Toledot 2022
In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, we read about Yakov and Esav, twins who are very different from each other. Esav is a hunter- red, powerful, and hairy. The Torah casts Yakov as the opposite-calm, tent-dwelling, and smooth. Yitzchak their father loved Esav and wanted to bless him. What was it about Esav which caused Yitzchak to love him more than he loved Yakov? Why does he want to bless only Esav and not both of his children? What is the significance of the hunting and eating of meat preceding the blessing, something we do not find in any other blessing in the Torah?
The conversation recorded in the Torah at the scene of the blessing reminds us of Yitzchak’s conversation with his own father on the way to his binding and would be slaughter, perhaps the Torah wants to connect the two stories: At the blessing: Yaakov said, “My father,” and Yitzchak said, “Here I am, who are you my child?” At the akedah, the binding of Isaac: “And Yitzchak said to Avrohom his father, “My father,” and he (Avrohom) said, “Here I am my son…”
But stories feature the slaughter of an animal, in the story of the binding of Yitzchak the animal is an afterthought which replaces Yitzchak whereas here, in the scene of the blessing, the animal is front and center- a necessary prerequisite. In this story hunting, killing and preparing an animal for eating, looms large. Yitzchak asks Esav to hunt and bring meat so he can bless him, but Yakov slips in instead with his own meat. In the story of the Akedah Avrohom says, “God will provide the lamb…” whereas in this story Yitzchak proactively says to his sonEsav, the meat hunter, go get the animal and provide it. This slaughter and presentation of meat of course does appear later in the Temple as the primary work of the Kohen. Esav is a killer of animals, that is his avodah, his work, like the Kohen whose central job it is to kill animals and sacrifice them.
Earlier in the parsha, when Esav returns from hunting and is tired and hungry he asks Yakov for some of the red soup he is cooking. Why is Esav hungry-hasn't he been hunting meat all day? Rashi highlights the element of killing, and even uses the word for murder (rechitza) instead of the word for killing: “And he (Esav) was tired-from killing.”
When yitzchak calles Esav to hunt meat for him he tells him take your hunting tools. Why does he do this? Isn’t it obvious? I would like to suggest in light of rashis comment that he was tired from killing, that Esav had given up hunting-indeed his name comes not from the red blood of the hunt but the vegan soup that his brother made. He also give up the birthright at that moment. What is the job of the firstborn in Judaism? It was originally to be the Kohen, to bring the sacrifices, Esav gives this up, he is too tired of killing. But yoitzchak disapproves of this new leaf he has turned over. Its vital for someone to sacrifice, to manage the killing, the meat, it takes the place of the human sacrifice. Just as in the generation before avrohom takes “ayil achar” another ram in yitzchaks place. There will be no human sacrifice in judaism but it seems vital in the torah that there is a kohen and the religious slaughter and consumption of animals. In fact Rabbi Nachman of Breslov comments that when Yitzchak tells Esav to, “Take your tools…and capture meat for me,” “the tools” refers to the knife used in the Temple to slaughter the sacrifices.
Killing is at times necessary but it takes its toll on us. In stark contrast Yaakov is making something vegan and Esav has just come from hunting. Why is Esav hungry? Doesnt he have a lot of meat from hunting? He tries Yaakovs avodah. Vegan, smooth, without any hink or danger of violence. But that is not the avodah of Esav. He is the first born and must be the kohen. Rashi (25:32) tells us that Esav rejecting the birthright is an act of rejecting the Kehunah, the Avodah, the service of God, of sacrifices.
This is all about controlling and apportioning space for death. Which is what the mikdash and kohen is. He can not be exposed to death but his job is mostly to kill. This Temple avodah is all about Esav not Yaakov. The akedah was a moment in which death threatened to go awry. Maybe the whole avodah of the kohen in the temple is about controlling the akedah, substituting a ram for the human, and the one to take this avodah forward is by no means Yaakov, it is certainly Esav.
The May Hashiloach, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Isbitza (1800-1854), writes on this parsha that Jacob played it safe spiritually, while Esav took spiritual ristsks. Like in the stok market, the more risk one undertakes, the more potential for reward, but the greater the risk that all will fail. Esav took greater spiritual rists, his service was more difficult but had the potential for grater spiritual accomplishment. Yitzchak reazied this about his son (May Hashiloach, Toldot, 2).
