Going Back To The Well
When grief meets grief
Everyone has dealt with grief: It’s a bond we all share, yet so many of us don’t talk about it. When you bury your grief to mute your sadness you also mute your ability to [experience] joy.
When you get a window into the life of public figures, often what you see makes you realize how similar we all are. The quote above is from Anderson Cooper, who many of us know from his role as one of CNN’s main anchors and his entertainingly raucous turns at the helm of New Years celebrations. What’s great about Cooper is that he’s trustworthy in his capacity as a media personality and likeable as a human being. And, it turns out, he’s also relatable when it comes to the sadnesses of life.
When he was 10 years old, his father died and 10 years later, his brother died by suicide. Appearing at the annual meeting for the American Psychiatric Association, Cooper shared about his experiences in therapy that helped him cope with those two tragedies. Early on he struggled in therapy as he didn’t realize that grief was an accepted part of the process toward healing.
The one method he found that allowed him to unpack his own grief came when he was able to step into other people’s grief. In doing so, it provided him an path for healing.
Being able to channel another person’s pain to reflect back on what you have experienced can be powerful. It mirrors things to you that you might be unable to see because you’re so close to your own pain. Grief can be so all-consuming. In all the roads leading from a trauma, it can be the main roadblock.
I was thinking about this as it related to the grief in the narratives from Abraham/Sarah and Isaac/Rebecca. Last week, we read about Isaac’s near death experience as his father attempts to sacrifice him. After he survives, Isaac becomes a ghost. We don’t hear from him for a number of chapters and storylines until he reappears at the tail end of this week’s portion where we are told the following:
וְיִצְחָק֙ בָּ֣א מִבּ֔וֹא בְּאֵ֥ר לַחַ֖י רֹאִ֑י וְה֥וּא יוֹשֵׁ֖ב בְּאֶ֥רֶץ הַנֶּֽגֶב׃
Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-Lahai-Roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb.1
Immediately following Rebecca’s decision to marry Isaac, this is meant to serve as a place-setter for their meeting, which it does. Then it also raises the question of why we need to know where is coming from? It doesn’t add anything to the story other than a geographical orientation. But being the close Torah reader that you are, your spidey senses start tingling because that place “Beer Le-hai-Roi” makes you wonder. Where have I heard of that before?
The answer to that comes back in Genesis 16 right after Hagar survives a near death experience in the desert. After God’s messenger reassures her that she will be saved and her son, Ishmael will become a great nation, she responds:
(13) And she called Adonai who spoke to her, “You Are El-roi,” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after God saw me!” (14) Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it is between Kadesh and Bered.
Her elation at being saved pushes her to offer gratitude to God, calling the Divine “the one who sees me.” Roi carries within it the root for sight in Hebrew. From there, that well carries that moniker, “The Well Where the One Who Sees Me Lives,” an absolutely majestic name.
So Isaac goes to that place, the place where Hagar, his mother’s enemy was banished with his half-brother, Ishmael. It doesn’t make a ton of sense. That isn’t necessarily a safe space for Isaac, so what gives?
One Midrashic2 interpretation offers the following:
Beer Le-Chai Roi: He had gone to bring Hagar, the one who had sat by the well and said to the Life of the Worlds, "See me in my humiliation."
Not only do they say he’s gone back to this place where Hagar was spurned and then saved but he goes there specifically to bring her back. We’ll save the veracity of this teaching for someone else but what drives it is resonant. The Midrash here imagines Isaac in deep anguish from his own grief. He’s hasn’t talked to his father since he nearly sacrificed him. Yet, there seems to be a desire to patch that rift. He can’t do it solely with Abraham; instead, he seeks out the one who he loved to bring them back together now that Abraham’s wife Sarah has died.
To deal with your own grief, seek out someone else’s grief. In doing that, Isaac reenters the story and finds his own life. In and of itself, it’s a powerful picture. But one more Midrash, from Dirshuni3, a collection of contemporary retellings from modern day Israeli women paints an even more vivid picture:
Abraham returned to his servants, they arose, and walked together to Be'er Sheva..." (Gen. 22:19) Where did Isaac go? He went to Be'er Lachai Ro'i, as it says "Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb." (Gen.24:62) Isaac went and fled fraught about his father, his mother, and his God. How did it happen that he was bound, that they saw fit to do it, and why do it to him? He went to the wilderness, to a place where no man passed or dwelled. They said, "no man," but a woman did pass there, and it was Hagar - Be'er Lachai Ro'i (the well of life's shepherd) is Hagar's well.
Isaac stood at the well until he remembered Ishmael who had played with him when he was a baby. He remembered Hagar who had walked away with a jug of water on her shoulder. Isaac sat there with Hagar and Ishmael, cried with and shared anger with them for many days.
One day, he stood at the well opening and behold, the living God saw him, the living God heard his voice in the moment, and Isaac was comforted. He arose, took Hagar, and brought her back to his father, as it says, "Abraham too another wife, and her name was Keturah." (Genesis 25:1) Keturah is Hagar whose cries rose like the smoke (ketoret) on the altar. He also arose and took Ishmael and returned him to his father, as it says, "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him" (Gen. 25:9) "He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents" (Malachi 3:24). Afterwards, Isaac returned to that well and settled there, as it says "After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac settled near Beer-lahai-roi."(Genesis 25:11) This is why it is said about him that he re-dug old wells and brought out of them living water.
Breathe that in. Adding layers of emotion and internal dialogue to the scene, they paint Isaac in deep distress. How could they do this to me? And then, guided by instinct, he comes to the place where his family faced great distress. Suddenly it hit him and then they were there, Hagar and Ishmael. Together, they cried and held one another.
Only then could he move forward because suddenly God’s presence comforted him. He brings Hagar back to his father. He also reconciles Ishmael with Abraham as they both return to bury the hatchet and their father. And not just that, but he settles at that well for good as he was a well digger, not just of literal water but a person who drudges up ancient wrongs and rights them.
That is Isaac. For all the disappearing that happens, he comes back at just the right time through meeting his grief with another person’s. That, to me, is a valuable lesson. We all know grief. As Cooper noted, it is a universal human experience. What we do with it is what distinguishes each of us.
Can we learn the lesson from Isaac? Can we use our grief experience to sit with another in their grief? In doing so, we take action, not just for ourselves but for others who have been wronged. In that space, reconciliation can happen, Grief has a habit of making us feel unseen. When we follow Isaac’s practice, we can find healing at “The Well Where the One Who Sees Me Lives.”
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend!
Genesis 24:62
Bereishit Rabbah 60:14
Dirshuni II Matriarchs and Patriarchs 4:3