continuity

Akeidas Yitzchak is introduced with the words "Hashem nisa es Avraham," calling it a test for Avraham, even though it was Yitzchak's neck that was on the line.  R' Shaul Yisraeli explains that you can't produce a son who will willingly go to an akeidah unless your own emunah is 110%.  The test of Avraham's commitment and mesirus nefesh was whether that same commitment and mesirus nefesh would pass down to Yitzchak.   

"Avraham holid es Yitzchak"  is not about who Yitzchak's biological father was.  We know that from earlier in the same pasuk where it tells us "eileh toldos Yitzchak BEN AVRAHAM."  Tzror haMor writes:

אמר אברהם הוליד את יצחק. ולא אמר יעקב ועשו. להורות כי תולדותיו לא היו אלא היות בן אברהם צדיק כאביו והולך בדרכי ה׳. בענין שהיה ניכר במעשיו שהיה בן אברהם וכל הרואה אותו אומר בודאי אברהם הוליד את יצחק. כי הוא דומה לאביו במעשיו. ולזה רמזו ז״ל באמרם אברהם הוליד את יצחק שהיה זיו איקונין שלו דומה לאביו. בענין שכל העולם יאמרו אברהם הוליד את יצחק. וכ״ז להורות על מעשיו שהיו מתוקנים כמו שהיו דרכי אביו. וכמו שהיה דומה במעשיו כך היה דומה בצורתו. ולזה צר איקונין שלו דומה לו.

You want to understand who Yitzchak was?  Look at who his father was.  It was the greatness and values of Avraham that were passed on that made Yitzchak into who he was.  

Yitzchak on his part had to be receptive to those values and he had to stick to them.  Later in the parsha we read about the wells of Avraham that the Plishtim filled with dirt.  Yitzchak cleaned them out and called them again by the names his father had given them.  Rashbam explains that naming the wells with the same names as his father had given served to reinforce Yitzchak's claim to the property, as if to say these are not new sources of water to be fought over, but these are on property that the family already had a stake in.  Very practical and utilitarian.  R' Bachyei, however, suggests that there is a deeper lesson here.  This episode shows us that Yitzchak followed closely in his father's footsteps even in matters so trivial as what to name a well, kal v'chomer when it came to important matters -- to mesores ha'avos.  Yitzchak was faithful to the example of his father and did not deviate from what had been done before.  

(R' Mordechai Eliyahu writes that if this is true when it comes to naming wells, it is surely true when it comes to naming children,  He doesn't go as far as R' Chaim Kaniekski, who holds that a name not mentioned in Tanach or Chazal as not a name, but he does advocate for keeping to using traditional names that are part of our mesorah.)

On a completely different note, I just want to note the historic visit of Secretary of State Pompeo to the Psagot winery and his declaration that products produced in Yehudah and Shomron can be labelled Made in Israel, contrary to UE policy.  This, together with the statement that BDS is antisemitic, should be applauded.  Our community owes a tremendous debt of hakaras ha'tov to the current administration.