To Go Forward

 The word Toldos, which is the name of this week’s parsha, infers both progeny and that which one hands down to future generations. The parsha focuses on the arrival and growth of the next generation, but it is also about the critical ways in which the future Jewish nation must develop. This concept must be kept in mind as one reads Parshas Toldos, because otherwise, one is often left perplexed at many of the interactions. One of these perplexities is the simply stated “Yitzchak loved Esau because he had a taste for game; but Rivka loved Yaakov.”

Beyond the somewhat obvious statement that favortism in a family is a recipe for trouble, it is hard to understand how Yitzchak, who had a unique connection to the divine after his near sacrifice, could favor Esau. The Midrashim explain that Yitzchak believed Esau’s outwardness would make him capable of expanding those who understood Hashem in the world just as Avraham had. At some point, however, it becomes hard to believe that Yitzchak had no intuition that Esau did not care about the family legacy or that Yitzchak could not see Yaakov’s special strengths.

The Midrash tells us that Yitzchak loved Esau because he believed in Esau’s potential. Yaakov - if one thinks about what the Torah tells us - was a man of the tents, which implies he was a scholar; Yaakov was already meeting his spiritual potential. He was natural to Yitzchak’s world and, perhaps, Yitzchak felt that he had nothing left to really give to him. It is, one should remember, a primary Jewish concept that we grow to love through giving. Yitzchak was aware of where Esau was lacking and gave his energy toward helping him develop, and thus grew to love him over Yaakov.

On the other hand, the Torah, however, tells us rather specifically that Yitzchak loved Esau for the game he provided through hunting. Yitzchak had a reason to favor him. A bond was formed through what he gained. While this sounds like behavior unworthy of one of the avos, it just reminds us that they were human, and the Torah presents reality. People are affected by giving and receiving. There is a reason that even a compliment can be seen as a bribe when dealing with judges in halachos.

One cannot, of course, forget the fact that the Torah also states the Rivka loved Yaakov. Was she any less culpable for the difficult dynamic of the family if she too favored one child over another? Perhaps she is, but perhaps it is important to notice how this is written almost as an afterthought. Did Rivka love Yaakov because Yitzchak loved Esau, because as a mother she saw that one of her sons was being neglected? Or did she, perhaps, love Yaakov because he was like his father, because he was already atuned to the life she had chosen? Or, one step further, did she love Yaakov because Esau, in his outgoing worldliness that so enchanted Yitzchak, reminded her of herself and her family?

It seems simplistic to say that Yitzchak should have been aware that Yaakov was good, that he was spiritually striving, and that Esau was bad. Good and bad, righteousness and evil, are black and white terms that limit one’s understanding of the world. As wickedly inclined as our sages state that Esau was, they made certain to note that he excelled at the mitzvah of kibbud av, honoring his father.

We know that Esau presented a false front. The Torah whitewashes his behaviors in this chapter, but the Midrashim make it clear that Esau was driven by negative impulses to which Yitzchak turned a blind eye. The Torah states that Yitzchak was blind and unable to see, but he had not been blind throughout the twins’ life so as not to be able to see their natures. Yitzchak, in this case, was blind to Esau’s faults because he wanted to see the potential, wanted to believe that Esau could bring his powerful spirit into alignment with the path Avraham had set down. But also, Yitzchak was unable to see his mistake in favoring Esau because Hashem was making certain that all the pieces were in place for the history of the world to move forward, for Yaakov to not only receive the bracha but to be forced to move, and in being forced to move, he was forced to grow up and develop his own strengths.

Yitzchak’s behavior provides and interesting lesson in life in the 2020s. It is simplistic to declare good and evil, both when speaking about Yaakov and Esau and when talking about world politics today. Every nation has nuances, and within that there are usually even more nuances. Esau was, after all, a true master of honoring his father. He wasn’t completely cut off from the Torah world. She c

Right now, the world is blind like Yitzchak. The world has grown to accept, if not to actually love, those who act like wild animals in the streets and who spew hatred, sometimes violently, against their neighbors. They see in the anti-Israel factions the opportunity to prove themselves generous in fostering potential for the future. They believe that nations can change their nature if the world just tries to understand them better and believes in their potential goodness – even when they kill and maim and murder.

