TOLDOS 1986

In the Torah portion Toldos we learn how Rebecca advises her son, Jacob, to betray his brother, Esau, and receive the blessing that his father had meant for Esau.  Why did Rivka do this? Why didn't Rivka just tell Yitzchak that Yaacov was not fit for the blessing? Why did she have to resort to these devious means?
Perhaps in order to understand this problem we have to understand what the relationship was between Rivka and Yitzchak.  When Rivka first saw Yitzchak, the rabbis say, she covered herself.  Many rabbis say, Rabbi Naftali Berlin especially, that this was not just an act of modesty, but also marked their whole relationship.  When a couple enter marriage they not only bring love and concern and care for each other to the marriage, but they also bring a model of their parents' marriage into their own marriage.  Every marriage is different, When the wife comes to the marriage she unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, starts to act the way her mother did because that is the only way she knows a married woman should act.  When a husband enters a marriage he starts to act the way his father would because that is the only marriage he knew.  Usually, the models of the marriage of the wife's side and the husband's side are totally different. Therefore, a struggle ensues in the marriage because they are involved in a struggle to determine whose model of marriage is supreme.  This, of course, leads to a lot of conflict.  Couples have to realize that in order to have a successful marriage you have to create your own model of marriage.  A woman is not her mother, and a husband is not his father.  Unfortunately, many people do not realize this.
This is what happened to Rivka and Yitzchak. They really could not communicate because they had different models of a marriage. Rivka came from a home in which deviousness and trickery were used.  She

never confronted a problem openly.  She tried to solve it by going
around the problem, not to confront her husband with the problem.
Yitzchak came from a home in which his parents talked openly about
problems.  In fact, we learn that Abraham was told to listen to his
wife, Sarah.  He was not used to a marriage in which there was deviousness.
He also did not know how to confront Rivka because would never talk
back, so to speak, and give her side of the story.  There was conflict
in the marriage, not enough conflict to break the marriage, but we
see that because the parents could not communicate the children suffered.
Rivka, instead of going to Yitzchak and expressing her concerns,
had Jacob use a tricky way in order to get what was really his.
If she would have explained everything to Yitzchak, and especially
if she had told him about the prophesy when she was pregant, perhaps
Yitzchak would have acted in an entirely different way.
This just teaches us that we have to remember that when we enter into marriage we should not try to replicate our parents' marriage. We should realize we are marrying a unique individual who has different qualities than we have and than our parents have, and, therefore, we should create our own marriage.  The only requirement should be that there should be communication, we should understand each other and realize that many of the fights we have is because we are trying to replicate our parents' marriage instead of trying to create our own.
These ideas are in a book written by Howard Trusch, one of our members, and they are very important to understand how a marriage works and even to understand what is going on in this Torah portion.

In the Torah portion Toldos we learn how Yitzchak gives the blessing
that he intended to give to Esau to Esau's twin brother, Yaacov.
Yaacov disguises himself as his brother, Esau, and he receives the
blessing.  He does this at his mother's urging.  When we read the
text we notice that Yitzchak is suspicious.  He is not sure that
the son to whom he is to give the blessing is really Esau because
when Jacob answers his father, his father asks him, "Why have you
hurried to find the venison?", which, of course, his father had asked
him to bring, Jacob answers, "Because G-d has made it happen before
me." Yitzchak then said to Jacob, "Approach me and I will feel if
you are really my son or not."  Then Jacob approached Yitzchak and
his father felt him and said, "Hakol Kol Yakov- the voice is the voice
of Yaacov - V'havodaeem V'dal Esauv - but the hands are the hands of Esau."
In other words, Yitzchak still felt that there was something strange
here, that this was not really his son Esau, that his son had somehow
changed.  Yet he still went ahead with the blessing.  He still determined
to give the blessing to this son even though he was not 100% sure
that this son was Esau, the son to whom he intended to give the blessing.
Why should this be?  Why did Yitzchak go ahead with the blessing?
Of course, we could say that the reason Yitzchak went ahead with the blessing was because his dreams had been fulfilled.  Yitzchak was a passive man.  He was a man who had been marked by the Akedah, by his being bound as a sacrifice on the altar.  He did not like confrontation.  He, when he approached a problem, always withdrew. When the Philistines challenged him over the wells, he withdrew. He did not really know how to relate well to the world.  Because of this, he really wanted his son to know how to relate well to the world.  That's why he favored Esau over Yaacov, because Esau was

