Parshat Chayei Sarah opens with the passing of Sarah. This loss, following the akedah, must have left Yitzchak feeling drained and broken. Perhaps this helps explain his passivity in finding a wife. The question, then, is how Yitzchak found the strength to rebuild and move forward.

Significantly, many key moments in Yitzchak’s life unfold at a be’er — a well. In the first scene, Yitzchak is absent, but his proxy Eliezer travels to Aram Naharayim in search of a wife for him. Eliezer stops at the be’er ha-mayim, where the women draw water, and there he prays for divine guidance and encounters Rivka. The midrash notes that wells are meeting places of biblical couples, symbolizing new beginnings, healing, and hope.

Later, when Rivka journeys to Abraham’s home, she meets Yitzchak as he is coming from Be’er Lachai Ro’i — the place where Hagar, after being banished, prayed to God and found sustenance. The midrash teaches that Yitzchak was there to bring back Hagar (aka Keturah) to Abraham after Sarah’s death. Once again, the well represents restoration and renewal.

Wells appear again when Yitzchak re-digs the wells of Abraham that had been stopped up by the Philistines. The Sefat Emet interprets these wells as symbols of spiritual life — channels of divine blessing that the avot brought into the world. In reopening them, Yitzchak becomes a model of spiritual resilience, drawing strength from his parents’ legacy and renewing it for future generations.

Israel is thankfully emerging from a time of loss, exhaustion, and uncertainty. It is time for us, too, to uncover our own “wells” — sources of faith, strength, and hope — to find renewal, healing, and resilience once more. Shabbat Shalom -Karen Miller Jackson