And Yaakov, who sits in his tent and studies or minds the flock, is overlooked

For the last many months, the Jewish people have witnessed an assuredly peculiar situation, watching the world support outright terrorists and politicians of all ilk make excuses for threatening and violent behavior. The twists and turns of truth – such as this week’s declaration by Montreal’s mayor that last week’s protests were peaceful until some ”vandals” got involved just to make trouble – are designed from above to bring things into focus for the Jewish nation. Such obvious ignorance and distortion of truth as pervades today’s media and discussions makes it obvious that everything occurring is yad Hashem, the hand of Hashem, and, therefore, there is a purpose whether we understand it or not.

Parshas Toldos: To Go Forward

 The word Toldos, which is the name of this week’s parsha, infers both progeny and that which one hands down to future generations. The parsha focuses on the arrival and growth of the next generation, but it is also about the critical ways in which the future Jewish nation must develop. This concept must be kept in mind as one reads Parshas Toldos, because otherwise, one is often left perplexed at many of the interactions. One of these perplexities is the simply stated “Yitzchak loved Esau because he had a taste for game; but Rivka loved Yaakov.”

 

Beyond the somewhat obvious statement that favortism in a family is a recipe for trouble, it is hard to understand how Yitzchak, who had a unique connection to the divine after his near sacrifice, could favor Esau. The Midrashim explain that Yitzchak believed Esau’s outwardness would make him capable of expanding those who understood Hashem in the world just as Avraham had. At some point, however, it becomes hard to believe that Yitzchak had no intuition that Esau did not care about the family legacy or that Yitzchak could not see Yaakov’s special strengths.

 

The Midrash tells us that Yitzchak loved Esau because he believed in Esau’s potential. Yaakov - if one thinks about what the Torah tells us - was a man of the tents, which implies he was a scholar; Yaakov was already meeting his spiritual potential. He was natural to Yitzchak’s world and, perhaps, Yitzchak felt that he had nothing left to really give to him. It is, one should remember, a primary Jewish concept that we grow to love through giving. Yitzchak was aware of where Esau was lacking and gave his energy toward helping him develop, and thus grew to love him over Yaakov.

 

On the other hand, the Torah, however, tells us rather specifically that Yitzchak loved Esau for the game he provided through hunting. Yitzchak had a reason to favor him. A bond was formed through what he gained. While this sounds like behavior unworthy of one of the avos, it just reminds us that they were human, and the Torah presents reality. People are affected by giving and receiving. There is a reason that even a compliment can be seen as a bribe when dealing with judges in halachos.

 

One cannot, of course, forget the fact that the Torah also states the Rivka loved Yaakov. Was she any less culpable for the difficult dynamic of the family if she too favored one child over another? Perhaps she is, but perhaps it is important to notice how this is written almost as an afterthought. Did Rivka love Yaakov because Yitzchak loved Esau, because as a mother she saw that one of her sons was being neglected? Or did she, perhaps, love Yaakov because he was like his father, because he was already atuned to the life she had chosen? Or, one step further, did she love Yaakov because Esau, in his outgoing worldliness that so enchanted Yitzchak, reminded her of herself and her family?

 

It seems simplistic to say that Yitzchak should have been aware that Yaakov was good, that he was spiritually striving, and that Esau was bad. Good and bad, righteousness and evil, are black and white terms that limit one’s understanding of the world. As wickedly inclined as our sages state that Esau was, they made certain to note that he excelled at the mitzvah of kibbud av, honoring his father.

