TOLDOS 1992

In the Torah portion Toldos we learn about the conflict between Yaacov and Esau. This Torah portion starts out by telling us how Yitzchak was 40 years old when he married Rifka, the daughter of Betuel the Aramite from Patamaron, the sister of Lovon, the Aramite for him as a wife.  It seems strange that the Torah would again renumerate the geneology of Rifka.  We already know about that.  Why did it have to mention it again? Then we learn that they could not have children and after 20 years, the rabbis say, Rifka finally got pregnant. Then it says, "And the children were struggling within her and she said, 'If so, why is this I? Why me?'" The rabbis all wonder, what is this expression "Lomozeah Nochi - why me".  The rabbis do not understand what this expression means.  Later she went to inquire of G-d because some people explain that Rifka was very upset.  She had been 20 years without getting pregnant and how she was pregnant and she was afraid that perhaps she had twins now and neither of them would be born alive, so why am I pregnant? Another explanation is that here I prayed so long to get pregnant and the pains are just (terrible.  I cannot stand it.  Why should I have prayed to get pregnant? Other rabbis say that is not the interpretation.  The interpretation is that Rifka always felt insecure with Yitzchak.  She knew that Yitzchak was the son of a Tzedek, Abraham. She came from a father who was an idol worshipper and a brother who was a crook, and, yet, she was called upon to be one of the matriarchs, to be one of the founding mothers of the Jewish religion.  She was always a person who was cognizant of her roots.  She did not have it easy.  When she was growing up she found a belief in G-d.  Her father was an idol worshipper.  Her father was a man who did not believe in G-d, who believed in giving the people what they wanted, and her brother did not believe in the second basic basis of the covenenat, Chesed, kindness.  Abraham said that you cannot reach G-d unless you are willing to live a moral and decent life and be kind to everybody, and her brother was a swindler, so within her always there was this great tension between the ideals of her father and brother and what she knew to be true, that there is a G-d and that G-d demands that we treat each other kindly.  We know that when Eliezer came to search for a wife chat what he

was looking for was a person who had Chesed, who had kindness, and, of course, she fit the bill.  When she became pregnant she was filled with doubts.  She did not know if she was really worthy of this charge.  There was this great struggle within her always that was now reflected in her two sons.
Later on after the boys were born it says, "And it went out the first one was red. All of him was like a coat of hair, and they called his name Esau. Afterwards came out his brother and his hand was holding the heel of Esau and he called his name Yaacov, and Yitzchak was 60 years old when they were born and they grew up the boys." The rabbis all ask, what does it mean "they called his name Esau"? They say that the characteristic of Esau was that he was Asuee, that he was already made.  Asoh can also mean made, that he was a person who never did struggle.  The rabbis say the reason Rifka was chosen was precisely because she struggled.  That is why she was a fit matriarach.  She was precisely the person that was called for because in life we all have to struggle.  It is so hard to tell the difference between right and wrong, but Esau had no struggle.  He was a superficial man.  That is why there was so much emphasis on his hair.  Hair is superficial.  You can live with it or without it.  You can see some great men who were completely bald.  There are many people who get along very well without hair, although we spend billions of dollars on hair and hair products.  But we know that Esau was a man who did not struggle because it is so difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong.  In fact, the rabbis say the difference between Yishmael and Yitzchak was very slight, and the difference between Esau and Yaacov was very slight.  In fact, the rabbis say that Ishmael carried his father's concept of kindness too far.  That is why he was involved in lewd conduct because he also tried to be kind and compassionate to people but he went beyond the line.  When people would come to him with their problems, especially people from the opposite sex, he would try to comfort them and make them feel loved and wanted and in that case he would take sexual advantage of them, just as we see today about psychiatrists and counselors who many times go beyond what
their professional ethics demand and they have sexual relations with their clients and they justify it by saying that this person needed to be loved and cared for but, of course, they make the situation worse because they cannot give a lasting relationship to that person and that is what the person wants.
The same thing was true with Esau.  Esau, too, was very similar to his father Yitzchak.
