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First, some questions we will not answer:

Questions we will answer:

Until Parashat Toledot, some of the narratives we have seen have been clear and some subtle, but by and large we have been able to find coherent solutions to our questions. This week’s parasha is the most challenging so far, since the evidence available for solving our problems is so scanty or contradictory. All stories in Tanakh have certain gaps which must be filled, but sometimes that task is particularly hard. On the other hand, one of the most rewarding activities in learning Torah is filling these gaps.

Most of the questions above are “local”—questions about specific events in the parasha. Although we must answer these local questions in order to understand the parasha, one basic question awaits in the background which makes the events of the parasha meaningful as more than just a complex narrative:

One of our the main motifs we encounter as we move through this sefer (book) is the question of who will be chosen to build the the nation to maintain a special relationship with Hashem (God). We have thought a lot about what makes Avraham special, and, among his sons, what about Yishmael makes him unfit for leadership as Avraham’s successor. (We have not talked about what makes Yitzhak an appropriate successor; perhaps in the future.) Now we come to Ya’akov and Eisav: what makes Ya’akov better than Eisav? Since the Torah spends so much time unfolding the saga of the relationship between Ya’akov and Eisav, it is clearly one of our jobs to figure out what the difference is between these twins, why one is chosen to found the nation and the other rejected.

One problem with answering this question during this shiur is that we don’t yet have a lot of the information we need. Our parasha gives us only our first glimpse of Ya’akov, but Ya’akov is a complex figure whose development stretches over a number of parshiot. We are not yet ready to decide who Ya’akov is, what his strengths are. This limits us to doing what analysis we can and suspending judgment about the rest until we get there.

[I have written an article-type analysis spanning Toledot, VaYetze, and YaYishlah, focusing on the Ya’akov-Eisav relationship. If you are interested, and you have Microsoft Word Hebrew version, drop me a line at emayer@ymail.yu.edu and I will send it to you as an attachment to an email message—but only on the condition that you send me your comments! If you don’t know what an “attachment” is, ask a computer-wiz friend.]

In the very beginning of the parasha, the Torah introduces the brothers. Eisav is an “ish yode’a tzayyid, ish sadeh,” “A man who knows hunting, a man of the field.” Eisav is a hunter, comfortable with the physically demanding life of the outdoors, trained to channel his aggression, accustomed to the danger of the hunt, skilled in using weapons.

Ya’akov, on the other hand, is an “ish tam, yoshev ohalim”—“A ‘tam’ man, a dweller of tents.” “Tam” in Tanakh (the Bible) usually parallels the word “yashar” and means the same thing or something similar—“straight,” “upright,” “righteous.” It is related to the word “tamim,” “perfect,” “having no blemish.”

*THAT’S* WHAT YOU CALL ‘RIGHTEOUS’?!

The problem with this description of Ya’akov is that just after the description, the Torah tells us that Ya’akov pulls off a deal with his brother to buy the birthright from him for a bowl of soup! Now, let’s assume Eisav was stupid enough to agree to this deal: does it seem ‘tam’ (‘righteous’) for Ya’akov to take advantage of that stupidity by offering a bowl of soup in exchange for something so important? To make matters worse, later in the parasha Ya’akov lies to his father, tricking Yitzhak into giving him the berakha (blessing) meant for Eisav by impersonating Eisav. Is this what a ‘tzaddik’ would do? Does this sound ‘yashar’ to you?

We may have to look for another interpretation of the word ‘tam,’ since Ya’akov’s activities hardly seem ‘yashar.’ Even if there might be some way to justify his actions, they could hardly be described as “straight”! What else could ‘tam’ mean?

If you look at the way the Torah describes the brothers, it is clear that the Torah intends to parallel the two brothers so that we can appreciate the contrast between them:

So Ya’akov buys the birthright from Eisav for some stew. What is the birthright—to what does it entitle the first-born?

Ibn Ezra and Rashbam suggest that it is the right to collect a double portion of the estate of the father once he has died. (This is clearly the meaning of birthright later in the Torah, when the Torah tells us that a person must give his firstborn son a double portion, but it’s not obvious that it means that here.) Ibn Ezra adds that some say that the birthright also entitles the firstborn to the respect and honor of the rest of the brothers. In any event, there is no question that the birthright is of great significance.

