{"id":84377,"date":"2024-11-22T14:56:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T19:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=84377"},"modified":"2024-11-22T14:56:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T19:56:06","slug":"person-in-the-parsha-toldot-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/person-in-the-parsha-toldot-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Person in the Parsha: Toldot"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RABBI TZVI HERSH WEINREB <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDO PARENTS KNOW THEIR CHILDREN?<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

It is commonly assumed that parents know their children much better than anyone else knows them.  After all, parents have had the opportunity to observe their children from their earliest years, from their infancy, and in most instances observed them daily as they grew. <\/p>\n

\"\"

As a parent myself and as one who has spent his professional life in the fields of education and child psychology, I have come to a very different conclusion.  I now am convinced that relatively few parents really know their children and often are tragically oblivious to their child\u2019s strengths and weaknesses. <\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Torah portion, Toldot<\/em> (Genesis<\/em> 25:19-28:9), provides us with a window into the parent-child relationship in general and allows us to analyze and speculate about one particular such relationship. You guessed i\u2014I\u2019m referring to Isaac\/Yitzchak and Rebekah\/Rivka, parents of the twin boys, Esau\/Esav and Jacob\/Yaakov. <\/p>\n

At first, Yitzchak and Rivka had difficulty conceiving a child.  They prayed desperately. Rashi imprints upon us the visual image of them both standing in diametrically opposite corners of a room, beseeching the Almighty for a child. <\/p>\n

That image is quite foreboding. It portrays two individuals with diverse expectations of the result of their fervent prayers. One might conjecture that Yitzchak stood in his corner praying for the type of child he would welcome, while Rivka <\/em>stood \u201cover and against him\u201d in the other corner of the chapel with a very different sort of offspring in her dreams. <\/p>\n

Their prayers were answered, and both Yitzchak and Rivka had their dreams fulfilled. Twins were born, and from birth they displayed very different dispositions and behavior patterns. They were named Esav and Yaakov. The former developed into \u201ca man of the field\u201d and became a \u201ccunning hunter.\u201d The latter became a \u201cquiet person,\u201d a homebody. <\/p>\n

On this basis alone, one would predict that Rivka\u2019s maternal instincts would cause her to favor Yaakov and would cherish his complacent personality. Yitzchak, we would suspect, would find Esav more to his liking since he too spent time in the fields, although he was attracted to the open spaces of nature not in search of hunting grounds but as quiet places, conducive to prayer and meditation. <\/p>\n

As we continue to read the text, we soon discover that our suppositions were correct: \u201cNow Yitzchak loved Esav because he did eat of his venison; and Rivka loved Yaakov.\u201d (Genesis<\/em> 25:28, Soncino translation)<\/p>\n

We have no trouble accepting that Rivka loved Yaakov, and it doesn\u2019t occur to us to ask, \u201cWhy?\u201d. Her love was based on every mother\u2019s unconditional love for her son, especially since he was such a \u201cgood little boy.\u201d <\/p>\n

But we are stumped when we try to understand Yitzchak\u2019s love for Esav. Was Yitzchak\u2019s love to be gained by an occasional treat of a few slices of venison? Surely, Yitzchak would have higher standards for his child than a serving of delicatessen! <\/p>\n

We are not alone when we are confounded by Yitzchak\u2019s strange preference for his \u201ccunning hunter\u201d over and above his \u201cdweller in the tents,\u201d presumably the \u201ctents of study and spiritual practices.\u201d Numerous commentators have been similarly confounded and suggest in a wide variety of responses. <\/p>\n

One such response is offered by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Salant, the Jerusalem teacher and preacher of two generations ago, in his two-volume commentary, Be\u2019er Yosef<\/em>.  <\/p>\n

The basis of his approach is to be found in Maimonides\/Rambam\u2019s sixth chapter of his \u201cEight Chapters\u201d of introduction to Ethics of the Fathers<\/em>\/Pirkei<\/em> Avot<\/em>.  <\/p>\n

There Rambam reflects upon the following theological question: Who stands higher in the ranks of the righteous? Is it the person who is dispassionate, who faces no internal religious doubts or immoral urges? Or is it the person who knows temptation, who is beset by all sorts of illicit desires, but who suppresses them successfully and behaves properly? <\/p>\n

Rambam reports that there is a basic argument here between the \u201cphilosophers\u201d and the \u201cTorah sources.\u201d The former believe that it is the pure soul who never experiences sinful inner tendencies who stands higher than the one who overcomes his nasty evil urges. <\/p>\n

The Torah, on the other hand, values the person who controls himself, refrains from acting on his passions, and behaves in a punctiliously correct manner. <\/p>\n

I must add that Rambam distinguishes between two types of sinful temptations. However, the eighteenth-century sage Rabbi Yaakov Emden in his gloss upon the \u201cEight Chapters\u201d (to be found in the appendix to the tractate Avodah Zara<\/em> in the standard Vilna edition of the Babylonian Talmud) supersedes Rambam\u2019s distinctions and simply declares \u201clefum<\/em>tzaara agra,\u201d <\/em>the more difficulty a person faces when he tries to act properly, the more the reward for overcoming those difficulties.  <\/p>\n

After reviewing and explicating Rambam\u2019s thesis and Rabbi Emden\u2019s perspective, Rabbi Salant returns to our quandary: What was Yitzchak thinking when he favored Esav? What was the motive of his preference for the \u201ccunning hunter\u201d over and above the simple and straightforward Yaakov? <\/p>\n

Yitzchak, suggest Rabbi Salant, <\/em>was aware of the theological question which was the focus of Rambam\u2019s treatise. He knew full well that Yaakov was a \u201cpure soul,\u201d and Esav had many \u201chunting\u201d urges of all sorts. But he saw Esav\u2019s life choices as attempts to channel his urges in a positive direction. He is the model of the Talmud\u2019s analogy of a person who is born under the constellation of maadim<\/em>\/<\/em>Mars, the epitome of bloody warfare, in modern terms the genetically wired man of violence, who can sublimate his dark inner passions by choosing to be a ritual slaughterer\/shochet<\/em> or a surgeon who sheds blood but as part of medical operation, or a mohel <\/em>who sheds blood for the mitzvah <\/em>of circumcision (see Masechet<\/em> Shabbat<\/em>, 156a). <\/p>\n

Yitzchak interpreted Esav\u2019s hunting as his struggle to channel his urges toward violence into the hunt for delicious food for his aging and blind father. From that vantage point, Yaakovtook second place. He was thoroughly good and knew no wayward temptations. Fine. But Esav, from Yitzchak\u2019s perspective, stood even higher because of his internal struggles.  <\/p>\n

I leave it to you, dear reader, to ponder Rabbi Salant\u2019s ingenious interpretation of Yitzchak\u2019s love for Esav and to decide for yourself whether Yitzchak the parent understood his favorite son.<\/p>\n

\"Share