 

We know that Esau presented a false front. The Torah whitewashes his behaviors in this chapter, but the Midrashim make it clear that Esau was driven by negative impulses to which Yitzchak turned a blind eye. The Torah states that Yitzchak was blind and unable to see, but he had not been blind throughout the twins’ life so as not to be able to see their natures. Yitzchak, in this case, was blind to Esau’s faults because he wanted to see the potential, wanted to believe that Esau could bring his powerful spirit into alignment with the path Avraham had set down. But also, Yitzchak was unable to see his mistake in favoring Esau because Hashem was making certain that all the pieces were in place for the history of the world to move forward, for Yaakov to not only receive the bracha but to be forced to move, and in being forced to move, he was forced to grow up and develop his own strengths.  

 

Yitzchak’s behavior provides and interesting lesson in life in the 2020s. It is simplistic to declare good and evil, both when speaking about Yaakov and Esau and when talking about world politics today. Every nation has nuances, and within that there are usually even more nuances. Esau was, after all, a true master of honoring his father. He wasn’t completely cut off from the Torah world. She c

 

Right now, the world is blind like Yitzchak. The world has grown to accept, if not to actually love, those who act like wild animals in the streets and who spew hatred, sometimes violently, against their neighbors. They see in the anti-Israel factions the opportunity to prove themselves generous in fostering potential for the future. They believe that nations can change their nature if the world just tries to understand them better and believes in their potential goodness – even when they kill and maim and murder.

 

And Yaakov, who sits in his tent and studies or minds the flock, is overlooked

 

For the last many months, the Jewish people have witnessed an assuredly peculiar situation,  watching the world support outright terrorists and politicians of all ilk make excuses for threatening and violent behavior. The twists and turns of truth – such as this week’s declaration by Montreal’s mayor that last week’s protests were peaceful until some ”vandals” got involved just to make trouble – are designed from above to bring things into focus for the Jewish nation. Such obvious ignorance and distortion of truth as pervades today’s media and discussions makes it obvious that everything occurring is yad Hashem, the hand of Hashem, and, therefore, there is a purpose whether we understand it or not.

Parshas Toldos – Do Not Fear Their Boastful Entitlement.

Dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Chaya Sofya Sara bas Mera and Binyamin ben Simcha, and for the release of the captives and the safety of the chayalim.

I wish that I would not still be seeing correlations in the parsha to the times in which we live, but it has been over a month and the hostages have not been returned, and our soldiers are still fighting, and missiles are still falling upon the cities of Israel, and the nations have shed their masks and shown their true feelings towards us – both good and ill. And so, because it inspires me, I will continue to share with you those things within the parsha that strike me as fascinating correlations.

In this week’s parsha we read about Yitzchak’s interactions with the Philistines, and, again, in this it mean the ancient Aegean sea race. Like his own parents, Yitzchak takes his wife to Avimelech the King of Gerar. A significant number of pasukim are spent discussing this storyline, which mirrors that of the generation before. They pose as siblings, the king wants to marry Rivka, Hashem intervenes so that nothing happens, and Yitzchak and Rivka are recognized and treated with great respect.

There is, however, a second story with the Philistines, and this one seems to be of some significance into seeing that which we can now see as historical repetition. Yitzchak became wealthy and successful, and he noticed that the wells his father had dug had been stopped up. Avimelech asked Yitzchak to move away because his people were growing jealous, and Yitzchak politely obliged. But even after he moved, the Philistines were still jealous and hassled him. He discovered that they had stopped up the wells near Gerar that had been part of Avraham’s covenant with the Philistines. When Yitzchak’s servants dug new ones, the Philistines claimed them. Then it happened again. One more move, one more set of wells, and only then, when he had moved quite far away as, perhaps, implied in the name he gave the place – Rechovot (meaning wide) – did they leave him alone. And Yitzchak said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

It has always seemed odd that this situation is described in a way that is both vague and detailed. What might be the significance of these machinations being recorded? It appears to be just a land dispute. But was it, perhaps, a warning to us, so many millennia later, that there is an inherent untrustworthiness in the Philistines. We see a great sense of entitlement in how these original Philistine claim the land that Yitzchak made bountiful, and it feels like foreshadowing to the claims we are hearing today.

