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.
No comments:
Post a Comment