Torah Teaching, 11/24/06 , Shabbat Toldot, Genesis 25:19-28:9

• Jacob supplants Esau and usurps their father, Isaac’s blessing
• Esau is enraged by Jacob’s ruse, and swears to kill his brother.
• Jacob flees from Esau, and heads to live with his uncle, Laban

D'var Torah

Dear Friends, 

               The anguish of Esau is dramatic and palpable.  He is angry at having been betrayed duplicitously by his family – his mother, father and brother.  He is bitter, murderously angry, and lost. 

                Esau’s younger brother, Jacob, has just “stolen” Esau’s blessing after dressing up as his brother and posing as the hunter.  Learning of the deception, and that his father bestowed the blessing on Jacob, the Torah records: “When Esau heard the words of  his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said unto his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father.’”  [Gen 27:34]  And a few verses later, after Isaac answers with a consolation blessing: “And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him.  And Esau said in his heart, ‘Let the days of mourning for my father be at hand, then I will slay my brother Jacob.’”  {Gen 27:41]

                One would think that it is hard to commiserate or empathize with Esau.  He is the hunter who would sell his birthright for a bowl of lentils, whereas his brother Jacob is devoted to the covenant and rescues it from the witless Esau.  Jacob would be the father of our tribal family; Esau would marry out of the people, irritating his parents.  Even the Midrash describes the difference: when carrying them in the womb and their mother would pass by a yeshiva, Jacob would quicken, while when their mother would pass by a place of ill repute, Esau would kick. 

                Thus, why does Esau’s pain and anguish tear at us?  Why shouldn’t we cheer that the oaf gets his due, and the hero is rewarded?  

               I believe that the pathos in the text stirs our sense of fairness and our abiding sense of right and wrong.  Despite the distastefulness of Esau and his thoroughly contrary nature, we lament his anguish.  It is not merely romantically pulling for the underdog.  Rather, it is the expression of an enduring and unshakeable sense of justice which we uphold, and which the Torah has inculcated from its very beginning.  When Cain slays Abel, we identify with the victim.  When Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, we sympathize not with God, but with the displaced couple.  In the Noah episode, we feel the aloneness and vulnerability of Noah and his shipboard entourage.   

               The Torah guides its readers to empathize with the vulnerable, the hurt, the betrayed.  As Jews, such has been our lot throughout history.  Elie Wiesel has taught that it is our duty to identify with the victim: it is morally more proper to be the victim than the victimizer. 

               Hence, our compassion towards the embittered Esau.   

As we reflect on our blessings on this Thanksgiving holiday and this Shabbat, the charge to care for the downtrodden or the hurt is profound and compelling.  And, we can thank the unlikely Esau for the message.   

Shabbat Shalom