If so, how we understand Eisav’s willingness to trade the birthright for stew? True, Eisav claims to be so famished that he is “dying,” but a careful look shows that Eisav is only exaggerating, as the Torah describes his state as ‘ayef,’ simply ‘tired’—not quite dying. But if Eisav is not dying, why does he agree to sell the birthright to Ya’akov? What kind of negotiator is this Eisav to sell his birthright for a song (well, for a stew)?

Eisav is a man of action—but not a man of foresight. He knows how to behave when arrows fly at him, when a mountain lion bares its fangs, when a gazelle leaps across his path. But that is exactly the point: Eisav is a man with a hair trigger, gifted with quicksilver reflexes and jungle-tuned intuition, brave and bold . . . but he’s not too subtle. He does not understand (or can’t discipline himself to obey) the first principle of investment: delaying enjoyment in the present to guarantee greater enjoyment in the future (i.e., “save up”). You have to forego spending some of your money today so you can invest it and turn into more money. Eisav cares only that he is hungry and that he has a valuable commodity—his birthright. He focuses on today, on the empty feeling in his belly, ignoring tomorrow, when he will regret having squandered the birthright on something so silly.

But Eisav is no moron; he must rationalize this obviously boneheaded decision, so he exaggerates—“Here I am dying, what good will the birthright do for me!” Even Eisav knows this is nonsense as he says it, but every one of us has been in Eisav’s shoes and can understand his thoughtlessness. [You just started a diet—green vegetables and tofu—and some evil tempter offers you ice cream cake. In a flash, your creative faculties proffer ten arguments to justify ‘making an exception this time.’ A moment’s rational thought would shatter the arguments, but with the food right there, the strength of the arguments becomes irrelevant.]

Given Eisav’s personality, it does seem wrong for Ya’akov to offer this deal to him. Ya’akov must know that Eisav is a live-for-the-moment kind of person. In fact, that seems to be precisely why he offers Eisav this deal, for who but someone like Eisav would even contemplate Ya’akov’s offer? Ya’akov’s salesmanship, then, seems underhanded.

Neither brother comes out of this story looking very sympathetic: Ya’akov has gotten the better half of a less-than-fair deal, and Eisav has demonstrated irresponsible impulsiveness. As we go on, we will see that both brothers continue to display these qualities.

Rivka commands Ya’akov to do something dishonest: to take advantage of his father Yitzhak’s blindness to trick him into blessing him with the blessing meant for Eisav, Yitzhak’s favorite. Why doesn’t Rivka try to speak to Yitzhak instead of advising Ya’akov to deceive him; more troubling, what justifies the lie she places in Ya’akov’s mouth? And is it right for Ya’akov to obey her instructions?

When Rivka was pregnant with Ya’akov and Eisav and felt the two fetuses jumping around inside her, she was worried and consulted Hashem. She was told that two nations were struggling within her, but that “rav ya’avod tza’ir,” the elder would serve the younger. Now, to her chagrin, she sees that Yitzhak is planning to give the berakha (blessing) of family leadership to Eisav—the wrong son, according to what she had been told during her turbulent pregnancy—so she decides to ‘correct’ the mistake.

This raises another question: why doesn’t Rivka correct the mistake the easy way, by just telling her husband about her prophetic pregnancy? It’s not clear, but maybe the next answer to our first question—what motivates Rivka to plan this trickery—will answer this as well.

Rivka prefers Ya’akov to Eisav, the Torah tells us, and Yitzhak prefers Eisav; there is a deep conflict between the parents over their affection for their children. This conflict might not be explicit, as Yitzhak and Rivka do not necessarily state which son they each prefer, but people have many ways of communicating their preferences and understanding the unspoken preferences of others. Rivka must have seen Yitzhak often giving preferential treatment to Eisav, so she understands that Yitzhak prefers his elder son. And Yitzhak probably understands the same about Rivka’s feelings for Ya’akov. In this context, Rivka may suspect that Yitzhak will not believe her if she tells him of her prophecy that Ya’akov, the younger, will rule over his older brother; Yitzhak might think she is only trying to promote her favorite son. Since she cannot be open with her husband, she feels compelled to trick him in order to follow the prophecy she has received.

