Yitzchak, our agricultural pioneer
In Parshat Toldot (Breisheet 26:3), God commands Yitzchak:
“Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land that I will make known to you. Bide in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for I am going to give all these lands to you and your descendants, fulfilling the oath I swore to Avraham, your father…”
We read Parsha Toldot in the fall, when we pray for rain and rely on God to irrigate our fields for us as it says in Dvarim 11:11:
The land to which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys; from the rain of heaven will it drink water.
Despite the famine, Yitzchak does not leave the land. He is the father of Zionism, the father of agriculture who deals with the lack of water and the limits of the Land of Israel. Water is critical for settling and developing the Negev and other outlying areas of the Land of Israel.
In Yehoshua 15:19, Rashi explains the words “Eretz HaNegev” as “chorva” desolate like after the flood in Breisheet 8:13 “the earth was fully dried.” Targum Yonatan tanslates “chorva” as dried out.
The Biblical Negev extended from Nachal HaBasor to Shikma. It had agricultural potential which came with uncertainty that there may only be marginal success depending on how much rain would fall that year. Therefore, it was necessary to dig wells to collect the rain water as we see in Breisheet 26:12:
Yitzchak planted in the land. That year he reaped a hundred fold, for God had blessed him.
The Besor reservoirs serve the same purpose as Yitzchak’s wells did in Biblical times. According to the JNF (KKL), the Besor reservoirs add 10 million cubic meters of water a year to the Western Negev and have changed the certainty of a constant water supply beyond recognition. Due to the reservoirs, thousands of dunams of citrus have been transferred from the center of Israel to the Negev and field crops in the area greatly increased, as anyone who drives along the Besor road can see.
The Besor reservoirs contribute greatly to agricultural activity, the economic basis of the communities in the area.
The agricultural potential in the Negev comes to fruition in years where there is a lot of rain which enables a lot of plants to grow, just like in Yitzchak’s time.
Those who continue to settle the Negev are pioneers who follow in the footsteps of our father, Yitzchak.
