Bringing Down Blessing: The Awakening from Below

5“Yitzchak entreated …” It seems to me that these three, children, life and sustenance, need an awakening from below, a first move made by man: the tzaddik must turn his mind to them as needs of the world, and through this he can bring them down. Without an awakening from below they cannot be brought down, even if he is a tzaddik in all his thoughts and in his holiness to Hashem. Rather, the tzaddik must come down a little from his level and think of them as the world's needs; then they flow down to the world. That is what Chazal said: “Children, life and sustenance do not depend on zechusa, merit.”¹ Here zechusa (זכותא) is zakus, purity, written with the same letters: these things do not depend on a person's purity and clarity alone. They depend on mazla, which is the same word as yizal, “flows,” in “Water shall flow from his buckets”:² on the tzaddik who draws down the flow of blessing, who gives his mind and thought to make children, life and sustenance flow and to draw them down. Mazla (מזלא) has the numerical value of lechem (לחם), bread, which is sustenance,³ and the letters of lechem spell melach (מלח), salt. That is “With all your offerings you shall offer salt.”⁴ The verse says “with all your offerings,” al kol korbancha: with all that you bring the upper worlds near (mekarev) through your righteousness and holiness, with all this, “takriv, offer, salt”: give your mind to bring near and bring down lechem, bread, which is sustenance.

6All the thoughts of Yitzchak Avinu were holy, wholly for Hashem: for the praise and glory of Hashem, blessed be He. With tzaddikim, even the prayer (tefillah) they pray is called praise (tehillah). It never entered his mind to pray for offspring in the world in the way we described, as a need of the world; all his aims and prayers were for Hashem alone. That is “Yitzchak entreated Hashem lenochach, opposite, his wife”: this was opposed to the thought of “his wife,” who did think with that intention, that offspring are a need of the world. And that is “for she was barren”: it was she, the barren one, who held this thought in mind. “And Hashem let Himself be entreated by him”: Hashem turned Yitzchak's will from his first intention to the intention we described. Vayei'aser, “let Himself be entreated,” is the same word as the eser (עתר), the pitchfork, of Chazal's saying: “Why are the tzaddikim likened to an eser? Just as the pitchfork turns over the grain on the threshing floor …”⁵ So eser speaks of turning over: Hashem Himself forms the will in the tzaddik. That is “He will do the will of those who fear Him”:⁶ where the plain sense is that He fulfills their will, here it means that He forms the will in those who fear Him. Then, when Hashem had turned Yitzchak's will so that his intention would be for offspring, “Rivkah his wife conceived”: now he came to know of his wife's conceiving. Before, he had known nothing of the matter at all, for he cleaved to Hashem entirely.

7a“The children struggled within her, and she said, ‘If so, why am I (anochi)?’”⁷ Rivkah knew that her children would receive the holy Torah. And she saw, as Chazal expounded, that when she passed the doorway of a beis haknesses, a house of prayer, Yaakov strained to come out, and at the doorway of a house of idolatry Esav strained to come out.⁸ She did not know that she had two babies in her womb; she thought it was one, who grew strong at times for good and at times for bad. She was pained and said, “If so”: if this is how my child will be, and if, Heaven forbid, when they receive the holy Torah there will be a mixture of good and bad in them, “why anochi”: why do I need the receiving of the Torah, which opens with Anochi, “I am Hashem”?⁹ For the holy Torah must be wholly in holiness, with no mixture at all.

7b“And she went to seek Hashem.” The Gemara says, “A child's talk is either his father's or his mother's,”¹⁰ because the parents are partners in him, and each puts his own share into him according to his nature and his level. Rivkah laid the fault on herself, thinking she was the cause. So “she went to seek Hashem,” to repair her share so that the child would be wholly good, for Hashem. “And Hashem said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb’”:¹¹ one will turn to his wickedness, and the other, wholly, to his righteousness.

8This is the meaning of “Satisfy us in the morning with Your kindness.”¹² Boker (בקר), “morning,” is the same word as bikur, examination. A korban had to be examined beforehand¹³ so that there would be an awakening from below. For the root of the korban lay in great deveikus, cleaving to Hashem, in lofty holy intentions, and the examination was there for the sake of the awakening from below. That is what Dovid HaMelech prayed in “Satisfy us in the morning …” A person must think about the needs of the world and bring them to mind; this is the bikur, the examination, of the kindnesses that are needed, for the sake of the awakening from below. Dovid's prayer was: do this will Yourself, as in “He will do the will of those who fear Him”; let the will not come from us, and let us only cleave to You. “And we will sing and rejoice all our days”: the tzaddik who truly serves Hashem repairs another world every single day, and no day is like another. That is “Avraham was old, coming into days”:¹⁴ he had many days, for each time he rose and repaired a world higher than the one before. And that is “and we will sing and rejoice all our days”: when we cleave to You with a good cleaving, then “we will sing and rejoice all our days.” Understand this.