But does Ya’akov do the right thing in executing his mother’s instructions? Why, after all, does he agree to her plan? Perhaps because:

Whatever Ya’akov’s reason for doing it, it is difficult to justify his lying and tricking Yitzhak based on any of the above rationales:

Rationale “a”: [This possibility was queas unlikely in its own right, see above.]

Rationale “b”: The Lorcan figure out just fine how to make His plan work out, thank you very much! No one has an excuse to break a moral rule in order to take care of Hashem’s plan unless they receive a direct command to do so (as in the case of the Akeida, the near-sacrifice of Yitzhak by Avraham). Rivka is never instructed to lift a finger in order to make sure that “rav ya’avod tza’ir.” When Hashem wants help, He asks for it. Otherwise, no one is above the law.

Rationale “c”: Lying to hide something you’ve done which would embarrass you is a tough one to justify!

The Torah observes without comment or explanation that Yitzhak prefers Eisav over Ya’akov. What is it about Eisav that Yitzhak admires, or which attracts him? What is it that Ya’akov is lacking, that Eisav has? Has Yitzhak been blinded, or has he blinded himself, to Eisav’s faults? Doesn’t he know that his elder son is the kind of person who will trade the birthright for a bowl of soup? How do we understand his preference for Eisav?

Let’s hold these questions for a moment and combine them with the following related questions:

Once Ya’akov has tricked Yitzhak into blessing him with the blessings of the firstborn, and Yitzhak realizes what has happened, he seems very angry with Ya’akov for lying to him and deceiving him. If so, why does he give Ya’akov *another* berakha soon afterward, just before Ya’akov’s flight to Haran?! And even if, for some reason, Yitzhak is not angry, what need is there to give Ya’akov a second berakha, if he has already received one through the deception he has just carried out?

Let’s first look at Yitzhak’s preference for Eisav. The Torah says that Yitzhak prefers Eisav because “tzayyid be-fiv”—“hunting was in his mouth.” Whose mouth is this hunting in? The possibilities:

This second possibility seems intriguing, but how does it explain why Yitzhak prefers Eisav? Let’s look a little further at the evidence about Yitzhak’s admiration for Eisav, reading the section where Yitzhak, feeling death approaching, instructs Eisav to hunt and prepare food for him. After Eisav presents Yitzhak with this meal, Yitzhak will give Eisav his berakha.

Yitzhak instructs Eisav to “lift your weapons”—“your quiver and arrows” - and to “go out and hunt game,” and prepare the meat for him as he likes it, “so that my sould shall bless you before I die.”

Now, if Yitzhak simply wants a good meal, i.e., if the reason he loves Eisav is because Eisav places hunting “in his mouth” quite literally, he really could have left out many of these elements:

Does Yitzhak just want a good meal so he can feel thankful to Eisav for filling his belly and then give him the berakha . . . or is there some more substantial reason why he wants Eisav to use his weapons and hunt something in order to qualify for the berakha?

Let us look a bit further, at the scene where Ya’akov is dressed up in Eisav’s clothing. His father asks him to come close, and then Yitzhak smells him to see if he smells like Eisav. When he smells the clothes of Eisav, how does he characterize the smell? “Re’ah beni ke-re’ah SADEH ASHER BERKHO HASHEM”—“The smell of my son is like the smell of the field, which God has blessed.” He smells of the field, the outdoors, which Yitzhak sees as divinely blessed!

Yitzhak seems fascinated by Eisav as a man of trained, channeled aggressive action. He admires Eisav as someone for whom hunting is natural—“be-fiv.” He takes particular pleasure in the weapons Eisav knows how to use, even in the smell of the field, the arena where Eisav is master. Yitzhak doesn’t want just any food, he wants *hunted* food to inspire him to transfer the berakhot to Eisav. Why? What does trained and channeled aggression—hunting skill—have to do with blessings? To answer this, we need to look at the blessings themselves:

“May Hashem give you from the dew of the heavens and the fat of the land, and much grain and wine. Nations shall serve you, and countries bow to you; be master to your brother, and may the sons of your mother bow to you . . . .”

