Dec 3/05 - Shabbat Toldot

Commentary by Chazzan Aníbal Mass

In this week's Parashah we study the birth of Eisav and Yaakov. The Torah tells us that Rivkah, their mother, could feel them inside her, fighting each other. She asked God why her twins were fighting, and He told her: "Your two sons will become two separate nations...” meaning that their attitudes toward life would be absolutely different.

Let's see what each one of these two brothers represents:

We know that Eisav was a hunter, a field man, concerned with the external thing, the physical thing.

We learn that Yaakov was a plain man, dwelling in tents (the Midrash explains that he was a student of the Torah).

It is interesting to note that the Torah presents these definitions of the two brothers just before the episode of the sale of the primogeniture.

Eisav was the older brother, and therefore, the main heir of Itzchak. One day Eisav returned hungry from a day of hunting and Yaakov buys from him the rights of the primogeniture for a plate of lentils.

Notice the difference between these two postures:

Eisav, lover of the external thing, the concrete thing, the immediate thing, prefers to eat a rich plate of lentils, rather than receive a spiritual blessing that he doesn't understand and does not want to understand, because perhaps that would mean less enjoyment of the material life to which he is so accustomed.

Yaakov, on the contrary, prefers not to eat that day, but to know that in the future he would receive Abraham’s blessing from his father.

And I want to remark that we are talking about the blessing and not about the monetary inheritance, since the monetary inheritance was also guaranteed for the younger brother.

These are the two choices that the Torah shows us. Of course, the Jewish choice is Yaakov’s.

But if we study a little bit of Judaism, we will see that at any moment we are asked to give up material life and dedicate our lives to a merely spiritual one.

And we also learn this from Yaakov. Let’s see.

When the moment of receiving his father's blessing arrives, Eisav forgets the deal he made with Yaakov. He lives for the day and he doesn't remember the past, nor does he worry about the future.

Rivkah, the mother of the twins, advises Yaakov that he should wear Eisav's clothes to receive his father's blessing.

When Yaakov is presented before his father, Itzchak listens to him. He hears Yaakov’s voice, and finally he reasons: "the voice is Yaakov’s voice, but the skin is the skin of Eisav".

For one moment Yaakov seems to be Eisav, but we know he continues being Yaakov. In that condition he receives the blessing of continuity with Abraham’s covenant.

What does it mean to look like Eisav but be Yaakov? It means to be Jewish.

Do you know why? Because we don't have to renounce material life, but can infuse the world of matter with spirituality.

We eat, but we bless the food.

We do business and we make money, but we are ethical and we make Tzedakah with our earnings.

Yaakov can be seen to be like Eisav, but Eisav cannot be Yaakov.

The problem in our modern life is that we worry so much about the external thing and we forget to put Yaakov’s voice to our lives. When this happens we lose the true sense of life and we are no longer able to live in a transcendent way.

When we forget the Yaakov that we all have inside, we forget the past, the traditions, and Jewish future means nothing to us. Then, it is very easy to fall into an assimilation process and to put in risk the continuity of the Jewish people.

My friends, this week's Parashah teaches us how we should live our Judaism, and it shows us that inside each one of us lives Yaakov, who waits to be discovered and developed.

Shabbat Shalom.