Parshat Toldot  4 Kislev 5763, 9 November 2002

Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Toldot    Genesis 25:19-28:9

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - The tragedy which haunts Jacob until the end of his life, the transgression which reforms the rest of the Book of Genesis - indeed, all of subsequent Jewish history until this very day - is Jacob's deception of his father in order to wrest the blessings meant for Esau. In "measure for measure" fashion, Laban gives Jacob the unloved daughter under the marriage canopy because "it is not done in our place to give the younger before the elder" - setting the stage for the bitter rivalry of the wives which led to Reuben's heinous crime against his father - and Father Jacob is deceived by his sons regarding the disappearance of his beloved Joseph with the false explanation, "he has been torn apart by a wild beast" - setting the stage for the sale of Joseph into Egypt and the subsequent deception of Joseph's brothers by the Grand Vizier of Pharoah. Moreover, the enmity between Jacob's children and Esau's children (Israel vs. Rome) as well as the internal strife and sibling hatred among the children of Israel themselves reverberates throughout Jewish history and plagues us even now. What would impel the "wholehearted" Jacob, the studious dweller of tents, to fall prey to an act of deception and pose as his brother in disguise for the sake of the blessings - even if it was his mother who made the suggestion! And what makes the verse even stranger to comprehend is the fact that it was bound to be uncovered. After all, Esau would appear sooner or later with the venison in hand, and the wrath of father Isaac was certain to fall upon the head of imposter Jacob. So why does he do it?

I believe a fascinating answer may be found within the complexity of the parent-child, father-son relationship, which is so profoundly depicted between the lives and imbedded within the parchment folds of the amazing book of Genesis. The stage is set for the sibling rivalry between the twin brothers Jacob and Esau with the words, "And Isaac loved Esau because the hunt (or entrapment) was in his mouth, and Rebecca loved Jacob" (Genesis 25:28). Every child yearns for - and deserves - unconditional love from his/her parents; after all, the child did not ask to be born into the world, and the most potent armor he/she can receive as protection against the irrational forces expelled by both environment and society is the protective love - no matter what - of concerned, committed parents; to paraphrase Robert Frost, a home is the place where, when everyone else closes the door on you, they will always welcome you in with a warm embrace. And within the patriarchal society which was Jacob's world, Jacob especially needed the unconditional love of his father.

Tragically, he didn't receive it. Rebecca loved Jacob, period; apparently this meant unconditionally. But that was not enough. Jacob felt unloved, rejected, by his father - who did love his brother Esau. Jacob desperately yearned for this love - and there was even a way for him to acquire it. After all, Isaac did not love Esau unconditionally; he loved him because - because the hunt (entrapment) was in his mouth, because Esau fed his father the venison meat he so dearly loved. ("Esau's venison meat was in Isaac's mouth"), because the mellifluous speech of the lawyer-politician-trickster was Esau's gift -of-gab ("Esau's entrapment via words was the gift of speech in Esau's mouth") If only.....

Permit me a story to help elucidate the unfulfilled need which caused an emptiness in Jacob's heart, the aching angst with which only the child who feels himself unloved and rejected by the favored parent can ever identify.

My wife and I have a respected and beloved friend, a survivor of the holocaust, a beautiful and intelligent woman blessed with a strong sterling character, a stunningly frank but generous disposition, and a rare ability to express herself in prose and poetry. During one of our many conversations which she would reminisce about her childhood, she revealed that one of the happiest recollections of her life was the day in which she was forcibly removed from her family and taken by the Nazis to an extermination camp. She replied to our shocked expressions by describing a family situation in which her older sister was the favored, "frum" (religious) daughter and she was the rejected, rebellious one. If there was one part of butter and one part of the margarine, her sister would get the butter and she would get the margarine; "after all," her mother would explain, "Miriam is exhausted from davening with such concentration; you skipped a few corners with the prayer-book in your hand, so you can do with less."

What was even more difficult for her to bear was her mother's complaint whenever she was angered by her younger daughter's conduct, "You probably aren't my own biological daughter! Your sister was born at home, whereas you were born in a 'clinic' the doctors probably exchanged my real daughter with you..." Obviously, this was not a usual refrain spoken by the mother, but was only engendered by our friends occasional rebellion. But as Yiddish proverb goes "A slap depart , a 'word' still smart" (A patsch derght, A vort bashteht).

In 1942 the Nazis came to her hometown of Bendine, and rounded up the children. Only she and her parents were at home. Her father tried to steady his trembling hands by writing a "kvittel" (petition) to the Gerrer Rebbe; her mother threw herself at the feet of the Nazi beasts, begging them to take her and spare the life of her precious child. Our friend said she felt absolutely no fear, even when they loaded her onto the cattle's car; she could feel only joy, joy in the knowledge that her mother truly loved her after all, joy in the confirmation that she was indeed her parent's own and beloved daughter, joy in the discovery that she was at last accepted and not rejected.

I would argue that Jacob desperately wanted to feel his fathers' love, even if but for a brief period. If he supplied the venison meat, if he truly expressed the words "I am Esau your first born," then perhaps Isaac would love him just as he loved Esau of the venison. Just as he loved Esau of the mellifluous verbal entrapment. Indeed, Jacob yearns to be Esau - because then he could hope to gain paternal acceptance and affection. And so begins Jacob's odyssey, first searching for an Esau identity in Laban's house and business for 22 years and then finally succeeding in exorcizing Esau at the River Yabbok in order to become reconciled with his own true self. But Jacob's journey will only be completed, and the Lord will only become his G-d, when he eventually returns in peace to - and is at peace with - his father's house. (Genesis 28:21; 35:27).

Shabbat Shalom.

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