Jacob takes Esau’s blessing. Esau threatens to kill him. Jacob flees and goes into hiding for 20 years, narrowly escaping with his life. That’s the story we all know. But here’s the kicker: it’s not entirely true. And the proof is in the verses of the Torah itself.

Join Beth Lesch as she dives into Parshat Toldot and unearths an untold story about Jacob and Esau.

Click here to read Beth’s blog post on the deeper story behind Esau's wives!

At the opening of Parshat Toldot, the Torah uses a bizarre turn of phrase: “And these are the offspring of Isaac, the son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac.” What?? That’s not the generations of Isaac!

So what do we do when we encounter a verse in the Torah which seems to belie logic – and grammar to boot? Do we put our heads down and keep reading? Not at Aleph Beta.

Join Rabbi Fohrman as he digs deep and searches throughout the Torah to uncover what this phrase “These are the offspring of” (in Hebrew: “Eleh toldot”) really means – and what it teaches us about the legacy of our forefather Isaac.

At face value, Parshat Toldot focuses on a conversation between Isaac and his sons Esau and Jacob, in which Isaac blesses them and passes on the family heritage – and in which we have the famous story of Isaac blessing Jacob instead of Esau.

But hidden within that conversation is a reference to another, earlier conversation – arguably the most painful, incomprehensible conversation in the entire Torah. What story is being echoed here in our parsha? And what is the Torah trying to teach us by linking us back to this most difficult of biblical stories?

This week’s parsha contains the only story in the Torah when the patriarch Isaac takes center stage. No, it’s not the Akeidah (that was mostly about Abraham), and it’s not the story about the blessing of the firstborn (that story is really about Jacob and Esav).

It’s the time Isaac goes around digging wells! Three of them to be exact! Huh? This is the illustrious legacy of our great forefather Isaac? He dug a bunch of wells?

Why does the Torah waste its time telling us about this story? We know so much about Abraham and Jacob, you’d think that Isaac has more to teach us than how to find underground water sources. But what if the story of the wells is actually teaching us something fundamental about Isaac’s legacy?

Join Imu Shalev and David Block as they show us the deeper meaning behind the story of Isaac's wells. The challenges of wealth and success, and of living out God’s blessing are all wrapped up in this seemingly mundane character depiction of Isaac the well-digger.