Parsha Blog

The First FFB

November 30th, 2005 by Yaakov Ellis

ADDeRabbi protrays Yitzchak Avinu as the first Frum From Birth Jew.

He makes an interesting point about the difference between Yitzchak (FFB) and Rivka (comes from a non-Orthodox home). Chazal portray them as Tzaddik-ben-Tzaddik (Yitzchak, who was righteous was the son of Avraham who was also righteous) and Tzadik-bat-Rasha (Rivka, who was righteous was the daughter of the wicked Betu’el). It is for this reason that Yitzchak’s prayers are answered (and not Rivka’s). One might have thought that this is a pretty shvach reason for the prayers of one person to be “better” than the prayers of another. Don’t our prayers depend on who we are and our kavana, not on our yichus?

ADDeRabbi points out that “It’s no small matter for a person to become a ‘tzaddik ben tzaddik’.” This very process of becoming a tzaddik when one is expected to be one, and is always in the shadow of another tzaddik is very difficult.

…interior growth with no external manifestation is very, very, difficult to affect and engenders constant insecurity with one’s own religious state. The verb ‘to pray’, in Hebrew, is reflexive. Jewish tradition has understood prayer as a process of self-discovery and self-judgment. The prayer of a tzaddik ben tzaddik is indeed a potent prayer.

Thus, for Yitzchak to become an actual tzaddik was itself a journey of self-improvement, one that enabled him to end up on a higher level than his wife. It is not the mere fact that Yitzchak was a tzaddik-ben-tzaddik that enabled his prayers to be answered. It was what it had taken to reach that point.