TOLDOT_GENESIS XXV,19 – XXVIII,9

The matriarchs had difficulty conceiving. Perhaps, the teaching is that giving birth, although we consider it a very natural process, requires Divine care, will, and intervention. The birth of a human being is a transcendental fact. Yitschak implores God, and his wife Rivkah conceives twins. The firstborn is red-haired and hairy and is called Esav. The second is called Yaacov, because he is born by holding on to his brother’s heel. They are twins, not identical. In their everyday life, they are also very different: while Esav develops as a man of the field, a hunter, Yaacov is a young scholar and a homebody.

The twins’ father, Yitschak, appears as the timidest of the patriarchs. His place among the patriarchs of our tradition is like that of the intermediate son, between the firstborn and the youngest of all. According to our Chachamim, he is a complete Tsadik, a person whose faith is unwavering and has traits of holiness.

According to the superficial account of the Bible, Yitschak appears to suffer from his own initiative. He never ventures outside of Israel, a fact that from another perspective is also considered meritorious. Even the water wells he discovers to satisfy the thirst of his flocks are those that are already known. Yitschak is a passive man, who as we already know, demonstrated his willingness to be sacrificed, by offering his life as a sign of unconditional faith. No wonder, then, that Yitschak had great admiration for Esav, a paradigm of the qualities he lacked.

Esav is the symbol of physical strength, of a permanent disposition to challenge the forces of nature. Esav is a man of the countryside and represented for Yitschak the realization of a deep ambition that he could never materialize because of his gentle nature that included flashes of shyness.

Mother Rivkah is a real person. She recognizes Esav’s physical strength but is aware that only Yaacov has the adequate capacity to perpetuate the ethical and moral principles that are the foundation of the new teachings that were to be passed on to future generations. And, when the time comes to point to the spiritual heir, Rivkah intervenes decisively, so that Yitschak will be the chosen one.

The definition of the characters of the protagonists is further accentuated when Esav, on the return of a day of hunting in the field, covets the food that Yaacov had prepared. Esav is willing to cede the birthright to Yaacov for a piece of bread and lentil soup. “If I’m going to die anyway, why do I need the birthright?” exclaims Esav. Yaacov demands an oath as a testimony to the exchange of food for the right to primogeniture.

What was that birthright? Apparently, in those times, the firstborn were the priests of the families and Esav did not have that vocation. Esav was a hunter, of an immediatism nature, requiring the prompt satisfaction of his needs. The delay of pleasure for the sake of a better future was not part of his personality. The “continuator” of faith, the person who should teach an entire world about the one God needed to have a vision of the future. Yaacov delays the satisfaction of momentary hunger to secure the bread of tomorrow.

Yitschak feels that strength is abandoning him, he is going blind: his eyes no longer allow him to admire nature. The time has come for the transmission of the mantle of leadership. Esav is tasked with hunting an animal for his father’s food. Rivkah seizes this crucial moment to ensure the continuity of Avraham’s message. She quickly prepares food and disguises Yaacov with the skins of an animal on his arms and neck, in order to disguise the smoothness of his skin.

Yaacov presents the food to the father. Yitschak does not hide his doubts and the ambiguity of feelings towards the individual who pretends to be Esav but who also manifests some of Yaacov’s characteristics. Says the father: “Hakol, kol Yaacov, vehayadayim yede’i Esav”, which means: “the voice is the voice of Yaacov, but the hands are the hands of Esav. The drama is about to unfold. The food has been prepared too quickly. The aroma of the clothes is that of the countryside and the veiled skins give the feeling of the sturdy arms of Esav.

But the voice, which after all is a much more intimate and authentic manifestation of the person, the voice is the voice of Yaacov. Perhaps Yitschak, in the face of doubt, should have requested   Rivkah’s help to ascertain the identity of who was to be the recipient of his last blessing. It is possible that this symbiosis between the strength of Esav and the understanding and tenderness symbolized by Yaacov’s voice were the ideal combination to carry the message to future generations. The elderly father takes a risk and offers the long-awaited blessing to the one before him, Yaacov.

Indeed, our people kept Yaacov’s message alive during the nearly two millennia of exile and, despite this, were subjected to persecution and humiliation. Yaacov’s voice alone doesn’t seem to have much of a chance in our world. “Kol de’alim gevar”, translates that the strongest is the one who dominates, such is the affirmation of the Talmud. The spiritual leaders of the world deliver sermons, but the owners of the secrets of the atom are the ones who dictate the rules and enforce them. 

It requires, perhaps, a balanced combination of strength and ideas, between power and morality, to survive in our imperfect world. And this is one of the great dilemmas of Medinat Israel. Will we be like all nations, with police and armed forces that are necessary institutions to maintain public order and national security? (Isaac Bashevis Singer, during a visit to our community, stated “a Jew is not made to be a policeman”). 

Can one consider, perhaps, the possibility of Israel as a Mercaz ruchani, a spiritual center, according to the conception of Achad Ha’am, an alternative with a probability of survival in the Arab environment that remains hostile? Possibly the answer is somewhere in between. The essential problem is to know how to measure the ingredients and correctly weigh their percentages. How far can we arm ourselves without becoming a Sparta? 

Golda Meir, illustrious Prime Minister of the State of Israel, commented that she was willing to forgive everything to the Arabs, except the fact that their aggression had forced young Israelis to bear arms and learn to kill.  Samaria and Gaza during the period of the Intifada? What does it feel like to be an Arab mother who sends her little one to stone other beings, children, and mothers?

The dilemma is difficult to resolve, but at the same time, it would be historically unjustifiable to let our guard down and jeopardize the existence of the Medinah. Our generation is privileged because after two millennia we have returned to the earth that God promised Avraham reiterating the same promise to the next two patriarchs. “HaShem oz leamo yiten, HaShem yevarech et amo bashalom”, translates that God will give strength to His people, God will bless His people with peace. it is the affirmation of the psalmist.

We need a very balanced mix of physical prowess and spiritual strength. To the extent that we maintain a dynamic balance between the teachings of the Torah and the exhortations of the prophets and know how to combine them with technological ingenuity, we can stand firm in the ancestral land and obtain the peace that, in due course, should reign in the region and in the world. We surely hope and pray for it.