Inside Jokes

Yitzchak is Davening in the field. Rivka sees him and immidiately covers herself up. The Torah says Yitzchak was coming towards Rivkah. In the middle of Tefilas Mincha? Not "Frum"!!! If he's davening how can he be walking towards her?

What's really happening here?

Of all of the Avos, Yitzchak is the most enigmatic. He doesn't speak much, and represents a concept of quiet strength and holiness. Yitzchak is the Pillar of Truth that keeps us tied to Eretz Yisrael, as he was forbidden to leave. Yitzchak's relationship with Hashem isn't really detailed in the Torah as much as his Avraham Avinu or Yaacov Avinu's.

Yitzchak Avinu's essense is from "ותצחק שרה בקרבה". It is from this place of inner laughter. Like an inside joke between close frends. A hidden laughter that isn't for everyone. Like the way the Chosson and Kallah look at eachother at the Badekin, before she is covered over. The covering of the Kallah's face is a statement to the world that what these two share together, is unknowable by anyone else, and that only they can see the "covered" parts of eachother.

Yitzchak has a life of private jokes with Hashem. His blindness wasn't a physical blindness. It was a state of not seeing the revealed things in this world, only the hidden secrets.

This is how Yitzchak served Hashem. He could be in the deepest state of Dveykus and connection to Hashem, and it might appear to others as if he was taking a casual stroll in the fields. Everything was hidden. So was the Love between Yitzchak and Rivkah. They connected on the level of secrets. Their connection transcended anything external, therefore they married at an age when no children could be produced. This meant that they were connected to eachother's "secrets" not to the productive capability of the other.

Looking at her soulmate, Rivkah covers herself up as a matter of keeping the secrets between husband and wife. She is the only one connecting to Yitzchak's secrets and covers herself to conceal their deep connections. This is why Rivka was able to bring back the Holiness of Sarah Immeinu into the Tent of Yitzchak. Sarah Immeinu gave rise to the "Inside Laughter" which was Yitzchak's essense. Rivka Immeinu entered into that world of "secrets" together with Yitzchak and brought back the Neiros, Challah, and Cloud cover into the Tent.

This is how Yitzchak knows that it's really Yaacov under the garments of Eisav in Parshas Toldos. It says "הן ריח בני כריח השדה". (my son smells of the field). The Ozerover Rebbe teaches that Yitzchak's prayers in the field, when he first met Rivkah, The davening that was an expression of his inner secrets with Hashem, was actually a prayer for Yaacov Avinu. He Davened that he should have a child who also had secrets with Hashem. With Eisav, everything was "בפיו" (revealed). Yaacov was hidden in Shem V'Ever.

Therefore when Yaacov walks into his father, "wrapped" in Eisav's clothing, his essense hidden, Yitzchak smells the smell of the "prayer of the Field" "the prayer for secrets" from the fact that Yaacov has come in a way that concealed his true identity, by way of secrets.

My we all be blessed to recieve the brachos in secret, and share them with the people that really understand who we are.

May it be a shabbos of "inside laughter" and a restoration of the Lights in all of our tents.