Episode #17 Esau’s Tears

In this episode, Rabbi Reinman discusses the succession of the patriarchs and the raging conflict between Esau and Jacob over Isaac’s blessings.

Chapter Seventeen

Esau’s Tears

The Torah’s biography of Abraham is incomplete. We meet him when he is seventy-five years old. God tells him to forsake his homeland and travel to an as-yet unspecified destination, and Abraham obeys without question or protest. Clearly, he has already recognized God and rejected pagan society. Clearly, he has developed a complete and profound faith in God. Clearly, he has achieved the exalted level of prophecy.[1] But we are not told how he arrived at this point.

The Talmud and the Midrash fill in the blanks. They tell us how Abraham arose from a pagan background and recognized the one true God and how he risked his life to disseminate the great truths he had discovered, but the Torah tells us nothing about his heroic earlier years and how he came to be a prophet of God. Why are we not told about the accomplishments of his earlier years?

Furthermore, the last we hear about Abraham in the Torah is his arrangement of a suitable marriage for his son Isaac. Afterward, he disappears from the text, even though he lived for another thirty-five years. It is inconceivable that a towering figure such as Abraham, a strong, brilliant, charismatic prophet, did nothing noteworthy during the last three decades of his life. Why are we not told about the accomplishments of his later years?

It is because the intent of the Torah is not to provide biographies of the patriarchs nor to tell stories about them. Rather, the focus of the Torah’s narrative is on the origins, birth and development of the singular people who would enter into a covenant with God. It is to trace the experiences, choices, successes and failures that combined to form the character of the people chosen to carry the destiny of the world, to be “a light unto the nations,”[2] to be God’s ambassadors to civilization, to “fill the earth with knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.”[3]

The Torah is about the Jewish people and their mission to introduce the world to the Divine Painter, as described in Chapter Four. The mission began when God told Abraham, “Go forth from your land, your birthplace to the land I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation.”^[4] At that point, the concept of the Jewish nation was born, and at that point, Abraham became its first architect.

In total, there were three architects, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who built the foundation of the Jewish people. Abraham was the patriarch that laid the cornerstone of Jewish peoplehood. Although his outreach to the world at large was extensive, the focus of his work as the Jewish patriarch was inward. The Jewish people would begin as a tiny family and eventually grow into a clan and then a nation. Abraham’s task as patriarch was narrowly defined. It was to imbue a single son and successor from earliest childhood with the ideas and values he had developed over his lifetime, to groom him to become the second link in the patriarchate and build on the foundation laid by his predecessor.

According to Jewish tradition, Abraham developed and taught the attribute of chessed, kindness, with all its complexity and nuances. Isaac, his successor, also groomed a single son and successor to assume the mantle of the third patriarch and complete the foundation. Isaac, the second patriarch, added to Abraham’s teachings. He developed and taught the attribute of gevurah, strength, determination and perseverance. Jacob was the third and final patriarch. His work, which completed the foundation of the Jewish people, added to the teachings of Abraham and Isaac the complex attribute of emes, truth, which he studied, defined and taught to his children.

Only after the work of the patriarchs was complete in the narrow and focused confines of father and son, only when the foundation of the Jewish people was complete, could the process of growing a wider population begin. It was comparable to a tree that rises from the ground as a branchless trunk that grows and thickens and becomes strong and durable. Only when the tree is solid as a rock does it begin to extend branches and twigs into a broad canopy drawing its sustenance from the trunk of the tree.

Even if Abraham had fathered many wonderful sons, only one could be his successor in the mission of building the Jewish nation. If the mission were spread among several sons, it would have become diffuse and diluted. The Talmud explicitly states that there can only be three patriarchs.[5] Only one son would be the patriarch. The other sons and their children could build virtuous nations if they chose to do so, but they would never be part of the chosen people. They would never enter into a covenant with God. They would never receive the Torah.

Abraham fathered two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was the son of Hagar, an Egyptian concubine, while Isaac was the son of his wife, Sarah, the mistress of his household. God informed Abraham that Isaac was to be his successor. Ishmael could have no part of it. This was the age of the patriarchs, and there could only be one patriarch at a time.

When Isaac married and started his own household, his work was to imbue his children with all he had learned from his father in addition to all he had discovered himself. The patriarchal task of educating and preparing his children was Isaac’s alone. Abraham was not part of it; there could only be one patriarch at a time. Therefore, the Torah does not speak about Abraham’s accomplishments during the last decades of his life.

