TOLDOS 1989

In the Torah portion Toldos we learn about the struggle of Esau and Yaacov. We learn how Esau sells his birthright for some lentils, and we learn later how Jacob, at his mother's insistence, tricks Yitzchak into giving him the blessing that he originally intended to give to Esau.  There are many questions and troubling issues in this story, but one of the problems is, why was it that Esau was so upset when he did not receive the blessing? Why did Esau care?  We learn that when Esau heard how his father had given the blessing to Yaacov and he cried a great bitter cry and he said to his father, "Bless me also me, Father."  He was really upset.  He said, "Didn't you reserve for me a blessing also?" Why should Esau have been so upset?  After all, he did not really believe that much in Judaism. After all, what did he want the blessing for?  He was not interested in the birthright he had before, and he knew that the birthright meant then that you would get the blessing.  The rabbis say that Jacob bought the birthright from him for these bunch of lentils on the day that Abraham died, that Esau said, "What good is the birthright?  What good is the blessing?  We are all going to die anyway."  Esau did not live the life of a religious Jew.  He intermarried.  He was not interested in pursuing Jewish values.  He was running around with a group of ruffians.  It is true that at home he loved Judaism.  It is true that he kept a pair of clothes just at home so that he could fulfill all the ritual requirements to please his father and mother.  It is true that he thought that Judaism gave him something important at home, but out of the home he lived an entirely different life.  Why should it be that he cared for the blessing at all?  And, what's more, why did Yitzchak want to give him the blessing? Didn't Yitzchak know what was going on?  It is true that Yitzchak was partially blind, but Yitzchak knew something that was going on otherwise when he found out that Yaacov got the blessing he would have been upset, but he was not.  He just said, "He got the blessing and he will indeed

be blessed." Why did Yitzchak want to give the blessing at all?
It seems to me that Esau is like many Jewish people today.  They cannot choose.  They love Judaism but they do not really want to practice it. They are not sure whether they want to be Jewish completely or not, and they do not want to choose between not being Jewish and being Jewish. I am reminded of the true incident that happened when I was growing up that there was a family we could not understand.  They used to come to shul regularly but they moved way out so that it was very difficult for them to come to shul.  I was friends with the teenage boy and I asked why this happened.  He told me the truth.  He said his parents did not want to always have to come to shul.  When they wanted to come they would come and when they did not want to come they did not want to have to come. They did not want to have tongues wagging asking why they did not come to shul or inquiring in their business why they did this or that.  It reminds me, too, of the story of a couple who moved to Israel and brought 5 refrigerators.  The customs man asked them, "What do you need with 5 refrigerators?"  They said, "Well, I need one for milthig and one for fleishig.  Then on Pesach I need one for milk and one for meat."  The inspector said that is only 4.  What do you need the fifth one for?  The couple said, "Well, sometimes we want to eat some treif."  There are Jews who just cannot make up their minds what they want to do and what they want to be.  Esau was one of those.  He could not make up his mind whether he wanted to be Jewish or not.  Esau had a nostalgia for all Jewish things. He loved the atmosphere of his home.  He loved his parents.  He loved the traditions, but he was not sure he wanted to keep them all the time. Unfortunately, we have a lot of these Jews here today.  Of course, we should not reject these Jews.  We should bring them near because maybe
they will embrace more traditions.
That is, of course, why Yitzchak gave the blessing to Esau.  Yitzchak
was not as dumb as people make him out to be because the blessing that
he really gave to Jacob when he thought Jacob was Esau was not the blessing
of Abraham.  It was not a spiritual blessing at all.  The blessing was
a material blessing.  "See the smell on my son.  It is as the smell of
a field which the Lord has blessed, so G-d give thee of the dew of earth
and of the fat place of earth and plenty of corn and wine.  Let people
serve thee and nations bow down to thee.  Be lord over thy brethren and
let thy mother's sons bow down to THEE.  Cursed be everyone that curses
thee and blessed be everyone that blesses thee."  There is nothing spiritual
about this blessing at all.  In fact, later when Esau begged him for a
blessing he gave him a very similar type blessing.  He said, "Behold of
the fat places of the earth shall be thy dwelling and of the dew of heaven
above, and by thy sword shall thy live and thy shall serve thou brother,
and it shall come to pass when thou shall break loose that thou shall
shake his yoke from off they neck." Yitzchak did not give the blessing
of Abraham to Yaacov until Yaacov was about ready to leave for Mesopotamia.
He left ostensibly in order to get a wife.  Esau, after all, had intermarried.
He was not even interested in continuing the Jewish progeny.  Yaacov gave
this as an excuse because Rifka knew and warned Yaacov that Esau would
kill him the moment Yitzchak died.  He was so angry that he did not have
the blessing.
