Toledot #2

Bereishit 25:19-28:9

Yitzhak's Fantasy, Yitzhak's Awakening: The Story of the Stolen Blessing

Michael Rosenberg, 5767

One of the most troubling aspects of Yitzhak's character in our parashah is his preference for Esav. The book of Bereishit is full of stories of sibling rivalries, and in particular of cases where a younger child usurps the benefits normally accorded to the older child (Yitzhak and Yishmael; Yaakov and Esav; Rahel and Leah [though Leah deceives her way into marrying Yaakov first, Yaakov always loves Rahel more and sees her as his true wife]; Yosef and his brothers). But the case of Esav and Yaakov is somewhat different - here, we have not only a tension between the older and younger brothers, but a fundamental disagreement between parents as to which child is more deserving. Yitzhak loves Esav "כִּי צַיִד בְּפִיו" -"because there was game in his mouth" (25:28) - whereas Rivkah prefers Yaakov. We are not told why, though presumably it is connected to the prophecy she received telling her that Yaakov will be the main successor of the family line (28:23).

What does it mean that Yitzhak preferred Esav "because there was game in his mouth"? The JPS translation renders the phrase as "he had a taste for game". It is unclear, both in the Hebrew and in the English translation, whether the "he" referred to here is Yitzhak or Esav, but certainly one possible reading is that Yitzhak prefers Esav because of the latter's outdoorsy nature. In his commentary in the Jewish Study Bible, however, Professor Jon Levenson claims that the image of Esav as a hairy hunter makes Esav a particularly unsavory character in the context of Ancient Israelite culture. Think, for example, of Kayyin and Hevel - the former, who becomes the world's first murderer, is a hunter, while the latter - the preferred son and innocent victim - is an agrarian. The fact, then, that Yitzhak could love Esav precisely for this characteristic is particularly strange.

Perhaps the strangeness of Yitzhak preferring Esav for something that otherwise would seem to be an accusation is what leads Targum Onkelos to translate the word "בְּפִיו" as referring to Yitzhak's mouth, not to Esav's. Similarly, a midrash in Bereishit Rabba (63:10) understands Yitzhak as benefiting from his son's hunting habits: "a good piece of meat for his mouth, a good glass of wine for his mouth" - "קופרא טבא לפומיה, וכסא טבא לפומיה". In other words, the author of this midrash understands Yitzhak's preference for Esav as coming from the favors that Esav did for him. Yitzhak stands accused, essentially, of taking bribes.

This trope is picked up again later in Bereishit Rabbah, where a variety of midrashim blame the bribes that Yitzhak accepted from his son - in the form of freshly hunted meat - for his blindness. (Standing behind all of these midrashim, at times explicitly and at others implicitly, is the verse from Shemot 23:8 - "כִּי הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר פִּקְחִים" - "bribery can blind the righteous"). This understanding certainly doesn't put Yitzhak in such a positive light, and thus one midrash in particular (BR 65:7) tries to cut the issue both ways: even Yitzhak, who accepted bribes that were properly owed to him - since a child is obligated to serve his parent - was blinded as a result of letting these favors cloud his judgment.

Indeed, most of the classical commentators follow this line of thinking, explaining that Yitzhak loves Esav because the former loves meat - he loves Esav, because Esav supplies him with what he wants. However, there is something else going on here besides a mere bartering of love for goods. At core, Yitzhak loves Esav because Esav is so radically different from himself.

What do we know about Esav? Primarily his occupation - he is a hunter. He brings his father meat. However, we should recall that while Yitzhak may like meat, he generally gets his food in a very different way; Yitzhak is a farmer. In 26:12, we learn that Yitzhak plants ("וַיִּזְרַע יִצְחָק בָּאָרֶץ הַהִוא"), and in verse 14 we learn that he has very large flocks ("וַיְהִי לוֹ מִקְנֵה צֹאן וּמִקְנֵה בָקָר"). Yitzhak is nothing like is older son: no, he far more closely resembles the pastoral, agrarian ways of Yaakov.

