widely used symbolism of wells as places of concealment and revelation, it’s no surprise that the Zohar offers a series of insights into encounters at wells of water and the ways in which these sites are symbolic of contemplation, encounter with divinity and the drawing of spiritual vitality, vigor and ongoing connection to the life-giving flow of God.
Rabbi Elazar said further: “Isaac acted fittingly, for since he knew mysteries of wisdom, he endeavored and dug a well of water to fortify himself fittingly in faith. Abraham endeavored and dug a well of water. Isaac, following him, endeavored and dug a well of water. Jacob found it prepared and sat down by it. They all went striving after it, to fortify themselves fittingly in perfect faith.”
Adapted from Zohar 1:141a-b, Pritzker Edition, translated by Daniel Matt.
The Zohar first interprets the digging of wells as an act of mystical striving by the patriarchs, insofar as the uncovered water signifies a fortification of the spiritual practitioner in his particular faith (meheimanuta, in Zoharic Aramaic). For the Zohar, this signifies a quest to align the human mind with the sefirot. Specifically, the idea of a well of faith refers symbolically to the tenth sefirah, Shekhinah. Nevertheless, the terminology also evokes a transformation of consciousness — meheimanuta as a mystical-revelatory state of mind, an event of elevated spiritual awareness. The paradigmatic acts of digging wells by Abraham, Isaac and (eventually) Jacob are thus understood to constitute moments of spiritual centering and grounding, a devotional bonding to the divine presence and to the Shekhinah in particular.
Then the Zohar makes a powerful correlation, drawing a direct line of connection between the revered act of well-digging by the forefathers and the present-day practice of the Jew in prayer:
Now Israel holds fast to Her [Shekhinah] with mysteries of commandments of Torah as when every single day a person fortifies himself with tzitzit, which is a commandment, enveloping himself in them; and with tefillin, placing them on his head and arm, a fitting supernal mystery. For the blessed Holy One appears in a person who crowns himself with Teffilin and envelops himself in tassels — entirely a mystery of supernal faith.
Just like the revered ancestors of old, who entered into a contemplative consciousness of meheimanuta, so too the individual Jew in prayer, when they wrap themselves in tzitzit and tefillin, embodies the supernal mystery. Indeed, as the Zohar so evocatively states, God appears or becomes present in a person who adorns themselves with these ritual items. This state of indwelling — of divine presence in the human domain, and appearing in a person crowned with tefillin and enveloped by tzitzit — sparkles with a bold mythic and theological imagination, a vision of Divine Presence in which the person in prayer becomes the site of divine immanence.
We should note that while tzitzit and tefillin are the focal points here, the Zohar makes clear that it is through the general performance of the mitzvot with a mystical mindset that the Jew connects to Shekhinah. The Aramaic term translated above as “holds fast” is it’takpa, which connotes grasping with a powerful force, a mystical attachment, to all of God’s commandments. But the particular example here of tzitzit and tefillin, in which one literally wraps oneself in the sacred name of God, transforms the ordinary individual into a reverberating vessel, an earthly manifestation of Divinity. Here the Jew, bedecked in ritual garb and engaged in powerful devotion, becomes like the biblical ancestors of old who sensed the nourishing power of Divinity symbolized by the well and the digging of earth. Connecting with the well through these mitzvot in particular becomes a paradigmatic moment of spiritual attunement to the divine mysteries.
Perhaps it is in that moment, and in all the contemplative moments in between, that we as spiritual seekers realize the opening line of Parashat Toldot: “This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac.” For the birthings and sacred reverberations of olden time continue and are reborn in every moment.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria called . Sign up for the entire series here.
