A marriage of 2 Extremes

B"H

In this week's Torah Portion, Chayei Sarah, we come across a very perplexing thing.
The portion's content centers around the events leading to the marriage of our great grand-parents, Yitzchak (Issac) and Rivkah (Rebecca).
We are told in great detail and at great length, how Avraham's servant Eliezer travels to Rivkah's town and finds her. Then Rivkah shows great kindness in watering his camels and shows the sterling character necessary as a mate
for the holy Yitzchak.
Then, when he reaches the home of Rivkah's family, the ENTIRE episode is re-told to us in the Torah, as Eliezer explains the miraculous events that led to his finding Rivkah. This saga ends as Rivkah agrees to marry Yitzchak and comes with Eliezer. Rivkah and Yitzchak then embark on their special lives of purity and spreading of good, and in the ultimate creation of the beginnings of the Jewish people. Why is this so strange? It's strange because the Torah never wastes words. Every word is learned from & pored over by our sages. To teach us critical laws and Mitzvot about how we are to live our lives for all generations,
the Torah generally suffices with very few words. Sometimes it suffices with mere hints! Yet we find with Yitzchak and Rivkah's match and subsequent marriage, pages and pages of information, with the event told to us a 2nd time! Why was this so necessary and important to write at such length? The Torah could have just written: "And Yitzchak married Rivkah" - or at least something shorter then what we have.
The inner dimension of the Torah explains to us what's really going on here.
Before his marriage, Yitzchak had reached an amazing degree of spiritual perfection. He was the 1st Jew to have a circumcision at 8 days, was then guided & educated by his father Avraham. He later showed an eagerness to sacrifice his Life for G-d, from which point he attained an extremely elevated level and was considered as a blemish less being.

Rivkah, on the other hand, is called in the mystical writings: "A rose among the thorns."
She was born in a wicked, idolatrous family, far removed from Issac's pure upbringing.


THUS, the union of Yitzchak & Rivkah was a meeting of extremes. It is for this very reason that the Torah goes to such lengths to focus on and expound the events leading to their coming together. For Torah is a guide to uniting extremes. Whenever a mitzvah is fulfilled, a mundane physical object becomes infused with G-dliness. The marriage of Yitzchak & Rivkah thus represents the marriage of the physical and the spiritual.

May well have a great Shabbat, and continue to try and learn from Yitzchak and Rivkah, to infuse all that we come in contact with, with holiness and good. From saying a blessing on food, to smiling and complimenting a postal worker, we can all change the world and transform it into heaven on earth, uniting the two extremes into a beautiful harmony.

Shabbat Shalom!

-Daniel
Jerusalem, Israel