This contrast is present in the duping of Yitzhak as well. Yitzhak asks Esav to go out, with bow and arrows, and hunt meat for him: "וְעַתָּה שָׂא נָא כֵלֶיךָ תֶּלְיְךָ וְקַשְׁתֶּךָ וְצֵא הַשָּׂדֶה וְצוּדָה לִּי צָיִד" (27:3). When he later tells Yaakov, whom he thinks is Esav, to present the food, he again emphasizes: "וְאֹכְלָה מִצֵּיד בְּנִי" - "I will eat of my son's game" (27:25). Let's listen carefully to Rivkah's instructions to Yaakov after she overhears Yitzhak telling Esav to go hunt for him (27:6-9):

As chefs will tell you, farmed animals and hunted wild animals taste very different from each other, but when Yaakov brings his father the delicacies that his mother has made for Yitzhak from the ranch, Yitzhak eats and enjoys. Even though he requested game, he doesn't really know the difference between farmed animals and hunted animals. He is enthralled by the idea of Esav's hunting ways, not the product. That, it seems to me, is what Rivkah means by the phrase "כַּאֲשֶׁר אָהֵב" - of the kind that he loves. What she means is, of the kind that he really loves. Rikvah knows what truly makes Yitzhak happy, and it's not specifically game.

Yitzhak's desire to love a child who is so unlike him is picked up on in a passing comment of the Keli Yekar, who writes that Rivkah loved Yaakov more because he was home, whereas Esav was always off in the fields: "ולפי ש[עשיו] לא היה מצוי אצל אמו על כן לא אהבה אותו רבקה והיתה אוהבת את יעקב שהיה מצוי אצל אמו וכל געגועיה עליו" (25:28). Think back to the conclusion of last week's parasha: Yitzhak is finally comforted for the loss of his mother when he brings Rivkah into his mother's tent (24:67). Sarah's death was a particularly hard hit to Yitzhak, who must have had an especially close relationship with his mother and her dwelling place. Yitzhak was the child always at home with the parents, as emphasized by God's refusal to let him leave the land of Israel (26:2 - "וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יְהוָה וַיֹּאמֶר אַל תֵּרֵד מִצְרָיְמָה שְׁכֹן בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ"). Yaakov is his reincarnation, so to speak. And so Yitzhak turns away from this mirror image of himself, perhaps because he knows that he is the one who has constantly been exploited - first by his father as a sacrifice to God (cap. 22), and later by the Pelishtim, who sack his wells, only to ask later for his alliance when they realize that God blesses him in all that he does (cap. 26). The future of the Jewish people, Yitzhak must think, cannot be through a person such as me - no, our future rests with the ways of Esav.

And perhaps that explains, then, why after the episode of the stolen berakha, Yitzhak does not appear to bear any grudge towards Yaakov. When he realizes what has happened, "וַיֶּחֱרַד יִצְחָק חֲרָדָה גְּדֹלָה עַד מְאֹד" - "Yitzhak trembled a very great trembling" (27:33). His world has been shattered: Yaakov, whom he rejected until now as just another version of himself, has turned the tables and seized his moment. Indeed, the verse ends with the phrase "גַּם בָּרוּךְ יִהְיֶה" - "he will be blessed". Certainly, the contextual meaning is a recognition of the reality that the berakha cannot be withdrawn, but there is also an undertone of recognition that Yitzhak has been wrong all along. This is only reinforced when Esav says in 27:36 that his brother has tricked him twice ("וַיֹּאמֶר הֲכִי קָרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב וַיַּעְקְבֵנִי זֶה פַעֲמַיִם אֶת בְּכֹרָתִי לָקָח וְהִנֵּה עַתָּה לָקַח בִּרְכָתִי"). Yitzhak has come to realize that Esav's totally different demeanor has not saved him from being taken advantage of in this world. He has lost both his birthright and the berakha. Esav is not so different from his father, after all.

Shabbat Shalom.