What About A Back-Up Plan

What About A Back-Up Plan?

The pasuk tells us that Avraham sent his trusted servant Eliezer to Avraham’s own ancestral home to find a wife for Yitzchak. Avraham instructed Eliezer that “...Under no circumstances are you allowed to take a wife for Yitzchak from the daughters of Canaan...” (Bereishis 24:3).

However, Eliezer raised a logical question: What should he do if the girl does not want to follow him back to Canaan? Eliezer inquired whether in that case, he should take Yitzchak to Paddan Aram. Avraham’s reply was “No. Even if she does not want to come here, Yitzchak cannot go there.”

The question arises; if Yitzchak could not go to Padan Aram and could not marry a girl from Canaan, then what option would Yitzchak have if the girl refused to follow Eliezer to Canaan? How would Yitzchak get married?

We can understand Avraham’s preference that the girl should come to Yitzchak. But what about a back-up plan? What about planning for a “worst case scenario” – in case she refused to come? What would have been with the Jewish people? What would have happened if Yitzchak did not have a wife and children?

Avraham’s response teaches us an attitude and outlook (hashkafa) towards life. If something cannot be done the way that it is supposed to be done, then it should not be done at all. We have an obligation to live our lives based on Torah.

“What is going to be? I do not know what is going to be. I have to do what I know is right; the rest is G-d’s responsibility.”

It is this outlook which we see with Avraham, and which we have seen throughout the ages from the Gedolei Yisrael. We do not compromise. We do not bend the rules. If something cannot be done the way it should be done, then we just do not do it! The question “but what will happen now?” — is not our problem.

The Netziv, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Volozhiner Yeshiva — the grandfather of all Yeshivas, provided a classic example of this concept.