What was the blessing of Abraham that Yitzchak really gave Jacob?  It said, "And G-d Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and multiply thee that thou may be a congregation of peoples, and give thee the blessing of Abraham to thee and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land of thy sojournings which G-d gave unto Abraham."  So we see that
Yitzchak never intended to give the blessing of Abraham to Esau, but he
wanted him to know that he cared for him and he wanted him to be part
of the Jewish people and wanted to hold him and bring him back as long
as he had any Jewish identity at all.  That's the way it should be.  However,
this does not mean, though, that those people who are estranged from Judaism
or who cannot make up their mind whether they want to be Jewish or not
be Jewish should set the Jewish agenda.  Unfortunately, we have many people
like that who demand leadership positions and who demand to set the Jewish
agenda when they, themselves, are not sure whether they want to be Jewish
or not.  The people who should set the Jewish agenda and who should run
the Jewish institutions are people who are committed to the Jewish way
of life.  It was Yaacov who was committed to the Jewish way of life.
Yaacov should receive the blessing and determine the Jewish agenda, but
we always have this problem in life.  We want everything.  We, though,
many times have to choose.  It would be nice if we could have everything,
but we cannot.  Sometimes we can go along with not making up our mind,
but there comes a time when sometimes we have to choose.  We see that
in the world of politics today. Gorbachev has had to choose, because what
is Russia's main problem?  Russia's main problem has always been defense.
Russia was ruled for 250 by the Mongols, and the only way the Russians
were able to defeat the Mongols was by introducing the cannon.  The Mongols
were excellent fighters, and they used to surround an enemy while they
were on horseback and then tighten the ring until eventually the enemy
would surrender, and the Russians were helpless against this tactic until
the cannon was invented, and then they were able to blast out of that
ring.  Since that time, the Russian army has always realized that they
had to have the latest equipment, and in the Lebanese war of 1981 when
over 90 Syrian planes were destroyed to zero loss for Israel, Russia realized
that her equipment was not up to date.  The Afghan war confirmed it when Russia had no defense against the heat seeking missiles that were downing a Russian plane a day, so Russia knows they have to modernize.  They have to use computers and upgrade their defense systems, and this, of course, requires a great deal of money and requires a great deal of input from the west.  Gorbachev could not do what he has been able to do up to now without the support of the military.  He had to choose between his socialist communist principles and defense making sure Russia is strong.  Russia is not really afraid of the United States.  Russia is afraid of China. After all, the Mongols of China ruled Russia and China.  Russia has to make choices.  They could not go along the way they have been going along, and, therefore, they had to make a choice.  However, it is still not clear how these things will turn out.  After all, the Russia troops are still in eastern Europe, and any time they want they can crush these freedom movements just as China crushed her freedom movement in Tiammin Square.
We all know we have to make choice.  In the United States, too, we have to make choices.  We have decided to hold down the income tax rate, but, of course, we still demand the same services so the property rate taxes have gone up.  Water has gone up.  Sewage has gone up.  Many people come to me complaining and asking me to join groups to petition that property taxes and water rates should come down, etc.  We have problems of health insurance.  We have all sorts of problems of eroding income of blue collar workers.  We have to be careful, too.  Capitalism is fine as long as there is a floor, but if there is not a floor to protect people, then, of course, you could have a revolution here as happened before the New Deal was enacted when there was no social security and adequate welfare system and people actually starved to death in America.  My grandfather tells
me how in the panic of 1905 (in those days depressions were called panics) people were actually starving to death in the streets of New York, so we have to make choices many times, hard choices.  You cannot just have everything.  In Jewish life today we want to have everything.  We want to be kosher, eat treif.  We want to have everything, but you cannot have everything.  Eventually you have to choose and if you do not choose your children will choose for you.  You can tell what system is actually the best system by what happened to the children.  Obviously, you can find exceptions all over, but the majority of the children who go through a certain type of education and have a certain type of training, do the majority stay Jewish?  Do they still want to come to shul and practice their religion?  Are they still proud of being Jews?  Do they want to help Israel and their fellow Jews?  Do they still identify with Jewish causes?  You can tell which type of education provides it, what type of services provide it, what type of intense Jewish living provide it.  We all have to choose.  Esau did not want to choose.  Eventually he did choose. His children no longer stayed Jews.  Eventually he saw that it was really right that Jacob got the blessing, but at this particular time he did not want to choose.  He wanted to have all the violent, secular world out there plus the warmth of Judaism, but it was impossible.
In our life we have to choose.  Let us hope and pray that Gorbachev will continue to make the right choices but because of Russia's own military needs and sensitive defense that he will, when he has to, will choose modernization, creativity over communism and communism's principles, that he will continue to choose creativity, modernism, openness, etc.  Let us hope and pray that the world will have peace so that the Mashiach will come.
I am reminded of the story  they tell about a man who was talking to another
man about his brother-in-law.  He said, "You know, my brother-in-law,
it is amazing."  The man said, "Yes, he is a master mechanic.  He can
take a radiator from a Buick, a body from a Ford, an engine from a Cadillac,
the wheels from a Toyota, the transmission from a Mazda, and he can put
them all together."  The man said, "He must be a great mechanic." He
said, "After he has taken all of these parts, what does he end up with?"
The man said, "Five years in jail." Many times it is hard to choose,
but if we try to take a little of this and a little of that many times
we end up with nothing.  We many times destroy instead of build.  Let
us choose to live positive Jewish lives in all aspects of life so Judaism
will survive.  Amen.