Stories of Isaac and Rebekah

from Genesis 25-26

This is the story of Yitzak (Isaac)
Son of Avraham and Sarah

At 40 Yitzak marries Rebekah
Yitzak pleads with God on the behalf of his wife
Yah (God) responds and Rebekah conceives
Pleading to God for another is often effective

During the pain of her pregnancy
Rebekah asks, “Why do I exist?”
This is a useful investigation and meditation for us each

Yah replies: Two nations are in your womb
Two peoples apart while in your body
Our selflessness and our selfishness

Let the elder serve the younger
And let the younger thus learn and serve the elders

Twins are born, Esau and Yakov (Jacob)
The boys grow up. Esau becomes a skillful hunter
And an outdoorsman. Yakov is mild and stays in the camp

There’s famine in the land Famine: a code and sign for
Going down into the dangers and blessings of this material plane

God appears to Yitzak and says:
Stay in the land I show you. Reside in this land
I will be with you and bless you

Yitzak stays in Gerar. When men ask him about his wife
He says, she’s my sister, thinking: the men might kill me
On account of Rebekah because she’s beautiful
Beauty, alas, stirs up covetousness

Yitzak sows in the land and reaps a hundred fold
Yah blesses him. “The man grows richer and richer”
(Mantra) Until he’s very wealthy

One hundred, the power symbol K’uf on the tree of life
A pathway between the kingdom and the glory

The Philistines stop up all the wells
Dug by Avraham’s servants filling them with earth

Abimelech says: Go away from us
For you have become far too big for us
Wealth, alas, stirs up envy

Yitzak departs from there, encamps and settles
In the valley. He digs wells anew
His servants find a well of spring water

For all us water babies, water is life itself and in arid lands
Water is nearly invaluable and therefore also a symbol
Of the dharma, the eternal wisdom that brings immortality

Local herdsmen quarrel with him saying
That water is ours. He calls that well Esek, contention

They dig another well and there is dispute over that also
He calls this well Sitnah, enmity

He moves from there, digs another well
There is no quarrelling. He calls it Rehoveth, spaciousness

Saying, “Yah grants us ample space to increase the land”
This too is a mantra. All these places are also within us
We have to dig deeper and deeper to reach the wide open place

Yitzak goes to Beer-sheva (the well of seven)
Yah appears to him that night saying

I am the God of your father and mother
“Be fearless; I'm with you and I'm blessing you” (a mantra)

These people and places are parts of us, including the quality
In each of us that can actually see and hear the Absolute

Yitzak builds an altar there and invokes God’s name
God's essence is in God's name

There too he pitches his tent
We too can pitch our tents at the altar of conscious devotion