SPONSORED IN HONOR OF THE BIRTH OF BRADLEY DYLAN LEOPOLD BY PROUD PARENTS JENNIFER AND KEVIN LEOPOLD AND PROUD BROTHER TYLER JONATHAN LEOPOLD

In Parshat Toldot, Breisheet 26:13-15,19-20 we read "And the man (Yitzchack) grew great and went forward and grew until he became very great: for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great store of servants: and the Plishtim envied him. For all of the wells which his father's servants had dug in the day of Avraham his father, the Plishtim had stopped them up and filled them with earth.And Yitzchack's servants dug in the valley (nachal) and found there a well of springing water (be'er mayim chayim). And the herd men of Gerar did strive with Yitzchack's herd men saying .the water is ours'."

Radak asks why the jealous Philistines stopped up the wells. Why didn't they just keep the wells so that they would have water for themselves? Radak's answer is that they were worried that Yitzchak would become too powerful and that he would try to take the wells back. They would rather have no water at all than give Yitzchack the satisfaction of being able to take back the wells in the future.

Only Yitzchack's servants were able to dig in the nachal (valley with no water) and produce a well of springing water yet the Philistines were quick to claim that the water was theirs.

We have seen this phenomenon over and over again throughout the millennia. When the Jewish people lived in Israel, they made the desert bloom and when they didn't, it was a wasteland.

In 1867, Mark Twin visited the Land of Israel. His reactions are described in his famous book, Innocents Abroad.

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are un-picturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.

Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?

Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition--it is dream-land."

If only Mark Twain could have seen Israel today!