TorahParsha

Seekers

for Parshat Toldot

 

In Babel the people try to build a tower up to Heaven, but God does not let them.

 

Isaac and his men do not build upward. They dig wells in the earth.  

This is the first time we see people digging in all of the Bible.

And God blesses Isaac. And Isaac and his men reach water.

 

Perhaps one lesson here is that God does not want us to reach toward Heaven.

Perhaps He wants us to entrench ourselves in the earth, in the place where we stand. In the place where we live.

Our blessing is there.

 

_____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

 

 

How do we approach God with our failings?

for Parshat Toldot

 

i

Isaac will bless his older son,

Esau,

whom he loves most.

He will not bless his other son,

Jacob.

*

Rebecca,

the sons’ mother,

dresses Jacob in goat- skins

to make him hairy to the touch

(as Esau is)—

so Isaac,

old,

blind,

will feel Jacob

and think he is Esau

and bless him.

*

So that the goat represents a way

to become someone other than yourself:

to become someone more loved than yourself.

 

ii

Amongst the first things God says

about Temple sacrifices

is this:

If you bring Me an offering of your flocks,

you may bring it

of the sheep or of the goats.

*

Inviting the sacrifice of a goat,

God invites us to disguise ourselves,

perhaps,

as one He loves more.

 

iii

Approaching God,

one of our first questions is:

Who am I to approach Him?

God answers:

Even if you do not deserve

this closeness,

disguise yourself as one who is very righteous

who is very holy

who is very deserving of God.

Pretend you are such a person.

So that no matter who you are,

you may come to Me.

 

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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Responsibility is born from this

for Parshat Toldot

 

 

i

Cain murders his brother

but tells God:

Am I my brother’s keeper?.

*

Cain’s offspring,

Lamech,

kills a man in a fight.

He tells his wives he is afraid

of Divine punishment.

*

Cain denies responsibility,

but Lamech confesses.

*

And Lamech is the father of Yaval,

father of all tent dwellers and shepherds.

 

ii

A tent is a nomad’s house,

the place where journeying stops

and the home begins.

Think of Rebecca,

traveling on camelback to marry Isaac

arriving finally in his mother’s tent.

 

iii

A wanderer can walk away.

A man who makes a home

must stay and face consequences.

Cain is alone in the world,

he can stand apart from his guilt.

Lamech shares a life with his wives,

he must stay put

and let his guilt stay with him.

Yaval, Lamech’s son,

makes a life of tents,

a life in which there is a place

that holds us responsible.

 

iv

Jacob is called

a man… who dwells in tents.

So we, his children,

are a people for whom our homes hold us fast

to the truth of everything we have done,

to the truth of ourselves.

 

 

____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

How do we enter the world of our fathers?

for Parshat Toldot

i

Abraham digs water-wells.

But later Philistines take dirt

and clog the wells up.

*

Later still, Isaac,

Abraham’s son,

re-opens the wells

his father had dug.

He call the wells by the names

that his father had called them.

*

But the people near the wells

trouble Isaac’s men

and Isaac digs new wells

and people trouble Isaac’s men

more.

 

ii

Then Isaac took himself away from there

and he digs a new well

and no one troubles him

and no one troubles his men.

And God appears to him,

saying: I am the God of Abraham your father;

saying: I am with you.

 

iii

Only when Isaac starts out

into a new life

into a new place

into his own life

away from re-creating

his father’s wells

his father’s life

is Isaac ready

to come to his father’s world,

to encounter his father’s God,

to have his father’s God

as his God.  

 

 
_____
Shabbat shalom,
Abe

 
To my American friends: I would be honored if you shared this thought at your Thanksgiving dinner.

Please pray for for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, and for NeshamaEmunah bat Batya

www.TorahParsha.com / @TorahParsha

 

 

Thought for Parshat Toldot

What is your true self?

 

i

Jacob and Esau are twins.

Esau—hairy, red-colored—is a hunter.

He is his parents’ firstborn.

Jacob, smooth-skinned, dwells in tents.

They are opposites.

 

ii

Esau comes starving from the hunt. Jacob cooks stew.

Esau says: give me of this red, red stew.

Jacob says: I will sell you stew in exchange for the title of firstborn.

Esau agrees.