One would be remiss in looking at this narrative and not seeing that immediately after the Philistines seemed to give up and Yitzchak expressed what seems almost like relief, that Hashem visited him (when he went to Ber-Sheva) at night and said, “I am the God of Avraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed for the sake of Avraham, My servant." (26:24).

This is the message that we must hold fast to. Their claims, their entitled declarations, mean nothing because Hashem has made a promise to the descendants of Avraham.

There is one more section in the Torah that is important to note: “And Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan were displeasing to his father Yitzchak. So Esau went to Yishmael, and he took Machalas, the daughter of Yishmael, the son of Avraham, the sister of Nebaios, in addition to his other wives as a wife” (28:8-9). Esau, wanting to try to set the world right by his own understanding of it, married into Yishmael.

Right now, we see news reports have stated that while it appears that the majority of people in the “West” support Israel, that is reversed among youth. The young face of Esau, bold and impetuous and thinking that they understand how to fix a world, has made the mistake of marrying themselves to Yishmael. But look closely at the name of Yishmael’s daughter: Machalas. If one translates this word into modern Hebrew one finds that it means disease. This joining of Esau and Yishmael is a disease upon the world…and the only cure is truth, emes.

We state that refuah lifnei hamacah, that Hashem prepares the cure before the illness. Bnei Yisrael knows the truth, and while the Palestinians seem to be masters at manipulating the media, their manipulation will, imertz Hashem, be their undoing.

May truth win swiftly, and may Klal Yisrael and the world know peace.

Parshas Toldos: WHY WHY WHY

It is a well-known concept in Jewish life that this world is a corridor to the world to come. It is a philosophy that is meant to focus us on our spiritual development, on not getting waylaid by the physical comforts that feed our goofs but not our neshamas. There is, however, one challenge with this imagery. A corridor is most often a straight line. The term infers a straight path. In truth, sometimes life feels more like a maze, with sharp turns and paths that are blocked. In other words, the corridor of this world is not often straight and therefore not always easy.

In many ways, this is the truth that we see from Parshas Toldos. Not one step of the lives of Yitzchak or Rivka, or their sons, seems straight forward and easy. This applies even to Esau, who we so often malign in our descriptions as a wayward son. Yes, Esau was drawn to wild sport and irreverent behaviour, but how much more so did these actions become a comfort to him when he erred in selling his birthright or when we saw his brother receiving that which he thought he deserved.

One of the profound statements in Parshas Toldos is Rivka’s cry: “If so, why do I exist?” (Bereishis 25:22). Life got hard, and Rivka reacted. Life got hard, and Rivka wanted to know what all her efforts and all her prayers had been for.  Life got hard, and Rivka went to challenge Hashem.

The term the pasuk uses for Rivka’s inquiry as to why it had all been so hard, and why it seemed to only be getting harder, is li’drosh. This term means to consult, but it also infers a force in the inquiry, a demand for answers and a pulling apart of the information. It is the root term for Midrash, the process by which the Oral Torah takes apart the text of the Torah and reveals its deeper meaning.  

Rivka’s demand is incredibly relatable. She wants to understand the purpose of pain. She wants to know that her suffering has meaning. Hashem’s answer to Rivka is not comfort. It is not an assurance that all will be well. Hashem responds to Rivka by telling her that her children will strive against each other. In other words, Hashem told Rivka that it was possible that life would only get more difficult.  

In the current era of the world, there is often an undertone and a demand that happiness is our due, that life should form itself around our needs and our wants. Alas, no matter how hard we wish that to be true, most of us quickly discover that it just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen because there is a plan that is far greater than we can see.

Our individual maze-paths interlock with millions of other paths, and the full picture can only be seen by Hashem. Statements such as these, that only God knows what is good for us, are often blithely asserted as statements of comfort to those going through troubled times or are used as a means of forestalling someone else’s complaining. But as we learn from Rivka, when the going gets tough…it’s ok to react. Hashem wasn’t angry at Rivka for questioning her challenges. Hashem didn’t react negatively to Rivka for crying out. Rivka had an emotional reaction to a difficult life, but she channelled that state of distress back toward the Source of all things.

