"Stolen" Blessings

Parshat Toldot

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

            

My best teachers taught that when a question bothers you, seek from everywhere you can until you find a satisfactory answer. This is one of the reasons why I have found real Chumash questions to be much better answered when learning what all the commentaries say, versus through just reading Rashi or Ramban. One of my rebbeim used to mock the idea that there could be a class on "Ramban Al HaTorah." As if to suggest that one commentary is the end-all in studying Chumash.

            

Please don't misunderstand. Every commentary has an approach, and every commentary can only write so much. This is more of a reminder to look beyond a small circle of learning and try to glean the full picture. And perhaps even come up with a novel interpretation – a chiddush!

            

An objective observer can't help feeling sorry for Eisav, standing and then perhaps falling to his knees before his father after being informed that his brother Yaakov has already come and taken the coveted blessings of the firstborn.

            

It's a sad, almost pathetic scene, in which a grown man, age 63, is weeping before his 123 year old father, screaming, crying, throwing the biggest fit, before resorting to threats to kill his brother when the old man dies.

            

Was Yaakov a thief and therefore in the wrong? Was Eisav wronged? Or, perhaps, are we going about this the wrong way? (Disclaimer: Ramban disagrees with most of what follows!)

            

The Hadar Zekeinim anthology notes that the way the Torah is transcribed makes the events seem consecutive, as opposed to simultaneous. In fact, at the same time that Yitzchak was lamenting his own flaws, trying to figure out how he could be duped into blessing his younger son, Eisav was thinking aloud, saying, "He took my birthright."

"Who took your birthright?" Yitzchak asked. Eisav answered, telling the story. Yitzchak now understood, and admitted that things panned out the way they were supposed to on account of that transaction from the beginning of the parsha, which until that moment had been unknown to him. And so he confirmed it, saying, "He too should be blessed."

That added line serves to support the notion that even without "tricking" his father, Yaakov was destined to receive those blessings (Rashi quoting Midrash), which Yitzchak upholds for a few reasons: because he's my son; because I said that whoever curses him is cursed and whoever blesses him is blessed; because he still had the taste of the food in his mouth, (or perhaps a piece of meat loosened from between his teeth). How inappropriate is it to curse someone while you are still enjoying the food they gave you? (Rabbi Chaim Paltiel)

[Perhaps that is a hint to Eisav not to curse Yaakov… a hint which goes right over his head.]

Taking Toldot Yitzchak's explanation of Eisav's complaint one could suggest Yitzchak felt vindicated on account of his unknowingly (or knowingly?) naming his younger son Yaakov instead of "Akev" (for holding Eisav's heel at birth). "Yaakov" was essentially given prophetically, because it is a future tense word, indicating he will one day pull a roundabout move on his brother.

Rashbam suggests Yitzchak realized the whole affair was Rivkah's idea, on account of her knowing that Yaakov was the more worthy to receive the blessings.

            

Yitzchak even explains to Eisav, "I gave him the blessing before you arrived" indicating that it was heaven's decree that you should be delayed just long enough. Remember – it was just as Yaakov was leaving that Eisav walked in – really split second timing. (Midrash Sechel Tov and Radak))

            

Radak even paints Yitzchak as an accessory to the plot when he explains Yitzchak's trembling not as a fearful regret, but as a show for Eisav, an indication that he was upset, so Eisav would not perceive that his father was really in on the plot.

            

Kli Yakar examines the whole story noting that it is only Eisav who accuses Yaakov of stealing. (Yitzchak calls it "cunning.") However did he not sell it willingly? How is Eisav's moment of weakness denigration of the birthright Yaakov's fault?

            

Eisav was suggesting that the taking of the birthright was connected directly to this. When Yaakov was asked "Who are you?" He never could have "I am Eisav your firstborn" had he not made the purchase. He must have really said, "I am in the place of your firstborn Eisav, for I purchased the birthright from him," and without that purchase, he never would have tried to take the blessings.

            

Eisav further thought, "Maybe when he bought the birthright his intent was to steal the blessings."

            

Eisav is therefore blaming Yaakov, suggesting that the birthright sale was a "Mekach Taus" a transaction made with faulty information. Eisav had originally thought it was purely a financial windfall – getting the double portion. Eisav thought at the time that his father might die penniless, so he sold the birthright for little money, thinking it was better to cash in at that time, not realizing that the birthright also included blessings!

            

Yaakov said "I am Eisav your firstborn?" instead of just, "I am Eisav" because it is only on account of the birthright that these blessings were coming to him – and that is why he was able to take them.

            

The trickery is that he took the birthright in the first place, because I had no idea that these blessings were for the birthright holder, and not for the natural first born.

            

Ktav V'Hakabalah blames Eisav for accusing Yaakov of "taking" the birthright, when the truth was that they had a legitimate transaction. It was his own fault for denigrating and essentially making the birthright worthless, leaving it open for Yaakov to claim as his own.

            

Some view this as rewriting history, and some say, "Look at the whole picture." Far be it from us to lay the blame squarely on Yaakov, or even Rivkah, who sets him up, when Eisav was as much to blame for all that transpired the moment he indicated the birthright meant nothing to him.