Fear and Love: Sowing Light, Breaking Judgment

3“And these are the generations of Yitzchak …” can also be read as fear and love, each born of the other. We begin with the verse “Yitzchak sowed in that land, and in that year he found a hundredfold,” me'ah she'arim;¹ she'arim also means “gates.” We may say the hint is this. The tzaddik's service is always to raise up the holy Shechinah, the last hei (ה) of Hashem's four-letter Name. Rashi hints at this in his words “this estimate was for tithing”:² the estimate Yitzchak made was of himself, reckoning himself as the tithe, that is, as terumah, for Scripture calls terumah a tithe, as is found in several places. And terumah (תרומה) is terum hei (תרום ה), “raise up the hei”: in making himself terumah, he raised up the Shechinah. The main service of Hashem is through love and fear, and terumah hints at this too, read as trei mi-me'ah (תרי ממאה), “two from a hundred”:³ the two, love and fear, in the hundred blessings. For a person must recite a hundred blessings every day,⁴ with love and with fear. In the tzaddik this is called “sowing”: through love and fear a great light is sown in him, as in “Light is sown for the tzaddik.”⁵ Through this the hundred gates are found of themselves: with each blessing he recites, he opens one of the hundred upper gates, which are called “a hundred berachos (ברכות), blessings,” meaning the upper bereichos (בריכות), pools. That is “Yitzchak sowed” with love and fear, “and he found a hundredfold,” me'ah she'arim: a hundred gates.

4We know that there is a fear that comes before love, for love comes out of fear; and there is a higher fear that comes out of love. This is the hint in “These are the generations of Yitzchak”: fear, through which a “son of Avraham,” love, is born. And there is fear that comes out of love; at this “Avraham,” love, “begot Yitzchak,” fear, hints. This is what Rashi means by “Yaakov and Esav, who are spoken of in this parshah.” He is answering the question, what difference does this make? The difference, Rashi tells us, is that fear and love arouse rachamim, compassion, and break the harsh judgments: “Yaakov” hints at compassion and “Esav” at harsh judgments. The verse “Afterward his brother came out, his hand grasping the heel of Esav”⁶ hints at this too. At times the nations grow strong, Heaven forbid, and want to harm Israel, and the harm looks all but ready to come. But it is not so. When the matter reaches its end and is about to be completed, the power of the tzaddik comes out and takes hold of its end, so that it does not come at all. That is “and his hand,” his power, “grasping the heel,” the end, “of Esav,” who is about to complete the matter. Then the tzaddik holds on and does not let go, and great compassion is aroused for Israel. Amen.