Friday, November 20, 2009

Toldot 5770

There is a certain satisfaction in having a good guy and a bad guy. Those of us who grew up watching television know this quite well. Think of the westerns we watched when we were kids: you had the sherrif of the town and you had the bank robbers. The sherrif was good, the bank robbers were bad and more often than not, the sheriff would catch the robbers, put them in the local jail and then more bad guys would come to break them out of the jail and so it went, western after western. Bonanza, The Rifleman, even the Lone Ranger; good and bad, clear as a gun fight at high noon.

You might think that the stories of the Torah, written almost three thousand years before the first western ever hit the big screen would portray its characters in a clear good and bad guy format. But this is not so. Our parasha this week is a good example of just that.

We have a struggle going on between Jacob and Esav , twins in the womb of their mother. Rebecca conceives and carries these twins who are causing her great pain and strife in utero as they struggle with one another to be born first. We find the rabbinic commentary on this story trying to make it into a western. Esav is portrayed as the evil one and Jacob can do no wrong. The midrash imagines that when Rebecca passes the yeshiva of shem and aver, Jacob struggles to emerge, from the womb, presumably to study some Torah. When Rebecca walks by a pagan idol, Esav tries to emerge, to worship the false gods. The midrash continues in this vein throughout the story. Jacob good and Esav bad.

But I’m not sure the rabbinic approach to this story is so accurate. These characters are both good and bad and I contend that these characters are symbolic of two sides to the human personality. And in order to be a complete human being, we need to allow expression to both aspects of who we are.

Let’s take a look at Jacob and Esav. Esav is born first “admoni kulo k’aderet se’ar,” he was earthy and hairy, “ish yodea tzayid, ish sadeah, “a man who knows how to hunt, a man of the field.” Now this immediately makes us feel ambivalent about Esav. A hunter? A man’s man; a guy who camps out in the woods and lives close to the earth as his description indicates “admoni,” a man of the earth. And Yitzchak loves him more because he enjoyed eating the meat Esav brought home to him.
And then there is Yaakov; born clinging to the heal of Esav, presumably trying to pull Esav back into the womb so he can be born first. His name Yaakov means heal; even in the womb, he tries to get the advantage over his brother. He is called, “ish tam, yoshev ohalim,” a smooth skinned man, who sat around the tents,” presumably with his mother.

When I think of these two characters, I think of Esav as Daniel Boon or Hoss Cartwright. Jacob, I see as, well, Woody Alan.

Now the story in our parasha goes on. Esav comes out from hunting in the field, famished, and Jacob, true to form, is cooking. Esav is consumed with his hunger and believes he is going to die without something to eat and sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red lentil soup: again, red, like the earth. So the text then says: “v’yochal, v’yesht, v’yakom, v’yelech, v’yivez” These are five action verbs in a row: he ate, drank, arose, walked away and spurned his birthright. Esav is a man of action. He’s out in the world doing things. Conventional niceties are of no concern to him. He does was he feels is right; he is a man full of passion.
Then as the story goes, Jacob, in cahoots with his mother, tricks Yitzchak into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born that should have gone to Esav. And in a heartbreaking scene, Esav approaches his father and “cried out an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father,’Bless me too, Father” And then Yitzchak says, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” . And Esav says, “have you but one blessing, father. Bless me too father” and Esav rasied his voice and wept.”

A man of action, a tough guy, a hunter and a man of the earth, pouring out his heart to his father whom he loves and who loves him, asking for a simple blessing. Esav is out in the world, but he cares deeply about his family.

To my mind, Esav gets a bad rap by the rabbis. What is there in the story to criticize in Esav’s behavior. He is who he is, and if any character is behaving poorly in this story, it is Jacob who is a sly trickster, deceiving both his brother and his father. And we know that Jacob is the one with questionable moral character as Jacob receives his punishment in the next parasha. He tricked his father as his father was blind and could not see. And in the next parasha, Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah instead of Rachel by sending Leah into Jacobs dark tent. Jacob is blind in the tent and is tricked by Lavan, just as Jacob tricked his father.

So what can we make of this story? As I see it, Jacob and Esav are two sides of one personality. All of us have both characteristics in us; we are like Jacob, smooth, sensitive, intellectual,people who create homes and use our wits to get by. But we are also like Esav: people of action; strong, passionate, trying to make a difference out in the world.

The rabbis of the Talmud favored Yaakov because they were, at the time, under the thumb of the Romans (who they attributed as descendents of Esav). The rabbis knew from experience that rebelling against the Romans would bring upon themselves, certain death and destruction. They wanted the Jews to be pacifists and live by their wits, not their brawn. And it is this Rabbinic preference which characterized the Jews throughout history; even to a certain extent, to this very day.

But I believe we need to rehabilitate Esav and express this aspect of our people’s personality, as well. Since the Six Day War in 1967, we regained our confidence as a People that we could physically protect ourselves from our enemies. No longer would we depend on others: emperors, kings, czars or the like. We created an army in Israel and for the first time since the Maccabees two thousand years earlier, we took our physical destiny into our own hands. Alan Dershowitz calls this “chutzpah.” We need no longer cower and keep quiet lest our enemies see us and persecute us. In Israel and in this country, Jews can and must act like Jacob and Esav. We can think and plan and work towards peace in our homeland and in our lives. But if it comes to self defense, particularly in the State of Israel, we must protect ourselves in whatever way is necessary.

We, as a people, are Jacob and Esav: the thoughtful and the physical. For Jews to live in this world with meaning and in safety, we need both. Shabbat Shalom.