It was a refreshing drink that earned Rivkah her
shidduch. There's nothing like a sip of cool, clean
water, especially after a journey like Eliezer's to find a
match for his master's son. Allow me to take you beneath the
surface, to see how the sands under the feet of Rivkah,
Eliezer, and his ten thirsty dromedaries, were responsible
for cleaning the well water and making it potable
(drinkable).
The concept of dirt as a cleaning agent may seem
counterintuitive nowadays, but you may have heard that women
used to do their laundry in the river. They used the sand as
an abrasive to help scrub the clothing. In the natural world
of hidden miracles, it is soil that cleans our well water. It
will all make sense when we take a look at the depths of the
well on a microscopic level.
Most of our readers are probably aware of the (hydrologic)
water cycle in which all of the world's water rotates between
the earth and the atmosphere. Precipitation (rain) falls to
the earth to enter bodies of water, returns to the sky via
evaporation (and transpiration from plants), and once again
condenses to form liquid water — rain — that
falls to the earth. Yes, the water you used to brush your
teeth this morning, may well have been the same water slurped
by a camel of old.
There is more to the story, however. Water is famous for
seeking the path of least resistance, i.e. following the
physical laws of gravity to get to the lowest point
available. While most rainwater finds its way toward oceans,
rivers and lakes (collectively known as surface water), some
of it takes an alternate route down, and is absorbed through
layers of soil until, hitting bedrock, it can go no further.
Here the water pools to form an underground reservoir, or
aquifer.
This water is called groundwater — to distinguish it
from surface water — and is accessible through man-made
wells. A well is a sophisticated version of digging a moat
for your sand castle at the beach: a hole is dug or drilled
down to the level of the groundwater, and lined by stones or
concrete. Once water is within the aquifer "sponge," it
continues to move in response to gravity, but no faster than
a few centimeters or meters per year, and may eventually
reach oceans, rivers and lakes, to re-enter the water
cycle.
An aquifer resembles a huge water-laden sponge resting on a
marble kitchen counter. The "sponge" is composed of gravel,
sand or porous rock resting upon the "counter" of non-porous
bedrock. The process of trickling down through these porous
materials has a filtering effect on the groundwater.
Electrically charged ions, such as lead and copper that are
dissolved in the water, become attracted and adhere to
oppositely charged particles on the sand. During its lazy
downward travels, the water is cleansed of impurities, and is
ready to drink when it enters the aquifer.
How much of the earth's water is underground? Oceans hold 97%
of the earth's water. The other 3% is freshwater, and of
this, 69% is frozen in glaciers and icecaps, 31.7% is
groundwater and .3% is in rivers and lakes.
Let us rejoin Rivkah at the mouth of the well. The
selflessness and generosity with which she treated Eliezer
hardly reflected the skewed values of the family in which she
had been raised. Rashi explains that Rivkah's brother Lavan
spoke before his father and that the family's motivation for
welcoming Eliezer was the prospect of receiving gifts.
Despite her upbringing in such a family, Rivkah maintained a
level of purity that qualified her to marry Yitzchak. Just as
the sands on which she stood had filtered the waters that she
drew, Rivkah's merit lay in her ability to filter out the
undesirable influences in her environment and retain only
emes.
It must be noted, though, that while the physical aquifer
yields pure water via passive compliance with gravity, the
spiritual filter that Rivkah employed required an uphill
battle. The efforts she expended to serve Eliezer, and the
kindness with which she treated him, demonstrated a proactive
application of good character traits. This is the only way to
acquire the pure waters of Torah.