These are berakhot of physical plenty, leadership, and power. Eisav, master of the physical environment, skilled with weapons, trained to wield power, has exactly the leadership skills necessary to receive these berakhot. His trained aggression can be channeled into controlling the power of leadership and will guarantee the safety and survival of the whole family in a hostile environment. Yitzhak has not been fooled about Eisav’s leadership qualities—Eisav really does have them.

Ya’akov, on the other hand, is the “ish tam,” the tent-dweller, who avoids engaging the world and prefers to tend his sheep off by himself. Yitzhak looks at him and knows he may not be able to depend on Ya’akov’s ability to confront the family’s enemies and its challenges. Instead of facing his challenges, he will try to avoid them. Yitzhak is attracted to Eisav and his face-to-face approach to his challenges.

Yitzhak knows that Eisav is a bit impulsive, that he doesn’t always think through his decisions. He knows that Eisav’s strength is also his weakness, that his courage in facing his challenges face-to-face also means that he may find it difficult to face a challenge which is not right in front of his face. Eisav is undone by subtlety, his brother’s specialty. But Yitzhak doesn’t really appreciate the degree of Eisav’s shortsightedness and poor judgment until after he discovers Ya’akov’s theft of Eisav’s blessing. To appreciate this, we need to look at the conversation between Yitzhak and Eisav after Ya’akov has stolen the berakha. Raising his voice bitterly in tearful, anguished complaint, Eisav pauses to curse the subtle Ya’akov: “Is his name indeed ‘Ya’akov’ [literally, ‘heel’ or ‘trickster’]?! He has tricked me [”va-ye-akveini,” a play on “Ya’akov”] now twice—he took my birthright, and now he took my blessings!”

Eisav shoots his mouth off just a little more than he should! Until now, Yitzhak had thought of Eisav as a strong leader, a person of courage who confronts his challenges, if perhaps also a bit hasty, a little impulsive. But now Yitzhak knows about the sale of the bekhora, the sale where Eisav agreed to sell his leadership rights for a bowl of soup when he was hungry! Suddenly, Yitzhak realizes that he has been deeply mistaken about Eisav. No one with real leadership instinct would ever have sold the bekhora, the leadership of the family . . . not for *anything,* and certainly not for a bowl of soup! A person who would do that is a person with little understanding of leadership at all. Suddenly, Yitzhak sthat all the leadership he thought he saw in Eisav was really just aggression; all the courage he saw was rejust thoughtless incaution.

This brings us to our next question: Why is Yitzhak, who has just been the victim of Ya’akov’s deception, willing to give Ya’akov *another* berakha at the end of the parasha? And since Ya’akov has already received a berakha from Yitzhak, why does he need another one?

Let’s add another question: we saw that when Eisav shows up and realizes that Ya’akov has stolen his berakha, he becomes distraught. He begs his father to bless him, too; in fact, he begs three times. Yitzhak insists that he has no blessings left, but in the end he gives Eisav a watered-down version of the same berakha he had given to Ya’akov just before. The problem is that Yitzhak does *indeed* have another berakha besides the one he gave to Ya’akov: he still has the berakha which he is going to give to Ya’akov at the end of the parasha. If he has another berakha, why doesn’t he give it to Eisav?

To understand the questions surrounding this last berakha, we have to take a look at the berakha itself:

“May Hashem bless you and increase you . . . you shall become a throng of nations. May He give to you the blessing of Avraham your father, to you and your children with you, that you shall inherit the Land in which you dwell, which Hashem gave to Avraham.”

How does this compare to the berakhot that Yitzhak had given earlier in the parasha?

This latter berakha is the Birkat Avraham, the promise of the holy land and the promise that Ya’akov will become “a throng of nations.” Unlike the berakha meant for Eisav, this is not a berakha of physical wealth or political leadership; this berakha transforms its recipient into the spiritual heir of Avraham, into the one who will inherit the holy land and found the nation which will have a special relationship with Hashem.

