“True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am… Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”
That comes from Edgar Allen Poe’s classic story, The Tell-Tale Heart, a story we will return to shortly in order to understand the parsha. However, let us begin with our own history, when Avimelech, king of the Plishtim, sought a peace treaty with the man he had driven away: Yitzchak.
Yitzchak said to them, “Why have you come to me when you hate me and have cast me out from you?”
They said, “We have seen clearly that Hashem has been with you, so we said, ‘Please, let there be an oath between us, between us and you, and let us make a treaty with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you only good, and sent you away in peace.’ You, now, are blessed of Hashem” (Bereishit 26:27-29).
Yitzchak’s question is a good one. Why, indeed, do the Plishtim suddenly seek a treaty with him? After all, they asked him to leave, and then, when he actually did, they fought with him over the wells he had found. So why the change of heart?
Furthermore, Avimelech’s answer does not give us much information. We know Hashem has blessed Yitzchak but it feels almost like a boilerplate introduction to a contract. What did Yitzchak perceive in this answer that made him want to make peace?
Now we return to Poe’s classic story, The Tell-Tale Heart. You may recall how it goes: the narrator sets out to kill a kindly old man because of his evil looking eye. After the murder, he dismembers the old man and places his body parts underneath the floor boards without leaving a trace. However, the old man had screamed from terror, and the police were called. Having taken every precaution, there was nothing for the narrator to fear from them and he invited them in calmly. Yet, there was one problem. The heart of the old man was beating, beating so loudly that everyone could hear it. The jig was up.
“Oh [G-d]! what could I do? I foamed – I raved – I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder – louder – louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty [G-d]! – No, no! They heard! – They suspected! – They knew! – They were making a mockery of my horror! – This I thought, and this I think… I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!…
“Villains!” I shrieked, “Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – Tear up the planks! – Here, here! – It is the beating of his hideous heart!”
Of course, the heart was beating only in the narrator’s mind. His guilt had undone him; his fear of comeuppance had trapped him and made him reveal his crime.
Indeed, this appears to be what is going on in our own story in the parsha.
As Ramban writes:
The reason for (the Plishtim) being fearful of Yitzchak could hardly have been the apprehension of the king of the Plishtim lest Yitzchak come to war against him. Instead, it was because Avraham had promised them a covenant, “to him, to his son, and his son’s son,” and now they thought, “Since we annulled our covenant with Yitzchak and sent him away from us, he too will annul his covenant with us, and his children will drive our children from the land.”
In other words, the Plishtim did not treat Yitzchak well. They had violated their treaty with Avraham, and stole from him when they claimed the wells that his servants had uncovered. And they feared a comeuppance from the man who clearly had Hashem with him. No matter what they did, Yitzchak succeeded. At a certain point, this began to look supernatural. How was he so successful, no matter what abuse he faced? Perhaps, Avimelech thought, we ought to be afraid of the fact that we violated our treaty with him. Perhaps we have made ourselves vulnerable by weakening the very thing that protected us, our treaty with Avraham.
And so, all Yitzchak needed to hear was that they had “seen clearly that Hashem has been with you.” They had revealed their fear. Yitzchak was too successful and too unencumbered by the treaty they had violated. As Ramban says, “This was why they made a new covenant with him, excusing themselves by telling him that they did not annul the first covenant, since they have done him nothing but good.”
A lesson here appears on a national level, where we see that we will get further through strength and success than through patience for abuse. But how to apply such thinking is best left to strategists and political thinkers. For us, we must dwell on a different question: what happens to us when we violate the terms of our deal with G-d and humanity?
What happens when we are dishonest, disloyal, disrespectful? Should we not fear that the treaties that protect us will not be held to? Avimelech should not have sinned against Yitzchak, to be sure. But he wasn’t a fool and he was right to fear that one day, unfettered by their covenant, Yitzchak or his descendants might make war on him.
And so, we must consider how this applies in our lives. Do we treat people in a manner that invites respect, cordial reasoning and disagreement? Are we loyal and kind to our friends, neighbors, and community members? Do we invite guests to our shabbat table, get involved in shul leadership, show up to services and programs that keep the community going? Because if we do not do these things, we might worry that we will not receive the many benefits that come from being a part of a loving community.
In all of our relationships, we have a treaty. With G-d and the Jewish people, in fact, it is a covenant, a treaty of love built upon a shared vision and goals. Yet, it is not bad to think of it in simple and pragmatic terms from time to time. We wish for G-d’s Divine providence and for our friends and neighbors to treat us well. And in order to bring this upon ourselves, we must give them every reason to think well of us and to feel gratitude or happiness when reflecting upon our good character and actions.