Isaac prepared his children to carry on the work of the first two patriarchs. He had two sons, Jacob and Esau, and in the end, he passed the mantle of patriarchy to his son Jacob. Isaac completed his work as patriarch when Jacob married and started his own household, and therefore, we hear no more about Isaac for the rest of his life, even though he lived another fifty-seven years. Jacob, however, had no successor. He was the third and final patriarch, and he served in that role until the end of his life. Therefore, the Torah’s narrative follows him even onto his deathbed.[6]

Jacob’s succession to the patriarchy was complicated. Both Esau and Jacob were the sons of Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, the mistress of his household. Both were the beneficiaries of Isaac’s intense tutelage. Both were brilliant and talented. Esau, as the older of the two, had the claim of primogeniture. He was a man of the fields, a warrior and a hunter, and he did not hesitate to sow his wild oats. In his own mind, however, he was not disqualified. He represented himself to Isaac as a scholar at heart who was just going through a youthful phase but would eventually settle down to the serious work of the patriarchate. Jacob, on the other hand, was studious, refined and eminently qualified.  Rebecca loved both of them, but she saw through Esau’s façade and favored Jacob instead.

The following episode appears in the Torah and is very familiar to most people. It is nonetheless useful to repeat it here, because a critical analysis of it is crucial to understanding the course of history. At the time this episode took place, Isaac had reached old age, and he had lost his eyesight. Esau was already married to two local noblewomen, and he had sons. Jacob, although middle-aged, was still unmarried.

One day, Isaac asked Esau to bring him some of his favorite foods and then he would bless him. Rebecca saw prophetically that the blessings should go to Jacob,[7] and because Isaac was blind, she saw an opportunity for Jacob to masquerade as his older brother and receive the blessings in his stead. Why didn’t Isaac receive this prophetic message himself? It is hard to know. Perhaps the favoritism he showed to Esau would have colored his judgment and prevented him from receiving such a prophecy.

While Esau was out in the fields, Rebecca prepared other foods that Isaac enjoyed and helped Jacob disguise himself.

“Who is there?” asked Isaac when Jacob entered the room.

“It is I,” said Jabob. “Esau, your eldest son.”

After a bit of back and forth, Jacob was able to convince Isaac that he was Esau.

“May God give you the dew of the heavens,” Isaac said, “and the lushness of the earth, and abundant grain and wine. People will serve you, and nations will submit to you. May you be a lord to your brothers, and may your mother’s sons submit to you.” He blessed him with enduring prosperity and a place of honor and respect among people and nations.

When Esau returned, he discovered that Jacob had appropriated the blessings intended for him, and he protested loudly.

“Your brother has taken your blessing,” Isaac said to Esau, “and he should indeed be blessed.” Isaac recognized that the substitution of Jacob was God’s will, and he accepted it.

Esau was infuriated, and he demanded to be blessed as well.

“But I’ve already blessed him with a position of high status,” said Isaac, “and I gave him blessings of grain and wine. What can I do now, my son?”

“Do you have only one blessing, my father,” said Esau. “Bless me as well.” And he burst into tears.

In the face of Esau’s tears, Isaac relented.

“Behold, the lushness of the earth shall be your dwelling,” he said, “and the dew of the heavens from above. You shall live by your sword, but you shall serve your brother. Yet when you shall be aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke.” According to the Sages, this means that when the Jewish people do not adhere faithfully to the Torah Esau’s descendants will dispute their right to the blessings. They will be justifiably aggrieved, and they will have the right to topple the Jewish people from their place of honor.

After Esau stormed out of Isaac’s room, Rebecaa called Jacob aside and suggested that he leave home and travel to the home of her family in Harran. “Why should I lose both of you on the same day?” she said. She feared that the conflict between Esau and Jacob would become violent. Esau might kill Jacob, and if Jacob managed to kill first, Esau’s grown children might kill him in revenge.

Many questions come to mind. We can understand why Isaac could not bless Esau with primacy among the nations once Jacob had been given primacy. But why couldn’t he give him a blessing of prosperity? Does the prosperity of one son preclude the prosperity of the other? And if for some reason he could only give one blessing of prosperity, how could he change his mind just because Esau wept and give an additional blessing of prosperity?

Furthermore, when Isaac blessed Jacob with primary status among the nations, he made no mention of the blessing being conditional on his unfailing loyalty to God. Had Esau not wept, that is how it would have remained. How could he retract part of the blessing by modifying it after it was already given?

Finally, Isaac blessed Esau that he would live by the sword.[8] Why was he prevented from giving that part of Esau’s blessing immediately? Why did it take Esau’s tears to extract even this blessing?

