November 13th: Toldot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Toldot tells the story of the birth of Esau and Jacob, the long-awaited and twin sons of Rebekah and Isaac. While some twins function as a team throughout their childhoods and often into adult life, these Biblical twins are at odds even before they are born:
“The children struggled in her (Rebekah’s) womb, and she said, ‘If so, why do I exist?’ She went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord answered her: ‘Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.’” (Genesis 25.22-23)
Three small points:
(1) This might be the moment when Rebekah learns she is carrying twins. (Remember, there were no sonograms back then.)
(2) What does it mean when it says, “She went to inquire of the Lord?” Is she simply praying deeply—and being answered with a vision that she, as a Matriarch, can receive? Or is there an ancient place of Divine access—like the Greek Oracle of Delphi? If one were to think in terms of the Yeshiva and holy precincts of Moriah/Salem/Jerusalem described in last week’s Torah commentary, then perhaps this is where she goes “to inquire of the Lord.”)
(3) When Rebekah says. “Im ken, lama zeh anochi/If so, why do I exist?”, what does she mean? Though the Jewish Publication Society translates the Hebrew, the editors admit in a footnote that they do not really know what this ancient idiom means. I wonder if it is like the modern, “I could just die” which is more a figurative exasperation than an actual comment about death. In ancient times as in modern, we often express our frustration or angst in very dramatic terms.
Now, the twins, Esau and Jacob. There is a tendency among many to link twins together and treat them as a unit rather than as two separate individuals who just happen to have been born to the same parents on the same day. Though often quite similar in appearance, abilities, and circumstance, twins are not a unit any more than any other two humans who may (or may not) work together. In the case of Esau and Jacob, however, the differences are most striking:
“The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau. Then his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau, so they named him Jacob…Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed in camp…” (Genesis 25.25-27)
While the Torah describes some differences, the Midrash really goes to town on the brothers, elaborating each one’s personality dramatically. Esau is concocted into a wild man—impulsive, violent, impious, and even bloodthirsty. One senses a post hoc ergo propter hoc attempt by the Rabbis to justify Jacob’s usurpation of the Patriarchate. Inasmuch as Esau is completely unsuited for religious leadership, what choice does Jacob have? To complete the picture and justify the stolen blessing, the Midrash concocts Jacob nto a pious and righteous man—and a studier of sacred texts. The Rabbis seize on the phrase, “he stayed in camp,” and notes that the word Yoshev/sit or stay means that he spends his time sitting in a Yeshiva—a place where pious students sit and study Torah. Another “clue” about his scholarship comes from seven missing years in the story of Jacob’s visit up to Padan Aram and Uncle Laban’s home. The Torah says that he is gone for twenty-one years, but his time with Uncle Laban (and Rachel and Leah!) is only fourteen years. What happens during these seven missing years? The “obvious” answer is that he spends them at the Yeshiva of his still-living and teaching ancestors, Shem and Eber.
It is taught that each word of Torah can be interpreted on four different levels (some say on seventy!). Among these levels is the mystical, and, when mystics start looking at stories, all kinds of hidden possibilities emerge.
Enter the modern mystic, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who looks at the story of Esau and Jacob along the lines of the modern men’s movement of the 1980s. Inspired by Robert Bly, the concern was that modern men are caught between two paradigms: the warrior/wild man and the sophisticated and self-controlled civilized man. Men inhabit bodies (and psyches) built for chasing wild animals across the savanna and fighting wars—bodies built for surviving on fierce and aggressive manliness. However, modern society demands self-control and sedate sophistication—a dichotomy of expectations that creates problems for many men. Bly and the Men’s Movement offered various therapeutic techniques and experiences to help men balance these two disparate selves and resolve the internal conflict.
In Rabbi Shapiro’s mystical understanding, Jacob and Esau can be seen not as twins but as a single man struggling with these two disparate proclivities. One part is Esau, wild and hairy and powerful, while the other part is Jacob, sedate and wise and pious. Throughout its life, Esau/Jacob struggles internally and suffers. However, on that dramatic night of wrestling with the Divine (Genesis 32.25-33), he resolves his fight within and emerges not as Jacob, not as Esau, but as Israel the Patriarch. Both powerful and wise, both assertive and pious, both able to deal with the physical world and to live profoundly in the spiritual world, Israel is able to get on with life.
Remembering the caveat that actual twins are two individual human beings, we can nonetheless contemplate Rabbi Shapiro’s mystical interpretation and the insight it offers each of us. Whether male or female, we are all offered a variety of competing paradigms and role models—possibilities that struggle within us. Each ideal gives advice, and each advocates for how we should live our lives. Are these paradigms and expectations good? Do they fit our personalities and circumstances—and our souls? No matter the expectations set on our shoulders—by society, by family, or by our own imaginings, we are faced with a series of decisions. Like our ancestor Esau/Jacob, we are immersed in an internal wrestling match. Our task is to balance our aspirations and realities and eventually emerge as Israel. It is a real struggle, but it offers us the chance to live our lives with purpose, with equanimity, and with self-acceptance.