Now, if we had to give an answer in one sentence we’d say that Avraham and Yitzchok were tasked with founding the ideology of the nation. This we know from the teaching of the Rambam. At the beginning of Hilchos Avodah Zarah, in the Yad Hachazakah, the Rambam describes the career of Avraham Avinu. It was a career of a philosopher, of a man who spent his life in thinking. Avraham studied the world, and from nature and from history, from the physical world, he discovered Hashem and the principles of living according to His will. Avraham spent his time in meditation. Our great forefather used his head all the days of his life to ponder, to reflect, to contemplate and to think. That was his career.
And he lectured too. He spoke to his guests and also he called together people and held public lectures, speaking about all the great verities, the truths of the world. And that made his mind even greater. Like the Mishnah says, by teaching others, the teacher himself gains most. Wherever he went, he was constantly explaining, convincing. He had to argue with people who were not convinced, and he had to bring examples to them, facts of nature and from history, and gradually he built up a great system of all of the basic ideals and principles, the foundational hashkafa of the Am Yisroel was developed in his great mind.
Avraham Avinu started many beautiful things that we live with because of him. He introduced many beautiful things into the bloodstream of our nation, only that today we don't recognize where it came from anymore. Actually, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave the Torah, to a big extent, He was corroborating what Avraham had already said, many principles that he put into practice already.
Like Father, Like Son
Now we know that Yitzchak followed in his father's footsteps. He continued his father's system and he became very great by means of the opportunity that wealth offered him. If you remember that possuk when Rivkah was coming from Padan Aram to be married to Yitzchak and she saw a man walking in the field – Yitzchak went out to speak in the fields. It’s a mysterious possuk—‘Yitzchak went out to speak in the fields.’ You might think he went out to spend a little time with his friends, talking things over, chatting. No, no. Yitzchak didn't chat.
Now, the Gemara (Brachos 26b) learns from this that he was the one who instituted tefillas Minchah. But it doesn’t mean only Minchah—he didn't go out merely to chap arein ah Minchah. Yitzchak was ‘talking in the field’, but it was a purposeful talking; he was talking to Hashem, or talking to himself, or talking to his talmidim.
Not that one day; that was his practice all the time. He went out in the fields and he meditated and spoke every day. And he was able to do it because he didn't have to work. Yitzchak was wealthier than his father Avraham, and so he spent his life in meditation, in talking. Of course, it wasn’t easy. It was work too. You know, if we went out to the fields to meditate on Hashem, on Torah principles, so someone would find us sleeping in the grass, snoring away. But these two men had great minds, and they had the wealth that afforded them the opportunity to use their minds to the fullest.
Money is Time
And so, wealth, for these two great men, was an opportunity. Because the Gemara says a poor man is like a meis (Avodah Zarah 5a). A poor man is a slave. He has to sweat to earn his bread. He comes home dead tired at night, and he falls into bed out of his weariness. He doesn't have a head to think about things. But men who are blessed with leisure—wealth gives leisure—they can accomplish great things in their minds.
Like the Chafetz Chaim used to say, he said, “You Americans say time is money, but we say: money is time.” Money means time— a wealthy person has time, and if he’s wise, he's able to make use of it.
And that's what Avraham and Yitzchak did—they spent their lives thinking, meditating and discussing.
And Hakadosh Baruch Hu blessed them with the opportunity to continue that way all the days of their lives because that’s what He wanted from them. That’s why Avraham and Yitzchak, as their lives progressed, they became wealthier and wealthier. They had even more time than before, and with that time, they were able to ponder and think and study and thereby establish the ideals and principles that became the foundation of our nation.