Yitzchak was willing to die for the Jewish people, for a good cause.  Esau, too,
was willing to die.  He was willing to take his life in his hands but to be a mercenary,
to be a robber, a thief, not to be a person willing to take his life In his hands
and be willing to sacrifice it for a good ideal.  The line between right and wrong
Is very difficult and we all have to struggle constantly to make sure that we keep
the right line.  This is, of course, what Rifka saw in her home.  Her father probably
did not believe in these idols but he said, "The people believe in the idols and
they want me to believe in the idols and it is good for business, so I will say
I believe in the idols, too." Her brother, Laban, who was a chiseler and a swindler
said, "Listen, people like to give away their money.  They are going to lose their
money anyway, so they might as well lose it to me."  It is such a fine line between
right and wrong and we have to struggle with it all day and every day.  The same
thing goes with our talents.  Sometimes it is so hard to be what we want to be and
what we can be and we have to struggle to bring our talents out.  We all know that
creative people have a terrible struggle within them.  It is hard to be creative.
This, of course, is something that Esau never understood.  Esau was a person who
had no problems.  He had no question of growing.  He had no struggle.  To him everything
was in front of him.  He could do it or he could not do it, but he did not have
to struggle with right and wrong or trying to attain the best that his abilities
could bring him.
Yaacov, on the other hand, comes from the word Eekree, which means consistent. He was consistently trying to do the right thing.  He was consistently trying to
think about how he could act better and better every day.  He was consistently trying to improve his characteristics.  That is why he became a great man.  The rabbis comment on the verse, "And the boys grew up" criticizing Yitzchak and Rifka.  They say that they made a terrible mistake.  What was their terrible mistake? They said they gave exactly the same education to Yaacov and Esau. Until they were bar mitzvah you could not tell the boys apart.  They both went to school, but the difference was that Yaacov did it and Esau could not handle this type of education.  He felt a failure so, therefore, he became a member of a gang, to become a ruffian, to engage in illicit behavior because he felt that he had to express himself some way.  Since he could not seem to express himself well in his studies.  Samson Refuel Hirsch says that Rifka and Yitzchak made a terrible error because it says in Mishlay, "You should educate your child according to his path, according to his way." Every child has different ways of being educated and you can get to a child in different ways, but you have to prepare the material in such a way that you can touch each child. I remember I was amazed about 20 years ago when I walked into a class and there was a wonderful teacher.  She knew how to get to her bunch of recalcitrant boys who did not seem to take at all to math.  She was teaching them how to figure out the batting average of their baseball heroes.  She was teaching them how to figure out the earned run average and they were so interested in that that they learned it in a jiffy.  They were quickly trying to figure out all the earned run average and all the other types of measurements that are used in baseball and, of course, that takes a great deal of math skill.  This teacher was an expert teacher.  She was able to get to her students in a way that they could learn.
Esau, on the other hand, was not challenged in this way.  Esau, on the other hand, quickly threw away those things that he could not understand and he went out to engage in those activities which would give him some sort of prestige.  In life we all have to struggle.  We all have to struggle to develop our talents and accomplish things, and many times it is not the person who had the highest intellect who makes
his way in the world in a correct and honest way.  I remember that one of the smartest people I ever knew was a swindler, a big crook.  He had such a wonderful brain but he did not have any of the other qualities that are necessary to be a success. Yes, he could talk a person out of almost anything and he could look at a problem and in just a few seconds he could solve it, while other people would have to stay for two or three or four hours in order to solve that problem, but he lacked stability and stick-to-it-iveness, perseverance.  He never kept his promise.  He was not stable so, therefore, he never amounted to much, while the other people I knew did not have that great an intellect but they had stability.  They keep their word.  They are people who persevere.  They are people who once they give their word and their time, they are going to give it and keep it, which is different than people who many times have quickness of mind and they feel that that will allow them to accomplish everything without having to be stable or persistent of keep their word.
So we see from this Torah portion that life is a continual struggle, and that is what Rifka teaches everyone. Yes, we all struggle to do the right thing, to bring out our talents, to be creative, but we can all do it. All we have to do is persevere. Never give up the struggle, but keep going, and if we keep going we will eventually overcome and we will eventually be able to be somebody, to be the person that we know we should be.  I am reminded of the story they tell about a 4 year old girl who is watching her mother for the first time cold cream because she always went to bed before her mother.  She watched her mother put on cold cream and she said, "Mommy, what are you doing?" Her mother said, "Well, I am making myself beautiful." The little girl saw that her mother then took a kleenex and started to wipe it off. She looked at her mother and said, "What's the matter? Are you giving up?" We should never give up.  In life we are always going to be faced with a struggle every day to determine what is right and wrong and we must be up to that struggle, and every day we are going to be given new challenges.  To deve]op our talents and to develop ourselves we should always be ready because we can be the person we think
we can be and we should be the person we should be, and if we all do what we know we should do we can bring the Mashiach sooner.  May he come quickly in our day. Amen.