Parshat Vayetze  9 Kislev 5762, 24 November 2001

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel – In last week’s Torah reading we saw Jacob as a “wholehearted (naive) man, an (introverted and studious) dweller in tents” (Genesis 25:27). And lo and behold, in this week’s portion of Vayetze a very different Jacob emerges before our eyes: a man of guile and street-smarts, one who is more Laban-like than Laban, a swindler of swindlers who knows how to become rich off his wiley boss and escape with his wealth unscathed at the proper moment. What happened from one portion to the next?

In order to properly understand the dynamics of Jacob’s personality, we must begin with the original Biblical description of the respective personalities of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca (Genesis 25:25,27): “And behold there were twins in her womb: and the first one emerged ruddy (admoni), entirely like a mantle of hair, and they called his name Esau (lit. ready-made)... And the lads grew, and Esau became a man who knew the hunt, a man of the field.” Esau is a person of the here-and-now, a man of the moment, born almost fully developed, ruddy and hot-blooded, given to the immediate gratification of an outdoor life of hunting and eating his prey. True to the form of his appearance and life-style, he is what he looks like: superficial, only skin-deep, and totally dependent upon externals.

Hence when he is tired after a day of hunting, he has no time to wait before satisfying his appetite - even if it means giving up the eventual blessing of the first born: “Pour into me now (na) this red, red stuff,” he cries out, with the Biblical commentary Sforno suggesting the Hebrew word na in this context means raw: “Give me the red lentils raw, without even cooking them;” moreover, he is called edom not only because of his own ruddy color but also because of this incident with the lentils, the dish of pottage-soup here named after its external color rather than after its more internally appreciated flavor. This incident concludes: “And he ate, and he drank, and he got up and he left,” four verbs in a row; the Yiddish folk expression interprets it pejoratively for anyone who “eats like Esau: he breaks bread without washing, he drinks wine without a blessing, he gets up without the grace after meals, he leaves without saying thank-you.” In this way, by paying attention only to the gratification of the moment, “Esau spurned the first-born blessing-obligation”(Genesis 25:30-34).

This pattern repeats itself later on, when Esau takes two Hittite wives much to the consternation of his parents, whose fundamental principle derived from Abraham was that their children not intermarry with the Canaanites. (Genesis 26:34,35). You can almost hear Esau respond in self-justification, “But they have Jewish names, Yehudit and Bosmat (lit. sweet-smelling).” So thinks a superficial personality for whom all of life is judged only by external appearances! (How strangely reminiscent of the contemporary play Beau Geste, in which the Jewish protagonist justifies to her parents her desire to marry a German Christian became he is a doctor and has a Jewish sounding name!).

Jacob, on the other hand, is very different in nature. He is “a dweller in tents”, which implies not also introversion but also introspection, an in-depth inwardness as well as the delayed gratification which is so characteristic of the life of the student (a tent is the Biblical term for a home as well as a house of study”). Hence the Sforno sees in the name Yaakov, while literally means heel, or the end of the body, the nuance, “he will remain at the end” - because of his ability to develop, adapt and persistently sustain his efforts. The Bible itself explains the origin of his name in a way which will open the door to a proper understanding of this week’s Jacob: “And (as he emerged from the womb) his hand grasped at the heels of Esau; and he called his name Yaakov” Apparently, even from birth, the second-born twin wished to overtake his elder brother; Jacob yearned for the respect and responsibility, the noblesse oblige if you will, which came with the Abrahamic blessing of the first-born.

And this desire to surpass his brother only sharpened with the ensuing years, and for very deep and understandable psychological reasons. We all yearn for parental favor, no matter how old we are or how great a station in life we may have achieved. Jacob felt un-loved - even rejected - by his father: “And Isaac loved Esau, because his hunt (entrapment) was in his mouth.” Why did Isaac favor Esau? Perhaps because he was a man of the fields (“And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields” Genesis 24:63) just as was Esau, perhaps because Esau had the kind of aggressive and extroverted personality which Isaac lacked, and wished for, perhaps because Isaac - the first survivor of an akedah for the sake of his G-d - understood that his descendants would require great physical strength, fortitude and even a degree of sophisticated guile to survive in an as yet unredeemed world which would hate and persecute them. Most probably, it was because of a combination of all three factors. Be that as it may, Jacob yearned for his father’s favor - even if it meant becoming Esau-like. Hence, when his mother suggests that he, Jacob, dress like Esau and appear to be Esau in front of his father, Jacob accepts with alacrity; for him it was not so much deception as it was his finally metamorphosing into the accepted son he had always yearned to be.

Now we can begin to understand the different face of Jacob revealed in this week’s Torah portion. Jacob in Laban-land is simply the new Jacob-Esau, the out-door shepherd who has learned to “entrap” with his mouth, to street-fight, in order to claim what is rightfully his. After all, had not Esau spurned the first-born blessing and had not Jacob worked hard and long for the family and livestock he had accrued with Laban? But the Jacob-turned-Esau of this week’s Torah portion can not yet become Israel, the father of the twelve tribes. He must still continue to develop, he must exorcise the negative aspects of the spirit of Esau within him and strike the proper balance between the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob; he must pave the way for the synthesis of his descendant Messiah David, the Admoni (Edom) warrior who is at the same time the sweet Psalm singer of Israel.

And so the more complex and profound Jacob-Esau will eventually emerge into Israel as his life-story unfolds, and only when that has been achieved will he truly emerge triumphant at the end!

Shabbat Shalom.

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