Yitzchak is a man who is facing twilight – he is meditating in the face of uncertainty. Unlike Eliezer, he does not know what answer he wants. He does not even have a stated question; no words are spelled out in the text.
Then he lifts his eyes, seeking an answer. And he sees Rivka.
The answer reveals his question.
Rivka will move into his mother’s tent, become his wife and comfort him. Theirs will be the first marriage of love in Torah. She will animate him. Yitzchak, unmoored from this world by the Akeidah, will find a connection to it.
For the second time, he will be rescued from destruction.
Finally, when Avraham dies, Hashem blesses Yitzchak. Finally, after all of this, Hashem reenters the narrative.
This reading shows us how, in a world without Hashem’s explicit hand, we bring him into our lives?
We can honor the cultivation of mankind’s connection to Him, as Avraham did with the burial of Sarah.
We can fear Him by submitting our future to His will, as Avraham does in tasking Eliezer.
We can invoke Him and declare His place, as Eliezer does in Aram.
We can refuse to be motivated by greed, unlike Lavan on seeing the rings and bracelets on his sister’s hands.
We can protect others, and do so eagerly and with our own personal effort, as with Rivka.
And we can submit our deepest needs to His salvation, as Yitzchak does in the face of twilight.
These are the middot by which the Jewish people reinforce the place of Hashem in our lives.
These are middot that can lead us to blessings of the Almighty.
