My parents lost family in the Shoah and smuggled Jewish books and Tefillin into the Soviet Union. As a Rabbi, my father spoke about hatred of Jews and what the fight demanded of us. When I was ordained as a Rabbi, I remember thinking – that was part of my father’s task. Thank God it won’t be part of mine.

How naïve I was. As I read the portion for this week, Toldoth, I realized that my father had given me the essential tool to meet the challenges we face. That character trait is exemplified by Isaac in his own life.

In Genesis 26:28, we are told that Isaac redug the wells that his father had dug, because the Philistines had stopped them up. Yet once was not enough – the first two times Isaac dug wells others came and fought him over their possession until he finally dug a third well that proved successful. Isaac renewed the achievements of the past and added his own.

My father once wrote a letter to all four of us (I am one of four boys) telling us that over the course of his life, the single quality he believed was essential was stamina. Struggling once, succeeding once, creating once – it was not enough in life. You had to do it over and over again.

Right now, we are in a war. As we saw on Tuesday, people are mobilized in ways that would have seemed impossible just a month ago. But this war will end and then it will be time to redig wells, to renew all sorts of efforts, to carry on with courage and determination.

In mystical teachings, Isaac’s digging of the wells is an indication that he was seeking the depths of existence, the buried secrets of spirit. One of those secrets is that the world is still being formed and we, all of us, have a hand in creating it. Hatred is on fire across the globe and the end of the war will not end the hatred. We in the ADL together with our allies, no matter how tired we may be, must take a shovel in hand to redig the wells that our ancestors dug. To dig new wells is to produce living waters demanded yet again in a parched and needy world.