Growing Greater through Wealth: Yitzchak's Avodah

1“And the man grew great, and he went on going, growing greater, until he became very great.”¹ Notice the wording. Why does it say “and the man grew great,” and not “and Yitzchak grew great”? We must also ask what “he went on going” means: what place does the language of walking have in a verse about wealth? And why is the word for greatness repeated three times in this verse [vayigdal, vegadel, gadal]? The Baal HaTurim, R' Yaakov ben Asher, writes in his commentary on the Torah that these three correspond to the three blessings Yitzchak received at the Akeidah, the binding of Yitzchak: ki vareich avarechecha, “I will surely bless you,” which counts as two, and vehisbarchu, “shall be blessed.”² But his words raise a question. Do we not find that Yitzchak Avinu received many other blessings from Hashem, through which he became wealthy? Why, then, does the verse hint only at the blessings of the Akeidah? We must also look closely at the next verse: “And he had possessions … and a great household.”³ What does va'avudah rabbah, “a great household,” mean? Targum Onkelos, the Aramaic translation of the Torah, renders it u'fulchana sagi, “and much service.” The word pulchana seems to refer to avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem, as in a verse in the book of Ezra.⁴ So what does avodas Hashem have to do with Yitzchak's wealth, which is the subject of the verse?

2We can explain all this by first addressing another question. Again and again the Torah tells of the wealth of each of the holy Avos. Of Avraham Avinu it says, “And Avram was very rich in livestock …”⁵ Of Yitzchak Avinu it says what we read here. And of Yaakov Avinu it says, “And he spread out … and he had many flocks …”⁶ At first glance this is astonishing. Is not everything material “vanity of vanities”?⁷ What, then, is the Torah teaching us by telling of the great wealth of the Avos?

3The answer is this. Scripture does speak of wealth with disapproval, as the verse says, “One who loves money will never be satisfied with money.”⁸ And Chazal said, “No one dies with even half of his desire in hand: if he has a hundred, he wants two hundred,” and they say much more in the same vein.⁹ We know the reason: wealth makes it easy for the yetzer hara to overpower a person and disturb his avodas Hashem. Through wealth one can, Heaven forbid, come to the state of “Yeshurun grew fat and kicked.”¹⁰ This explains why the Torah tells of the wealth of the Avos. It is teaching us how great the stature of the holy Avos was. They served Hashem and walked in their great holiness even in the midst of wealth. The test of wealth is great, as these verses and sayings show, yet they overcame it, and their wealth did not hold them back from going on and rising higher in their holy service.

4Through this service the holy Avos accomplished something not only for themselves but for the generations to come as well. Whenever the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows on us an abundance of blessing and wealth, we will be able to withstand the test of wealth and rule over ourselves, so that we do not come, Heaven forbid, to “Yeshurun grew fat and kicked.” That is why the holy Torah mentions the wealth of the Avos again and again: so that we may learn for ourselves from their deeds. They have already paved the road for us, and it is in our power to strengthen ourselves, to withstand this great test, and to serve Hashem even in the midst of wealth.

5aThis explains the words of our verse, “And the man grew great …” It comes to teach us the greatness of Yitzchak Avinu's holy service, for he served Hashem even in the midst of wealth, as we have said of all the Avos. The previous verse told of his great wealth: “And he reaped in that year a hundredfold, and Hashem blessed him.”¹¹ Now the Torah spells out how greatly he served Hashem with this wealth, and that is why it says, “and the man grew great.” This is like Chazal's teaching on the verse “Fortunate is the man who fears Hashem”: “Fortunate is one who repents while he is still a man.”¹² That means one who repents in his youth, while the yetzer hara is still strong against him, and so his stature is all the greater. So too here, “and the man grew great”: Yitzchak Avinu grew and rose higher in Torah and in avodah even in the midst of wealth, though the yetzer hara was arrayed in strength against him in the test of wealth. That is what “the man” means here.

5b“And he went on going, growing greater” means that even in the midst of the test of wealth he prevailed so strongly that he kept going and rising very high in avodas Hashem. The expression “he went on going” fits here, then, for the going refers to his avodas Hashem, which the Torah describes as walking: “If you will walk in My statutes.”¹³ The Targum's rendering of Yitzchak's household, “and much service,” fits as well. As we explained when we first looked at that word, it refers to avodas Hashem, since with Yitzchak Avinu the wealth itself was avodas Hashem.

6This also explains what the Baal HaTurim meant: the three expressions of greatness here correspond to the three blessings Yitzchak received at the Akeidah. Where did Yitzchak Avinu get the strength to withstand the test of wealth? He reached this level through his mesirus nefesh, his readiness to give his life, at the Akeidah, when he stretched out his neck and offered his life to Hashem. By the power of that mesirus nefesh he was able to devote his wealth, too, to avodas Hashem and to withstand the test of wealth. [That is why the three expressions of his greatness correspond to the blessings of the Akeidah.] And he planted this power in the generations to come as well, so that we too can withstand the test of wealth.

7May the Holy One, blessed be He, bestow on us an abundance of blessing, and may we be able to serve Him with it, and so bring the End of days closer, with the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid. Amen.