Shake It Off

When the Torah discusses how Yitzchak Avinu went about finding the wells that his father Avraham had dug, it goes into great detail about each obstacle he encountered until he eventually found the wells. The Torah describes how Yitzchak and his servants came, looked, went to another place, searched again, and kept digging and digging until they were successful. Why are all of these details necessary? What is so important about the wells and their re-discovery?

The Chafetz Chaim points out that there is great significance in all of the details of the Torah’s narrative and important messages to be learned. We are taught that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים (see Midrash, Bereishis Rabbah 48:7 and 70:6; Ramban to Bereishis 12:6). This means that whatever happened to our Forefathers contains a timeless message for all generations to follow. Yitzchak Avinu was looking for the wells that his father had dug and he was not willing to give up. Despite countless failed attempts to find the wells, he was determined to continue searching and digging, until eventually he succeeded and drank from the wells that his father had dug. The willpower that Yitzchak displayed is a midah that we can all benefit from in our lives.

Sometimes we try to achieve or accomplish something but we do not succeed right away. The Torah is teaching us not to give up but to keep trying, and to stick to our resolve to see it through to success despite the challenges and obstacles.

There was a farmer who had an old donkey that unfortunately fell into one of his wells. The farmer looked down into the well trying to figure out how he could rescue his donkey. After pondering the matter for a few minutes, he realized that it would take a tremendous amount of money and effort to save the donkey, and decided that it simply wasn’t worth it. It was an old donkey and the well needed to be covered anyway, he reasoned. He called his neighbors to help him fill the well with dirt and cover the well.

As they began working, the donkey – aware that they were in fact putting him in his grave – started to cry. Eventually the donkey went silent. A few shovelfuls of dirt later, the farmer decided to look into the well. He leaned over the side of the well and was astonished at the sight he saw. The donkey was shaking off each shovelful of dirt that landed on it, causing the floor of the well to get higher and higher, and the donkey was stepping up onto each new floor level. The neighbors watched in amazement as the donkey elevated himself with every layer of dirt that was thrown into the well, until it managed to step up out of the well.

Life throws upon us a lot of dirt, and the trick is not to get buried by it, but rather to use it to step higher and higher. We can get out of the deepest wells of overwhelm, despair, or depletion by transforming the dirt into a strategy for elevation and success. If we are determined not to give up, and we remember that whatever comes our way, we must shake it off and step up, we will eventually be successful.