a man of the world.  He seemed to be able to relate to the world well, while Jacob was "Yoshev Olaim - sat in the tents".  When he heard that his son, Esau, had said that G-d made it happen before him he was not sure that it was Esau, but when he felt his hairy hands he knew that it had to be Esau, and even though there might have been some doubt in his mind, he said the voice might be the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.  In other words, that is what he wanted.  He wanted a Jew whose voice would still be the voice of Jacob, the voice of spirituality, but would still know how to make his way in the world.
This has been the problem of the Jewish people since emancipation,
since the time of Napoleon.  How can we relate to the world without
losing our authentic voice?  How can we still be Jews in the moral
and religious and spiritual sense while participating in the life
of the community around us?  Many Jews, of course, just gave up and
assimilated in the community around them.  They said the hands must
be the hands of Esau and if we can solve things with any Jewish spirituality,
we will, but if not, we will not.  Esau was a man whose father admired
him because he was able to deal with the world.  He had doubts about
his spirituality, but now when he heard the voice was the voice of
Jacob, then he was happy and he gave the blessing willingly.  He
said my son has learned to combine his spirituality with worldly
ways.
There, of course, is another way to read this text.  Instead of reading "Ha Ko Koyakov" because the text has no vowels, you can read it "Ha Kal Koyacov - when the voice of Jacob becomes weak", then their hands do become Esau.  In other words, when Jews act like everyone else,

they soon become like everyone else.  You cannot start with worldliness
and try to add Judaism to it.  That was Yitzchak's mistake.  That's
why Rivka knew better than Yitzchak.  Rivka came from an environment
where there was a lot of worldliness but no spirituality.  There
was only trickery and immorality.  She knew you had to first start
with a strong spiritual base.  If you had that, then you could eventually
acquire worldliness, which, of course, is what Jacob did when he
fled to Mesopotamia to visit Rivka's family.  If you have just worldliness
it is impossible to add spirituality to it.  Your base must be spirituality.
And also, too, the worldliness which Esau possessed was not a true
worldliness.  It was not a true strength.  It was a macho image which
we find so prevalent today.  When Rebecca first became pregnant with
her twins she had terrible pains in her stomach, and she did not
know what to do so she went to inquire of G-d.  She was told, "V'Rav
Yavotzoyer - and the elder shall serve the younger".  This can also
mean "the minor shall serve the one who can bear pain".  Jacob had
inner strength.  He was the younger and he seemed to be not worldly,
but he had the inner resources to come back after he was beset by
problems.  On the other hand, Esau did not have this quality.  He
looked strong on the outside, but he was. really a weak person.  That's
why we learn that he wanted the lentils that Yaacov had made so badly
that he was willing to sell his birthright for them.  Yaacov had
made these lentils because this was the day that Abraham had died.
Lentils are a food you serve mourners.  Esau was so affected by this
death that the rabbis say he went out and killed somebody.  He could
only deal with his own feelings of inadequacy and pain by inflicting
violence on others.  Just as today in Houston with all the high unemployment
we see child abuse has risen, wife beating has risen, because people

take out their anger on others, usually those they love rather than trying to solve their problems.  People with true spiritual strength solve their problems by getting together and helping each other solve their problems, not by taking out their anger and rage by inflicting violence on others.  We see this same syndrome in ghettos throughout the United States.  People are frustrated and take out their rage in violence.  This is not true spiritual strength.
Yitzchak really sold himself short.  He had strength.  He just did
not know he had this strength.  He had this spiritual strength to
come back from all problems without resorting to violence.  Today
we honor the Federation for its 50 years of existence.  It is dedicated
to these two Jewish goals of making sure that we act responsibly
toward one another and when we confront problems we do not take out
our rage and anger on each other, but we bind together to solve or
problems.  Second, that Jewish spirituality will be maintained.
Jewish day school and old age homes will be supported, that Jewish
instititions who serve Jews in the Jewish spirit will be preserved.
This, of course, is necessary and we applaud the Federation for its
work.  It is only possible for Jews to remain Jews if we have spirituality.
We can always gain worldliness later.  We can also only maintain
ourselves as Jews if we are willing to assume responsibility for
each other and help other and not, when we confront problems, take
out our anger and rage on others.  We Jews have had terrible problems
the last 50 years:  the Holocaust, refugee problem, the Arab attack
on Israel, the continual assault on Jews throughout the world, etc.,
and, yet, we can solve all these problems and we will solve these
problems and overcome them because we know how to act responsibly
because we have inner courage and strength.

We are not like the man who said, "What good are all my millions? What good is my yacht? What good are all my apartment buildings if my mother two blocks away is starving in a basement apartment.ff Why was the woman starving?  Because the man refused to help her. We can only solve our problems when we band together and when we stress the Jewish spiritual message over adapting to society.