I couldn’t help but think of the politics of resentment in connection with the week’s Torah portion (תולדות). As Robert Alter comments: “the spiteful act of the Philistines in blocking up the wells [that Abraham dug] expresses a feeling that if we can’t have the water, nobody should.” That feeling seems to imbue contemporary politics in Wisconsin, the nation, and maybe the world. Alter adds: “at the end, Isaac’s workers discover a new, undisputed well and call it Rehoboth, which means ‘open spaces.’ We are being prepared for the story in which only one of the two brothers [Esau and Jacob] can get the real blessing, in which there will be bitter jealousy and resentment; and which in the long run will end with room enough for the two brothers to live peaceably in the same land.” Let’s hope the story prefigures open spaces for us all.
