EFFORT AND BLESSING
In this week’s Parsha, Genesis chapter 26, we read that Isaac had to leave his land due to famine and came to Gerar, a city between Gaza and Beer Sheba, the land of the Pelishtim (Philistines). Isaac temporarily settled there and began to work hard. v:12-14 “Isaac sowed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold [a hundred times more than he had planted]: HaShem had blessed him! Isaac enjoyed prosperity and continued to grow until he became wealthy: he had sheep, cows, and many servants…
Although HaShem blessed him, Isaac’s wealth did not rain from heaven; Abraham’s son was a very hard worker. He had to work very hard to plant in that arid area, and as the Torah tells us a little later, he had to dig again and again – without laziness and without giving up – to obtain the most scarce and precious element in the Middle East: water.
But now, the same verse that mentions Isaac’s wealth describes the feeling and reaction of the Pelishtim to Isaac’s success.
וַיְקַנְא֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ פְּלִשְׁתִּֽים
וְכׇל־הַבְּאֵרֹ֗ת אֲשֶׁ֤ר חָֽפְרוּ֙ עַבְדֵ֣י אָבִ֔יו בִּימֵ֖י א ַבְרָהָ֣ם אָבִ֑יו סִתְּמ֣וּם פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים וַיְמַלְא֖וּם עָפָֽר ׃
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל־יִצְחָ֑ק לֵ֚ךְ מֵֽעִמָּ֔נוּ כִּֽי־ע ָצַ֥מְתָּ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מְאֹֽד׃
The Pelishtim were envious of Isaac.
And all the wells [of water] that the servants of his father [Abraham] had dug… they made useless, filling them with earth.”
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JEALOUSY AND ENVY
The Pelishtim received a refugee, Isaac, weak and poor. And they sympathized with that Isaac. But once Isaac recovered, his success did not make them happy; quite the opposite: he bothered them. The Torah uses here for the first time in biblical history the word quin’a, which means: “envy” (ויקנאו אותו פלשתים “The Pelishtim were envious of Isaac.”
There are two possible reactions one can have to a successful person. The first, the best, is to learn from those who do things well and imitate them. The Pelishtim could have imitated Isaac’s efforts: working more, getting up earlier, getting drunk less, saving more, not spending as much, etc. But that didn’t happen! The reaction of the Pelishtim consisted of destructive envy that led them to do something inconceivable: covering with earth the water wells that Isaac had dug!
There is a big difference between the Hebrew words “jealousy” (jemda or ta’avá לא תתאוה), and “envy” (quin’a). “Jealousy” always refers to an object: I am jealous of what you have, and I would like to have it myself. I want to have your house, your money, your car. And in theory, once I have what you have, my jealousy disappears or should decrease. “Envy,” on the other hand, is a deep, toxic, and complicated feeling. It’s not about my desire to have what the other person has but about listening to the person who has it. When I envy you, I resent your success. I can not stand. I’m going to try to take away what you have. And if I can’t take it away from you, I will destroy it. Because what impresses me the most is that YOU don’t have it! Envy is destructive and, by nature, self-destructive. Envy/hatred led the Pelishtim to do the most irrational thing a Middle Easterner can do: destroy water wells in the desert. Which would hurt them, too.
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Ramban, Nachmanides, says that the Tora goes out of its way to describe the details of this event to teach us that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, “what happened to our ancestors is not just history,” but marks a pattern of behavior that will be repeated with their descendants. This story repeats itself in our days.
HaShem’s blessing and Israel’s success in the areas of education, innovation, technology, and economy arouse admiration in the world but also a lot of envy, resentment, and hatred, especially from Isarel’s neighbors, who aim to destroy the “water wells” that could benefit their citizens, to harm Israel.
Gaza’s history makes it clear.
On August 15, 2005, 8,000 Israeli Jews were displaced from their homes in Gush Qatif, Israel. That land, which had been conquered militarily by Israel in response to the war started by the Egyptians, was “gifted” to the Palestinians, who had democratic elections in 2006 in which the Hamas party was elected. The population of Palestine that elected Hamas knew—and knows perfectly well—the objectives of Hamas since they are explicit in its founding charter: in that charter, Hamas does not mention the desire to provide prosperity, human rights or social services to the inhabitants of Gaza to improve their lives. ALL THE LETTER SAYS IS THAT HAMAS WILL DEDICATE FULLY TO JIHAD, that is, to the armed struggle against the State of Israel until its destruction, and clarifies that it will reject all diplomatic negotiations and management. Just as the Pelishtim did with Isaac, Hamas is willing to impoverish its population and pursue self-destruction (immolate itself = jihad) to destroy Israel or, at least, to kill as many Jews as possible.
Gaza does not engage in terror because they are poor; Gaza is poor because it chooses to engage in terror. This idea is so mind-blowing to normal people that they refuse to believe it. And in some ways, those with a Western mentality, even Israel, forcibly “overimpose” their own ideals and try to help Gaza out of its poverty. The Palestinians of Gaza have received more money than any other population in the entire world. From the European Union, United Nations, and the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars. All this money that should have been dedicated to building schools and hospitals and providing clean water to the population has been dedicated to building war tunnels, buying weapons, developing more weapons, and all to destroy Israel.
It is challenging for an ordinary person to understand that envy transformed into hatred makes human beings lose their desire for prosperity and self-preservation to dedicate themselves to eliminating those who work and prosper. But the Torah already warned about it in the story of Isaac with the Pelishtim. And today, we see more clearly than ever that there is nothing new under the sun of Gaza.
