TOLEDOT_GENESIS XXV:19-XXVIII:9
Many point out that the Tora does not hide the mistakes of its characters, the heroes are described with their strengths and weaknesses of character. This fact points to the authenticity of the sacred text, even for those who consider it to be a document produced by humans.
For example, the conduct of the Patriarchs is not always impeccable. Avraham, at the insistence of his wife Sara, expels his concubine Hagar from his home with her son Yishmael, a fact of questionable morality. While, in our chapters, Rivka, wife of the second patriarch Yitschak, “manipulates” her son Yaacov and covers part of his body with skins to pose as his twin brother Esau before the old and almost blind father. When confronted by his firstborn son Esau to also grant him the blessing, Yitschak replies: “Bemirma“, by way of “deception”, your brother Yaacov snatched it.
The intrigues that will be woven between the sons of the third patriarch will have a deep root in his personality. This is what the exegetes point out, so Jacob could not protest the treatment that Joseph received at the hands of his brothers. Rabbi Yuval Cherlow deepens our questioning by pointing out that since the transmission of the patriarchs’ spiritual heritage occurred through a ploy, this fact calls into question the legitimacy of the Patriarchate succession and the authenticity of Judaism’s roots. Everything became Bemirma.
It is interesting to note that Onkelos, the authorized translation into Aramaic interprets this word as Bechochma, which means “intelligently”. So, it was not a hoax, but a bold act to prevent a disaster. Had not Rivka received the augury that the older would serve the younger? This means that Esau would be subordinate to Yaacov, a message she received when she had not yet finished her period of pregnancy.
Moreover, the blessing Yaacov initially obtained from his elderly father concerned the material abundance he would have, the fact that he would rule over others and have the power to bless and curse. But the transmission of patriarchy occurred on a second opportunity, when the father learned that Esau had decided to take revenge and, therefore, considered it opportune for Yaacov to absent himself from the paternal home for a reasonable period. This time, Yitschak instructed him to go to Padan, where he could marry a woman belonging to the family. He invoked God to pass on Avraham’s blessing to Yitschak and his descendants. On this occasion, we see clearly the patriarchal blessing of succession.
Apparently, Yitschak consciously recognizes that the true heir, the link of continuity, will be Yaacov and not Esau. This is not the only case in which the conduct of the Patriarchs could be questionable. Had Avraham not demanded that Sara say that she was his sister and not his wife when he was forced to descend into Egypt because of the famine that reigned in the region? Did he not do something similar in the case of King Avimelech, who was punished for trying to make love to Sara?
Even when Moshe appeared before Pharaoh to allow the Hebrew people to go out into the wilderness to “serve” God for a period of three days, wasn’t his real intention to escape Egyptian slavery altogether? Cherlow argues that perhaps the biblical narrative admits the viability of the ambiguous word when the purpose is right and just. Let us not forget that we are in the epoch of history that predates the giving of the Tora with its specific demands and norms.
Perhaps, at first, a certain elasticity of conduct and speech was allowed to the biblical heroes, a way of acting that must be contrasted with the idolatrous cult of the time. Indeed, the Patriarch Avraham feared being killed by the Egyptians and seizing his wife Sara, whose beauty is mentioned for the first time. Avraham’s lack of precision in calling his wife a sister is understandable in the face of the aforementioned alternative. It is clear that moral and ethical sensitivity is a process that was accentuated and increased according to the experiences of the Patriarchs, a fact that was normalized and formalized with the delivery of the Tora on Mount Sinai.
