In Parashat Toledot the Torah informs us that after Avraham's death, the Pelishtim (Philistines) stuffed the wells of water that he had dug in the Negev, and his son, Yitzchak, now digs them anew (26:15,18). At first glance, this conduct of the Pelishtim seems totally irrational and self-destructive. We can easily understand the incident briefly recorded earlier, in Parashat Vayera (21:25), where servants of the Philistine king, Avimelekh, stole one of Avraham's wells and claimed rightful ownership over it. Yitzchak encounters similar trouble with the Pelishtim, as told in this parasha (26:19-21). But why would anybody stuff a well of precious water in the arid region of the Negev, denying themselves and the entire population such an invaluable resource?
Chizkuni explains that the Pelishtim sought to block Yitzchak from acquiring any permanent holding in the country. Having grown fearful and jealous of Yitzchak's agricultural success (see 21:14), the Pelishtim found it necessary to prevent Yitzchak from obtaining any real estate in their area. They therefore stuffed his father's wells with dirt, so that he could not claim legal ownership over them.
Still, the question remains, why would they resort to this tactic, which further depleted their already low water supply (recall this was a time of famine)? Are we to believe that their rage of jealousy led them to take such drastic measures?
The Radak similarly understood the Pelishtim's actions as a result of envy. He writes, "They therefore stuffed them, for they said: 'They shall be neither his nor ours'." The Radak here borrows the expression used in the famous story of "Mishpat Shelomo," the case that came before King Shelomo involving two women fighting over a baby. Shelomo resolved the case by ordering his servants to slice the infant into two halves. The real mother immediately protested, preferring to grant the other woman custody rather than witness her child's death, while the other woman responded, "It shall be neither mine nor yours." But this association implicitly drawn by the Radak only reinforces our question. After all, this is precisely how Shelomo solved the case: the real mother would certainly not have preferred killing the child to giving him to the other woman. Only a woman who had no feelings for the infant would have allowed her jealousy to reach such proportions. In our case, shouldn't the Pelishtim have acted like the real mother? Was it not in their best interest to leave the water accessible, albeit in Yitzchak's possession, so as to increase the region's water supply and thus lower prices?
We might add yet another difficulty in this approach of Chizkuni and the Radak, who claimed that the Pelishtim were driven by envy. The verse (26:15) indicates that the Pelishtim stuffed these wells after Avraham's death, not necessarily when Yitzchak moved to their area. The implication is that they stuffed these wells immediately upon Avraham's passing, without any connection to Yitzchak's residence in Gerar or his material success.
This problem led Rav Yaakov Mecklenberg, author of "Ha-ketav Ve-ha-kabbala," to a novel approach to this incident. As part of Avraham's incessant efforts to disseminate the awareness of God, he would give his wells names related to God. Since all people had to come purchase water from wells, the water business gave Avraham an ideal opportunity to reach large numbers of people. Anytime a person would come to one of Avraham's wells, he would automatically be reminded of the Almighty. In this way, Avraham hoped to instill within his contemporaries a keen awareness of God's presence. After his death, however, the effects of his efforts began to wane. The local population again reverted to idolatry, and thus felt compelled to erase the memory of these wells, which bore the Name of the true God.
For this reason, Rav Mecklenberg suggests, the Torah finds it necessary to inform us not only that Yitzchak dug his father's wells anew, but also that "he gave them the same names that his father had given them" (26:18). Yitzchak attempted to renew his father's campaign of religious instruction, and he thus sought to dig these same wells and assign them the same names referring to the Almighty.
Thus, it was more than jealousy that prompted the Pelishtim to act in such a self-destructive manner. Their goal in stuffing the wells was to obliterate Avraham's religious legacy and educational impact, so that they could continue worshipping idols without being haunted by the memory of Avraham's persuasive and influential teachings.