We may wish that life was easier, that our challenges were more straight-forward. We may despair when obstacles seem to pile upon us. That’s natural. That’s being human. And from Parshas Toldos we can learn that such feelings can be completely acceptable.

 

 

 

Why Didn't She Tell Him? (Parshas Toldos)

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Rivkah had just sat down with her husband, Yitzchak, and told him that their son, Esav, was behaving contrary to all the values their family held dear? Or perhaps one might ask why it seems that Yaakov did not tell his father that he and Esav had made a legitimate agreement that made Yaakov the bachor (firstborn rights)? Indeed, one might read Parshas Toldos and see in it that the second family of the Jewish forefathers suffered from what appears to be an extreme lack of communication, and inherent in that assumption is a lesson that resonates no matter the era.

It starts, one might say, from the very beginning. The Midrash notes that when the Torah states that Yitzchak davened for his wife to have children that they davened in opposite corners (Bereishis Rabbah 63:5, as cited by Rashi). This does not indicate strife, lest one think that, but it does start to paint a picture of their marriage. In fact, Rashi also cites the Gemara about how their prayers were different that perhaps sheds even further light on their relationship: “of him and not of her, because there is no comparison between the prayer of a righteous person who is the son of a righteous person and the prayer of a righteous person the child of a wicked-person — therefore God allowed himself to be entreated of him and not of her” (Yevamot 64a). Although not the purpose of the Gemara, we are here reminded that Yitzchak and Rivkah came from very different homes, that their ways of being and existing were very different.

The lack of communication continues. It appears from the text that Rivkah never told Yitzchak that she had sought out advice on her preganancy troubles and had been given a prophecy of two struggling nations, that she had known from before they were born that they would oppose each other. Playing the what-if game is only helpful in teaching a lesson, but what-if Rivkah had shared this information with Yizchak from the very beginning...What if they together had chosen to work differently with each of their sons in order to build them as individuals. Instead, “Yitzchak loved Esav he had a taste for game; but Rivkah loved Yaakov” (Beresihis 25:28). (Separately, one might even wonder if Rivkah’s ability to love Esav was tainted by the prophecy she received.)

The ultimate lack of communication, of course, is at the end of Yitzchak’s life. When Rivkah sees that Yitzchak wishes to bless Esav with a final, grand blessing, she tries to salvage the situation by instructing a reluctant Yaakov to deceive his father. Could neither of them have gone in and explained their concerns to Yitzchak? It is an easy question to ask, an easy assumption to make, but their patterns have been firmly rooted into their lives. In all these years of watching Esav hunt when he should have been studying, partake in the violent behaviors describe in the midrashim and the commentaries, and use his cunning to trick his father into believing he was pious, Rivkah had never spoken up, and she did not know how to speak up.

The lack of communication between Rivkah and Yitzchak had dire consequences on their family, and from the perspective of Jewish history, on even their modern day descendants since we still suffer with the never ending struggle between Esav and Yaakov (Edom and Yisrael). This does not mean, one should remember, that Rivkah and Yitzchak had a bad relationship. The fact that even after the boys are grown into young men and they travel to the court of Avimelech to escape a famine, Yitzchak and Rivkah are noted as being playful with one another is important. There was love between them...Indeed, it might even be considered that Rivkah did not tell Yitzchak about his beloved son because she could not think of causing him such pain...but their relationship bore the weight of their lack of open communication.

Why was their communication lacking? Of course this is a question we can never answer, but one might even surmise that it did have a great deal to do with their backgrounds. Rivkah came from a home of deceivers. Besuel her father and Laven her brother were both men of bad faith. Rivkah, even as a child, did not fit in to the character of her childhood home, and perhaps therefore she learned to restrain herself, to hold back her thoughts and comments. Yitzchak came from a home where his mother was a force unto herself, where his mother was strong enough in herself to come and tell his father that he must send Hagar away. Yitzchak, perhaps, expected that if there was a problem his wife would come and tell him.