So Jacob takes the title of firstborn.

*

Isaac, their father, is blind.

And Esau is Isaac’s favorite. Isaac wants to bless Esau.

Rebecca, their mother, loves Jacob. Rebecca says to Jacob: wear animal-skins. You will feel hairy to the touch. Your father will think you are Esau. Your father will bless you instead.

Jacob does this.

So Jacob takes the blessing.

*

This is how Jacob makes himself the primary son.

And Jacob becomes Patriarch after Isaac.

 

iii

Esau finds redness like his own in Jacob’s red stew.

Jacob becomes hairy like his brother.

We are more similar than we seem.

So identity is not in what makes us different.

*

But Jacob’s role as Patriarch—the role he takes in his family—lasts forever.

His lasting identity is the role he takes in his family.

Our lasting identity is the role we take among others.

 

____

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

Please pray for the infant Achinoam Rina bat Avital Hodaya, and please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther

www.TorahParsha.com

 

 

Blessing (for Parshat Toldot)

I

i

Esau is a hunter.

 

Esau came from the field and he was weary.

 

And Jacob, his brother, cooked pottage.

 

A hunter relies on his catch; he has no easy pottage to rely upon.

 

ii

Isaac is blind, and is old, and loved Esau.

 

Isaac says to Esau: Go…and catch me some venison…that my soul may bless you before I die.

 

iii

At his mother’s word, Jacob tricks Isaac.

 

Jacob dresses in animal pelts, and brings meat from the flocks; and Isaac feels hairy skin, and eats meat, and blesses Jacob—thinking that Jacob is Esau, who is a hairy man.

 

II

i

Isaac does not know his own sons.

 

Esau does not know when his next meal will come.

 

Father and son live with no certainty.

 

ii

Isaac asks Jacob how he has found his catch; and Jacob says: God has granted me good fortune.

 

iii

To receive blessing, Jacob enters the world of Esau, of Isaac: he enters the world of no certainty.

 

And Jacob says: God has granted me good fortune.

 

Jacob says: In this world there is no certainty; God is my certainty.

 

*

This is how Jacob receives blessing.

 

________

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

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The Rejection of Esau

i

Before God makes Man, the plants of the field—siach ha'sadeh—had not yet sprouted. For there was no man yet to work the land.

 

And then God makes Man and places him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it.

 

*

Isaac is a man who goes out to meditate in the field: la'suach ba'sadeh.

 

Meditating, Isaac binds himself to Man's original purpose; he meditates back to the field and the protection of the field.

 

Isaac meditates back to Man's purpose of helping things grow.

 

ii

Esau, Isaac's son, is a man of the field. So he is like is father.

 

But Esau is also a Man who knows how to hunt.

 

To hunt is to undo Man's purpose in the field: to hunt is to kill.

 

iii

Esau is rejected from the line of Isaac, from the line of Abraham, from the line of men who fulfill their reason for being created.

 

This is because it is not enough to be a literalist.

 

It is not enough to say: I have shown up to the right place, I have come to the field, I am a man of the field; and that is enough.

 

Because it is not enough to only show up to the right place. You must fulfill your purpose in that right place. You must help the things of that place grow.

 

Esau does not understand this, and so he is rejected.

 

That is the tragedy of Esau.

~~~~~~~~~

Children of Isaac

i
Jacob and Esau are Isaac’s sons.

Esau is a hunter. But Jacob is a simple man, a dweller of tents.

Jacob’s offspring—and not Esau’s offspring—will carry the mantle of Isaac.

*
Once, Esau returns from the hunt and is hungry to the point of death. Jacob, meanwhile, cooks lentils.

Esau remains hungry, though he hunts: though he seeks to capture food from far and wide.

Meanwhile Jacob, a dweller of tents, makes a meal. A dweller of tents, he understands how to use what is near at hand.

ii
Torah is the study of the holiness of the close-by. In it you jump into questions like how to prepare meat, or what fire is, or what constitutes the act of sewing.

*
Torah will be the task of the family of Isaac, through the end of time. So the task of the family of Isaac is to grow nourishment from the-near-at hand. It is a task for dwellers of tents.

Jacob is a dweller of tents. It is no surprise, then, that Jacob would carry the mantle of his family.

*
We are that family.

~~~