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Toldot
A New Phenomenon: Relating to Evil
The Difference Between Yitchak’s Approach and Rivka’s Approach
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
Up to this point, the new chooser had beem required to confront lower
reality as though there were no higher reality of heavenly, private
hashgaha. At the same time, he had had to rely – with a dependency
that was absolute – upon the reality of hashgaha pratit. as if the
nature’s rule-governed laws had no influence or validity in the lower
reality. This was a confrontation between matter and spirit, between
secular and sacred.
Nevertheless, he must also deal with the choice between good and evil.
Yet good and evil are to be found within himself. However, from now on, he
will be required also to confront the presence of evil that is outside of
himself, through the use of brute force.
Rivka brings this news: Brute force confrontation has been born, out of
her womb specifically. The use of force is after all alien to the Torah
conception, in that it is a surrender to the forces of physical matter, as
though these forces were something more than the mere expression of the Hand
that guides creation from on high.
It would appear that this decree is intended to deepen the obligation of
the new free choice, which is accompanied by responsibility, and which
compels one to relate to the minutest details of the processes of the
unfolding of existential reality.
Just as the phenomenon of brute force exists in material reality, so must
God’s servant relate to this brute force through its own tools, and not
ignore it or circumvent it through prayer and asking for a miracle. This
additional test exists, of course, in such a way as to make it possible to
stumble, to be caught in the seductive trap of kohi ve’otsem yadi,
“my own strength and the might of my own hand…”
In addition to all this, this test of brute force will not be limited to
the material dimension alone, but will enter also into personal/human, and
into the spiritual/mystical. The chooser will have to relate to and deal
with all three of these dimensions of brute force.
Esav, symbol of brute force nakedly exposed, deals only with the lowest
dimension of physical matter. “Pray, pour down my throat…” He is quite
willing to renounce the human/personal dimension as well as his own moral
values. “And Esav despised the bechora, the right of the
first-born.”
On the surface it appears that Esav was right. After all, he knew how to
honor his father, and even excelled in the mitsva of honoring his father, as
is well-known. Hazal actually praise him for this. Yet the respect he
demonstrates is only of a practical nature, and contains no appreciation of
spiritual values whatsoever. It is possible to honor an aged father, not
out of an attitude of reverence for the value of fatherhood and old age, but
rather out of a personal/human relationship.
Esav cries out bitterly over the lost blessings, not because he values
his father’s capacity to confer heavenly bounty from on high, for after all
he does not believe in the dimension of height. Rather, Esav is enraged by
the mere fact of his father’s preferring Yaakov to himself. This is why he
does not value the very valuable bracha that Yitzchak eventually grants him
against all odds. He does not trouble himself to examine the fine
distinctions between the two brachot, and decides to kill his brother.
Had he even slightly examined his father’s bracha to Ya’akov, he would
have understood that he stood no chance of overcoming his brother, even in
Yaakov’s time of weakness. The best he could hope for was that he might
free himself from his enslavement to him: “And it shall be that when you
grieve, you will unfasten his yoke from upon your neck.”
It was not the right of the first-born that he had sold that caused him
regrets, for after all according to Rashi he knew that the bechora
had no future, that it would soon be pushed aside in favor of the cehuna
!
1.
The very fact of this difficult decree – the need to use evil’s
power in order to confront evil – is the hidush that runs through our
parasha as a consistent theme, as a crimson thread: The use of deceit,
Yaakov’s need to mask his intentions in order to win brachot that he alone
rightly deserves.
2.
The very fact that Yitzchak attempts to bless brute-force, wicked Esav seems
to reflect his intention of fastening evil to sanctity’s course. Evil would
thus serve sanctity, in Yitzchak’s blessings, and would serve Yaakov
himself. The yetser hara would serve and would be enslaved to the
yetser hatov. “When the voice is Yaakov’s voice” Esav will enslave
himself to him. “Be a lord over your brother, and the children of your
mother will enslave themselves to you.”
Rivka attempts to turn things in a different direction. She attempts to
nullify evil by reinforcing the good. She uses the means of evil (deceit,
brute force) in order to abolish them.
It is only at a later stage, when Yaakov must create and innovate, that
he will learn himself, on his own flesh, and will also have to teach and to
bequeath this skill to his children – the use of good to nullify evil’s
power: “When ‘the voice is
Yaakov’s voice’, then ‘the hands are Esav’s
hands’ have no control.”
The principle of using brute force is expressed in the affair of the
wells as well. New choosing man cannot rely on his father’s strength. He
must struggle himself and dig his own well anew.
Rivka, who comes from wicked stock, knows that there is no escape from
the need to use evil’s tools in order to confront it, whereas Yitzchak
attempts to turn evil about, to attach it to a goal belonging to the
dimension of height, hoping thus to achieve a balance of terror: Both sides
will possess a power which neither will use against the other, but rather
each will only use for the goal of its own survival.
Such a hope exists only ad hoc, when there is no long-range, unifying
goal, whereas the approach taken by Rivka, who is more experienced than
Yitzchak in such things, is able to bring about reconciliation and balance
between the force of good and the force of evil, with the one strengthening
itself from within itself, gaining control over itself rather than over the
other. When good strengthens itself, intensifying the power of good within
itself, then evil does not fight it but serves it instead. “ ‘And you shall
love…with all your hearts’ – with both your urges.”
The Sale of the Birthright.
Is birthright an intrinsic value or a biological one? Yaakov turns a
biological fact into a value by keeping faith with the new method of free
choice. Yitzchak intends by his blessings to assist Esav in adjusting to
the new method, so that he may be included as well. However, Esav recoils
from the weight of responsibility entailed in the new free choice. “Here I
am about to die, etc.”
Yitzchak’s subsequent blessing to Esav is coordinated to Esav’s approach:
“By your sword you shall live.” Brute-force physical facts, devoid of
personal-spiritual values.
“And your brother you shall serve.” He has to understand that his power
is not effective against anyone who has had the wisdom to free himself from
brute-force physical facts, who has built his own value-based personality
out of personal responsibility.
Whoever takes on the challenge of free choice through responsibility is
entitled to the birthright.
Behira – bechora.
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