All that occurs is the will of Hashem. Yaakov and Esav needed to struggle so that Yaakov could transform into the man that he became, into the forefather of our nation. It is easy to judge the dynamics of their relationship from the safety of generations gone; it is far more difficult to see the problems that need to be changed when they are part of your own life. But we are blessed with the Torah as a guidebook, and so we look at Bereishis and bring its lessons into our own life. From Parshas Toldos we learn the importance of communication, of warning others of a path they just might not see, and of the necessity of communication in working together to build the future that you desire.

Inherent Nature (Toldos #2)

In the 1980s, it was popular to speak of people in terms of Type A personalities and Type B personalities. In the 90s, people were all about Myers Briggs and other personality assessments. Today, the terms neurotypical and neurodivergent are popular. All of this is to say that much money and a great deal of time has been, and continues to be, spent on understanding inherent personality. But really, this is a topic that is natural to Jewish scholarship since the very beginning… and the subtleties of Parshas Toldos, which is very nuanced, are an excellent study of nature, nurture, and self-determination.

It is rather interesting to note how even the subtleties of translation can affect how we understand our Biblical ancestors. On a simple, read-through level, the Torah present Eisav and Yaakov as two equal but different youths. וַיִּגְדְּלוּ֙ הַנְּעָרִ֔ים וַיְהִ֣י עֵשָׂ֗ו אִ֛ישׁ יֹדֵ֥עַ צַ֖יִד אִ֣ישׁ שָׂדֶ֑ה וְיַֽעֲקֹב֙ אִ֣ישׁ תָּ֔ם ישֵׁ֖ב אֹֽהָלִֽים

(25:27) – “And when the boys grew up, Eisav became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, and Yaakov was a mild man who dwelled in tents." Most translations I have seen translate va’Yaakov as “but Yaakov,” an expressive statement that implies comparison; whereas, at its most simple, va’Yaakov means “and Yaakov” - a description.

A similar issue happens in the next pasuk, that says: “Yitzchak favored Eisav because he had a taste for game, va’Rivka, and/but Rivka favored Yaakov” (25:28). What is interesting here is the seeming conditional attached to Yitzchak’s love that is glaringly missing in Rivka's relationship with Yaakov. If you think Eisav didn’t pick up on that difference, you are blessed with children who have zero sibling rivalry. Loving Eisav was not natural and easy. For the family that came from Avraham's tents, Eisav was a wild card. He was different. If Eisav had been an only child, he might have come to understand the teachings of his father and grandfather. He might have chosen a path of chesed and devotion. But because that life was more natural and easy for Yaakov, Eisav quite likely struggled with why he had to bother to put so much energy into belonging to his own family.

This sounds like a rousing case for a sympathetic portrayal of Eisav, for a dvar Torah that excuses his later actions. This is not so. It is, rather, a means of looking closer in order to understand humanity and our own selves – and, perhaps most importantly, our children.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch offered the commentary that part of the problem was that Yitzchak and Rivka raised the boys the same and ignored their differences. This is, of course, an important lesson to take from Parshas Toldos. Another important lesson in a day and age when we label people neurotypical or neurodivergent (which, let's be honest, doesn't hide the subtle message of who is considered normal - although if normal means most common, I know far more neurodivergent people than neurotypical) is that the only thing that makes us good or bad are our actions.

Eisav is not a "bad character" because he was born inherently evil, as might be implied by the arts and crafts. His natural personality might have made it harder to fit into a specific mold or expectation, but along the journey of life he made choices. Most significantly, he chose to sell his brother his birthright for a hot meal. It was a rash decision made in a moment when he was, perhaps, in a bad place. But it was his decision, and that, too, might be, a valuable lesson from this parsha – that often times we make decisions in a moment that impact the rest of our lives.

With time and generations, the world has become ever more diverse. We must remember, constantly, that how we think of others can impact how we treat them, and how we treat them can impact how they perceive themselves and that can, and will, affect the choices that they make.

