This week (whose parashah is Toldot (descendants)) we read about the work of Isaac. While up to this point we have read in the Torah about Abraham, from here on we learn what happened to his descendants, Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau.
The Torah tells us that Isaac dug wells in the desert. Regarding Abraham, it tells us that his main occupation was tending livestock, which he drove from place to place, and in each place he visited, he pitched his tent to receive guests. To these guests, he taught about the one God, thus spreading the principles of Judaism.
It is well known that the Torah does not have a single verse, word, or letter superfluous, so the question naturally arises: Why does the Torah dedicate so many verses to explaining the work of Abraham and Isaac? If we were to view it as a purely material matter—that is, that this is what they did—there isn't much to be learned. But if we view it as a spiritual matter, if we can apply it to our daily lives: the work they did was a material expression of an underlying spiritual work where, in reality, the primary focus was the spiritual work.
In Hasidic philosophy, it is explained that Abraham worked, so to speak, from the top down, while Isaac worked from the bottom up. In other words, Abraham revealed God's presence in the world, explaining and proclaiming it far and wide. He didn't expect people to reach the same conclusions as him, but rather directly presented his viewpoint and defended it. In contrast, Isaac dug wells; that is, he sought to reveal what already existed (the water in the wells), not to develop a new concept.
Un ejemplo para comprenderlo mejor es el de un maestro que estudia con su alumno, donde tiene dos posibilidades: a) decirle al alumno el concepto tal cual es y que el alumno lo incorpore aún si no lo comprende muy bien y, b) ayudar al alumno a desarrollar el concepto de manera que llegue a la conclusión correcta guiado por el maestro. La diferencia es que en el caso a) el alumno llega rápido a una idea, mientras que en el caso b) es más lento. Por el otro lado, en el caso b) el alumno hizo del concepto algo propio, es «su idea», mientras que en el caso a) es la idea del maestro. Avraham representa el caso a), e Itzjak el caso b).
Our sages consider Jacob, the son of Isaac, to be the highest of the three patriarchs, because he was the one who knew how to balance between the two ways of life of Abraham and Isaac.