We have to begin by recognizing these blessings for what they were. They were clearly not blessings of wealth and status for their own sake. Rather, they were the assignment of historical roles. By giving his successor this blessing, Isaac passed on to him the mantle of the patriarchate. By blessing him, he entrusted his successor with the mission of completing the work of laying the foundation for the chosen people, who would be a light to the nations and declare the unity of God and the morality He prescribed for humankind. In order to be successful, they would need prosperity and status to command the respect and attention of the world, and that was the function of the blessings. By giving his son the wherewithal to be the next patriarch, Isaac was effectively appointing him as his successor.

Esau understood this full well. He did not seek the blessings because of the riches they would bring. He was very wealthy, as is apparent from the continuation of the narrative, and it is unlikely that he was so distraught because his descendants might not be wealthy as well. Esau wanted to succeed to the patriarchate. He had been given the same upbringing as Jacob, and in his own mind, he thought he was up to the task.

Of course, he would have to change his lifestyle and settle down, but it would be worth it. He wanted to be the ancestor of the Jewish nation, the people of destiny that would be at the center of history. He did not want to be relegated to relative irrelevance. He realized that he could not get his father to withdraw Jacob’s blessing after he had declared, “and he should indeed be blessed.” The gift of the blessings to Jacob was irrevocable, but he demanded that he also be blessed so that he would become a patriarch as well.

This was impossible, however, because there could only be three patriarchs. The patriarchy could not be diluted by multiple patriarchs. If Isaac had been successful in passing the mantle to Esau, Jacob and his descendants would not have been part of the Jewish people. Maybe they would have formed a noble people, but they would not have entered into a special covenant with God. They would not have received the Torah at Mount Sinai. There could be no dual patriarchy. “But I’ve already blessed him,” Isaac had said, “and what can I do now, my son?” Now that Jacob had replaced Esau as the third patriarch, Esau realized he was effectively excluded from the Jewish people, and he wept bitter tears.

Isaac relented, and he gave him a secondary blessing. Esau’s blessings, however, did not give him equal status as a patriarch of the Jewish people. Jacob had been given that role, and Esau would have no part in the Jewish people. Nonetheless, his blessings put him at the center of history, not as the protagonist, not as the people who would form a covenant with God and receive His Torah, but as the antagonist, the foil to the protagonist who constantly lurked in the shadows waiting to pounce if the protagonist stumbled. The antagonist would keep the protagonist honest and faithful. This was a modification of the original blessing. It was the appointment of an antagonist to ensure the continued faithfulness of the protagonist.

In that sense, Esau’s descendants would always be at the center of history. Sometimes, they would be the friends and protectors of the Jewish people, and sometimes, they would be their persecutors. Just as Jacob had received the blessing of enduring prosperity to facilitate his work as the protagonist, Esau received a blessing for enduring prosperity to facilitate his work as the antagonist.

Throughout history, the Jewish people, despite persecutions and exiles, have always been prosperous as a whole. Even survivors emerging from Auschwitz became prosperous within a few short years. There were times when the majority of Jewish people in Eastern Europe lived in abject poverty in shtetls, but there were enough wealthy individuals to advocate for them and defend them. Kings needed Jewish financiers to wage their incessant wars.

Throughout history as well, the wealth of the non-Jewish world is concentrated to a very large degree in the Imperial Quadrant, which is essentially the Western world. In Jewish tradition, the Western world is considered the Kingdom of Edom, which is another name for Esau. This does not mean that all the people in the Quadrant are biologically descended from Esau, but they are his spiritual and intellectual descendants. It does not matter if China, Japan or India are having better years. The accumulated wealth of the Imperial Quadrant, the Kingdom of Edom, dwarfs the wealth of China, Japan, India and all the rest of the world.

Isaac’s blessings have ensured the prosperity of the protagonist for all history, and they have also ensured the parallel prosperity of the antagonist.

[1] According to Maimonides in Guide for the Perplexed, Part II Chapter 36, a person cannot achieve true prophecy unless he has attained the highest level of spiritual, intellectual, moral and physical excellence.

[2] Yeshayahu 42:6.

[3] Ibid. 11:9.

[4] Bereishis

[5] Berachos 16b.

[6] According to Jewish tradition, Abraham’s contribution as patriarch was characterized by the attribute of chessed, kindness. Isaac contributed gevurah, strength, and Jacob contributed emes, truth.

[7] Targum Onkelos, Bereishis 27:13.

[8] This was a blessing. See Rashi, Bamidbar  20:18.