Drawing at an ancient well in Israel (1900)

This week’s parasha, Emor, has a long and detailed description of the Jewish holidays. Central among the holidays are the three pilgrimage festivals: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. All three holidays commemorate events around the time of the Exodus: Pesach, the liberation from Egypt; Shavuot, the divine revelation at Sinai; Sukkot, the “Clouds of Glory” that accompanied Israel in the Wilderness. We find an intriguing parallel between the three holidays and the three main Exodus leaders, the siblings Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. As is well-known, the Sages teach (Ta’anit 9a) that in the merit of Moshe, the Israelites were sustained by Heavenly manna; in the merit of Miriam, they received fresh, life-giving waters wherever they went; in the merit of Aaron, they had the protective Clouds of Glory. The connection between the siblings and the holidays is almost self-evident:

Miriam’s water corresponds neatly to the waters of the Exodus, both the Nile from which she helped to save baby Moshe, and the Splitting of the Sea—after which the Torah makes sure to mention that Miriam led the women in extra song. In fact, the Talmud (Sotah 12a) teaches that Miriam was the one who reunited her parents after they resolved to stop having more children following Pharaoh’s cruel decree and separated. Amram and Yocheved got back together and the result was Moshe. Miriam is the hidden hero, and without her there would be no Pesach at all. The root of her name is the same as maror, and rabbinic chronology dates the start of the Israelite slavery to the same year that she was born. (The Israelites were in Egypt for 210 years total, of which 116 were spent under oppression, and the last 86 under hard slavery. Miriam was 86 years old at the Exodus.)

Moshe corresponds to Shavuot. He is, of course, the hero of Shavuot, the one who facilitated the divine revelation at Sinai, and who then went up the mountain for forty days and forty nights to receive more Torah and bring down the Tablets. We are told that during those forty days he ate no food and drank no water (Exodus 34:28). He was entirely spiritually sustained. Those forty days of spiritual sustenance allude to the forty years of spiritual sustenance that the Israelites enjoyed through the manna. Finally, Aaron’s Clouds of Glory correspond most plainly to the Clouds of Glory of Sukkot.

We can also parallel these three to the three pillars of the Sefirot. Firstborn Miriam is the first pillar of Chessed, represented by water. Second-born Aaron is the second pillar of Gevurah, represented by fire. (As the kohen gadol, Aaron oversaw all the offerings on the altar of fire, including the seventy bulls of Sukkot.) Third-born Moshe is the central pillar of Tiferet, the Sefirah of the Torah. Similarly, Pesach at the start of the Jewish year, in the first month of Nisan, has Chessed energy; Sukkot on the opposite side of the year, in the seventh month of Tishrei, has Gevurah energy; Shavuot in the middle is Tiferet.

Stargate

The Zohar (III, 103a) on this week’s parasha adds something fascinating to the above discussion: “The well [of Miriam] is the well of Isaac”. What does this mean? Which “well of Isaac” is the Zohar talking about? The first one that might come to mind is the well of Be’er Sheva (literally, “well of seven”), and the Zohar does state in another place (III, 115a) that Be’er Sheva is the Well of Isaac. However, that Be’er Sheva well previously belonged to Abraham, who had cut a deal there, too (Genesis 21). Elsewhere, the Zohar (I, 152b) links it to all three Patriarchs. The Zohar points that there was a Be’er Sheva with Jacob also, in a more concealed way. When Jacob meets Rachel at the well, the word “well” is mentioned exactly seven (sheva) times, alluding to yet another “Be’er Sheva”! The Zohar there goes on to explain why each of the Patriarchs had to have a “Be’er Sheva moment”. Perhaps, then, the Well of Isaac refers to something else, a well unique to Isaac.

The only other specific well mentioned in reference to Isaac is Be’er Lahai Ro’i, the well named by Hagar (Genesis 16:14). After she was first expelled by Sarah, an angel appeared to Hagar at a spring or well. The angel gave a blessing, and a command for Hagar to go back to Sarah. Hagar declared that she saw God at that place, and He was El Ro’i, “the God I saw” or “the God Who saw me”. Although Be’er Lahai Ro’i originated with Hagar, the remaining two times it is mentioned in the Torah is only in relation to Isaac! While Abraham lives in Be’er Sheva, Isaac spends most of his time at Be’er Lahai Ro’i (Genesis 24:62, 25:11). There is a deep connection between Isaac and Hagar, and even the numbers prove it, as the gematria of “Hagar” (הגר) is 208, exactly equivalent to “Isaac” (יצחק)!

The first time Be’er Lahai Ro’i is mentioned, it is the place where the angel came down from Heaven and appeared to Hagar. The second time Be’er Lahai Ro’i is mentioned (Genesis 24:62), it is the first time we hear about Isaac after the Akedah. Commentaries like Ramban and Sforno say that Isaac would regularly go to that special well, Be’er Lahai Ro’i, to pray there. It appears that this well was something of a “stargate” to Heaven, a place where angels came down and prayers went up. In fact, the Tosafists (in Hadar Zekenim) comment here: “Where did Isaac come from? From the Garden of Eden”. Multiple Midrashim suggest that at the Akedah, Isaac actually went up to Heaven, and stayed there for three years, which is why the Torah makes no mention of him between the Akedah at age 37, and when he marries Rebecca at age 40. (The Torah doesn’t even say Isaac came down from Mount Moriah—only Abraham returns in Genesis 22:19!) How did Isaac come back down to Earth after three years? He returns at Be’er Lahai Ro’i, suggesting once more that this is a portal to the Heavens.

Going back to the Zohar: the Well of Isaac—that well that he used to journey back from the Heavens—is the same as the Well of Miriam. That might now explain where the water miraculously came from. If the Well of Miriam was the Well of Isaac—and the Well of Hagar where she got water and was saved—we can posit that the water was channeled directly from Above. Just like the manna came for the Israelites from Heaven, so did their water! We mustn’t forget that “Heaven” is shamayim (שמים), literally “water-there” (שם-מים). While we are used to thinking of water as an earthly substance, it is actually a spiritual substance which exists in far more abundance Above, as we are told on Day Two of Creation. Psalms 104:3 adds hamekareh ba’mayim aliyotav, that God established the upper worlds in water. And when Rabbi Akiva leads his colleagues to Pardes (Chagigah 14b), he warns them not to be shocked by the water they will see (as explored in depth in Secrets of the Last Waters, and this shiur). The Arizal (in Sha’ar haMitzvot on Ekev) goes even further in explaining that all souls emerge from the upper waters, which is the secret meaning of the boreh nefashot blessing (see here for lots more on this). Those same special upper waters were channeled below into this world, through Miriam’s Well, to sustain the Israelites in the Wilderness, both physically and spiritually. And that would explain why the Zohar says Miriam’s Well is Isaac’s Well. It’s the same portal, the same stargate, linking the Heavens to the Earth.

Happy Lag b’Omer!

Lag b’Omer Learning Resources:
Hidden History of Lag b’Omer
Log and Omer: Measuring Yourself
Secret Origins of Lag b’Omer (Video)
When Rashbi Threatened Rabbi Akiva
Mysteries of Fire