The History Lesson That Never Ends (Parsha Toldos)

Although it is a basic tenant of traditional Judaism that there are no words wasted in the Torah, many of us can recognize certain passages that we glance over because they seem simple or too familiar. One such is the narrative of Isaac and Rebecca travelling to Gerar - perhaps because it is the third iteration of “my wife is my sister” - and the detailing of the activity around wells being dug by Isaac’s servants. It is all the more easily passed over as it is sandwiched between the exciting narratives of the sale of the birthright from Esau to Jacob and the drama of Isaac’s blessings to his sons.

But the events are not without significance, and, like all of the Torah, this section has an impact even unto our generation. After their full identity as a family was discovered, “Avimelech commanded all the people saying: ‘He that touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death’” (26:11). Then Isaac settles and grows wealthy, which seems to cause a chain reaction: “The Philistines became jealous of him. And all the wells which the servants of his father had dug in the days of Avraham his father, the Philistines had closed them up and filled them with earth. Avimelech then said to Isaac: ‘Go away, for you have become much greater than us’” (26: 14-16). Isaac accepted Avimelech’s request, left the city and continued to be harassed. He dug a well and the Philistine herdsman - not the men of the city who had seen him grow wealthy - claimed it as their own. This happened twice, and then “he moved away from there and dug another well, and over that they did not quarrel” (26:22).

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, writing with his 19th century perspective, commented thus on the Philistine hostility: ...How the envy and jealousy of the nations who find the Jews well-to-do....send them out of their countries – may form not the least of God’s method for our salvation. Who can tell how easily Isaac, in the hustle and bustle of managing his great wealth, and in the prominent civic position he won through it, might not have given himself up to it more than would be seemly for the son of Abraham and the nearer of his spiritual heritage, had not the jealousy of the Philistines driven him again into isolation...

The message Rabbi Hirsch was communicating is clear. It’s one we have seen replayed over and over throughout our generations. A nation invites us in or welcomes Jewish settlement, but when we get too comfortable or wealthy...then we are not only expelled, but all that we have done that has benefited that nation is forgotten or credited to others.

It would be lovely if this was a new thought, but it was hard to look at this week’s parsha and not think about anti-Semitism and the uncertain times we are facing right now where every other Jewish social media article is about the anti-Semitism on both sides of the political spectrum. And yet, the fate of our people to be subjected to the trauma of national rivalry is not only in the parsha in Isaac’s dealings with Gerar, but both at the beginning and end of the parsha as well.

Parshas Toldos opens with Rebecca conceiving twins who struggle so fiercely in utero that she seeks Divine guidance on her troubles. The response she receives is that: “Two nations are in your womb. Two separate people shall issue from your body. One people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger” (25:23). This is the first prophecy of the national rivalry to come.

At the end of the parsha, Isaac gives his sons the following blessings:

To Jacob: “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be every one that curses you, and blessed be every one that blesses you” (27:19).

To Esau: “And by your sword shall you live, and you shall serve your brother; and it shall come to pass when you shall break loose, that you shall shake his yoke from off your neck” (27:40).

Once again, national rivalry is predicted.

In a recent online conversation in a more political group, a poll was taken asking what members believed was responsible for the recent increase in anti-Semitism. The answers were all political - ranging on both sides of the spectrum. Perhaps the answer is far less simple. Anti-Semitism is so nonsensical, so hypocritical, and so ceaselessly pervasive that it can only chalk it up to Divine plan ... Trying to intellectually dissect anti-Semitism leads to madness.

Our great ancestors did not know that they were setting a pathway for history - if they had they could not have functioned as human beings. But we have the tools to look back and see how the world has been structured. When the people of Gerar and the herdsmen of Gerar acted from envy and jealousy, Esau and Jacob were not small children. They were with their parents. They were witness to the actions of the world, and who knows what lessons Esau learned from their actions about how to win, how to acquire, and how to drive an enemy away. These are the tools his descendants use to bring themselves to ascendance. While we are dealing with the rage of Ishmael (a subject for another time), we are seeing Esau struggling to remind us what happens when we do not live up to our precious birthright blessing.