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In comparison to the other forefathers, Avraham and Yaakov, there is not a lot of narrative in the Torah that discusses the middle forefather, Yitzchak. This week’s parsha, Parshat Toldot, is the only parsha which features Yitzchak as a main character and that is only for a small portion of the parsha. It may seem difficult to learn from Yitzchak given how little we read about him, but upon delving deeper into the narratives pertaining to Yitzchak, we are clued in to his role in Avodat Hashem and are able to directly apply it to our own lives.

In Masechet Pesachim 88a, the Gemara says that Yitzchak described the future Temple as a field. A field is a flat, featureless piece of land. On the other hand, people work hard in fields in order to yield as much produce as possible. This description can help us understand how Yitzchak related to Avodat Hashem. Yitzchak focused on self-perfection.  He worked on himself and getting rid of his desires so that he would always act in accordance with the will of Hashem. Seemingly, the reason that we don’t read a lot about the events in Yitzchak’s life is that there weren’t as many ground-breaking events in his life and there were in the lives of Avraham and Yaakov.  Yitzchak wasn’t meant to teach the world about Hashem; rather his role was to work on perfecting himself and his own Avodat Hashem. This type of spiritual growth is gradual and difficult development.

     In Living Inspired, Rav Akiva Tatz explains the 3 stages of many aspects of life:

1. A person begins an endeavor
2. The inspiration wears off and we realize that it’s not as easy as we thought. We realize that we need to work hard to achive what we want
3. The final stage is when everything we worked for pays off

The 3rd stage is much more satisfying than the first because the satisfaction does not just come to you; you worked for it and earned it yourself. The Avodat Hashem of the 3 Avot pertains to the 3 stages. Avraham is the exciting beginning and Yaakov is the final stage when the hard work pays off. Yitzchak is the middle stage when the original excitement has begun to wear off and hard work is required.

Yitzchak’s relevance to our lives is that he represents the stage in our lives which isn’t necessarily filled with exciting, dramatic events; rather it involves self-development and working on ourselves. This directly relates to our experience at Midreshet Amit. The first stage of our religiosity and spirituality is our prior years of Jewish education, or can be any inspirational experience that momentarily exhilarates us. Our year at Amit represents the middle stage, exemplified by Yitzchak, of working on ourselves and trying to develop and perfect our Avodat Hashem so that the inspiration is earned through hard work and becomes a genuine and lasting part of who we are.