In the wake of Sarah’s death, Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac. Torah has already foreshadowed Rebecca’s arrival at the end of Genesis 22, intertwining the announcement of her birth with Isaac’s survival of the Binding. But how will the servant recognize Isaac’s b’sheret? Standing beside a well, he prays: “Let the young woman to whom I say, ‘Please offer your jar that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one You have chosen for Isaac” (Genesis 24:14).
Almost immediately, Rebecca appears and does precisely that. Her extraordinary generosity—g’milut chasadim, acts of loving-kindness beyond the call of duty—reveals her character. The servant knows he has found Isaac’s b’sheret. He presents her with two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels and a gold nose ring weighing half a shekel.
But the rabbis ask: Why these particular gifts? Why specify their weights?
The midrash teaches that the two bracelets symbolize the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, their ten shekels representing the ten commandments themselves. The nose ring, weighing half a shekel, foreshadows the half-shekel contribution each Israelite would make toward the sacred service of the Mishkan.
And here is the beauty of the teaching: Rebecca already possesses g’milut chasadim. What the servant offers her, symbolically, are the other two pillars upon which the world stands: Torah and Avodah.
Al shlosha d’varim ha’olam omed: al haTorah, v’al haAvodah, v’al g’milut chasadim.
The world stands upon three things: Torah, worship, and acts of loving-kindness.
Rebecca arrives with one. The gifts symbolize the other two. Together, they represent nothing less than the foundation upon which the world stands. This Shabbat, how will we fulfill these three things? What will we contribute to sustain the world?