It is now clear why Ya’akov gets this berakha even though he has already gotten a berakha—the two blessings are as different as can be! The previous berakha was for physical success and temporal leadership, while this berakha grants spiritual leadership.

But isn’t Yitzhak still angry at Ya’akov for lying and stealing the previous berakha? How can he be willing to bless Ya’akov (especially as a spiritual leader!) after being tricked by him? And why isn’t Yitzhak willing to give this blessing to poor Eisav when Eisav plaintively begs for a blessing? Why does Yitzhak make it seem that he has nothing left to offer to Eisav?

Things are a lot more complex than we thought when we started! We sometimes like to think of characters in the Humash as simple—he’s one of the good guys, he’s one of the bad guys. But in our real lives, the people are not simple at all. No one is all good or all evil. The same is true of the Humash, but some of us have been trained to think of the characters of the Humash in simplistic terms.

At the end of his life, Yitzhak faces the reality that neither of his sons is perfect. Eisav has shown that he doesn’t have much leadership potential, while Ya’akov has shown that he is less than completely honest. But Yitzhak does have to pass spiritual leadership, the Blessing of Avraham, to someone. He doesn’t have any perfect choices: each candidate has serious weaknesses. Ya’akov seems to understand the value of leadership and makes efforts to achieve it, but he has been dishonest. Yitzhak does not know about Eisav’s plan to murder Ya’akov, which is nicely in line with Eisav’s impulsive, judgment-free nature (he’s hungry, he sells the birthright; he’s angry, he murders his opponent), but Yitzhak has seen enough to make him even more uncomfortable with Eisav than he is with Ya’akov. Yitzhak does not know what to do. To whom should he give the spiritual leadership of the future nation? Who should get the final berakha? He doesn’t know, so he delays by giving Eisav a watered-down version of the physical berakha.

But then one other element enters the scene and convinces Yitzhak that Ya’akov is his man. This element is supplied by the crafty Rivka.

She knows that Yitzhak still hasn’t given anyone the Birkat Avraham, the mantle of spiritual leadership. And she wants Ya’akov to get it. So instead of telling Yitzhak that Eisav is a bum and that he is planning to murder Ya’akov, she does a very sly thing: she pretends to be concerned that Ya’akov will marry one of the local Hittite women, who are clearly evil characters in the Torah’s view. (The Hittites are among the Cana’anite nations which the Torah says live lives of abomination and idol worship; they are the people from whom Avraham insisted that a wife not be taken for Yitzhak. In other words, they stand for everything immoral and evil that the morality and monotheism of the Torah come to challenge.) Now, let us remember—who is it who has already married *two* of these Hittite women? Eisav, of course! And remember that Yitzhak and Rivka, the Torah says, found these women “a bitterness of spirit.”

What Rivka is really doing at this crucial moment by accenting her fear that Ya’akov might take a Hittite wife is subtly reminding Yitzhak that his favorite son Eisav is not worthy of spiritual leadership at all. He has married women from a culture which will in time reach such depths of evil that Hashem will consider it nation worthy of destruction at the hands of the Bnei Yisrael as they emerge from Egypt and conquer Israel. This son is simply not an option as a spiritual leader; his marital choices have already spoken volumes for his future as a spiritual leader. In this context, the only choice left is Ya’akov. On the one hand, he has not done much to show that he can be a spiritual leader. And he has been dishonest. But Yitzhak has no better choice, so he chooses Ya’akov.

We will see as we follow Ya’akov through his development that Yitzhak was right. As Ya’akov grows, he proves himself worthy of the spiritual blessings.

[It is also worth noticing that Eisav suddenly wakes up at this point and sees that Ya’akov has been commanded not to marry a native (Cana’anite) woman, and that Ya’akov has therefore received the birkat Avraham. It is too late for him, but Eisav still tries to show he is worthy by taking one of Yishmael’s daughters (i.e., a non-Cana’anite woman) as a wife!]

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