TOLDOS 1997

In the Torah portion Toldos we learn about the birth of Esau and Yaacov. We also learn how Yaacov buys the birthright from Esau.  The rabbis say this was actually the bar mitzvah of Esau when he could have assumed the mantle of leadership in the coming years, and it was also the day that Abraham had died.  Esau sold his birthright to Yaacov.  Later we learn how Yitzchak was planning to give a blessing to Esau. When Rivka heard about it, she decided this should not be.  She persuaded her younger son, Yaacov, to dress up like Esau and receive the blessing instead.  This in indeed puzzling, because if we look at the blessing that Yaacov received, we will see that it was not a spiritual blessing at all.  All it says in this blessing is, "May G-d give you of the dew of the heavens and of the fatness of the earth and abundant grain and wine, peoples will serve you, and regimes will prostrate themselves to you, be a lord to your kinsmen, and your mother's sons will prostrate themselves to you. Cursed be they who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you." There is nothing spiritual about this blessing at all.  This blessing is just a materialistic blessing.  It talks about prosperity and being able to maintain your independence and, in fact, to lord it over his brothers.  It had nothing at all to do with spirituality, so why was Rivka so insistent that Yaacov have this blessing? There is nothing in this blessing about spiritual leadership, about the land of Israel, about the blessing of Abraham. We know that at the end of this Torah portion when Yaacov leaves his family to go ostensibly to Mesopotamia to gain a wife, at that time Yitzchak gives Yaacov actually the blessing of Abraham.  In fact, that is what it says, "G-d Almighty shall bless you."  It is a nurturing G-d, that aspect of G-d which has to do with the relationship between man and G-d, while in the previous blessing they use the word Elohim, which refers to something natural, G-d of nature, that aspect of G-d which is

the G-d of nature, in which things really cannot be appealed to.  If a person jumps off a cliff, he is going to be hurt.  There is not really a relationship that is mentioned, but here it means a relationship, "He shall bless you and make your fruitful and you shall be like a community of nations, and He will give to you and your children with you to cause you to inherit the land of your sojourning which G-d gave to Abraham."  This was the blessing of Abraham, so why was Rivka so upset? Why did Rivka want to make sure that Yaacov got this blessing?
Perhaps we can understand this if we understand why Esau was called Esau. When Esau was born, according to Rashi, everybody called him this because he was already complete and finished.  We know that there is and has always been an argument whether man is just another animal or a spiritual being.  Is everything about man predetermined? Is man just a product of cause and effect? Is man nothing more than a machine? Does man also have spirituality about him? Does he have free will? Can man be more than his environment? This argument has been going on for thousands of years.  Esau came down on the side that man was completely determined.  Paradoxically, this is actually the position of most of the intellectual people since the time of the enlightenment, because spirituality is something which lends itself to charlatans.  A person can always claim that he can do miracles and all sorts of unusual things, that he is not bound by the laws of nature.  Therefore, he can trick and fool people.  Even today, people are sometimes taken in by those who claim that they can do miracles and cure them, etc.  We Jews do not believe that. We do not believe that society and especially man, himself, is free to do anything he wants.  This is not true.  Man
is both a machine and more than a machine.  Man is both determined and also has free will. We know that when we go to a doctor if a man has blood pressure of 300 over 120, he had better go to the hospital right away.  If he has a sugar of 500, you had better be sent to the hospital right away. We know that if a person has a certain disease, you give him certain medicine.  We know that all human beings react more or less the same to basic medicines, but here we also know something else.  Individual man varies.  Doctors have to give one blood pressure medicine to one person and a different one to another.  There is variation between people. We know that not everybody has blood pressure of 120 over 80 and if you have 110 over 75 you are also not going to be sent to the hospital.  There are certain variations, so being a doctor is combining a science and an art.  We know that there are all sorts of things that happen in a human body which many times should not happen, and, in fact, they are really miracles, but we do not call them miracles. We all them spontaneous remissions.  I know a person who had a very serious illness and had a spontaneous remission, and it did not come back for 30 years.  This whole idea that man is only a machine is very detrimental, because it means that man has no spiritual nature at all. What good does it do to pray to G-d? He cannot help you anyway.  Of course, this is the idea of Rabbi Kushner, who wrote the book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.  G-d is actually powerless. He set the laws of nature in motion, and you cannot do anything about it. We do not believe that. We believe that you can pray to G-d, and G-d can help if He wants.  He does not have to if He does not want, but there is a whole range of possibilities that He could help you. G-d could actually do miracles if He wanted to.  It does not mean that He is going to do it,
but He could do it.  Therefore, there is an opening to pray, to feel that you have some control over your life, that you have free will.  Esau did not believe that.  Esau believed completely in a materialistic world.  He said it did not do any good to pray to G-d. Therefore, that is why he despised his birthright.  He came in from the field with his ruffian friends and started to belittle Yaacov and make fun of praying and G-d and religion, so G-d said, "You make fun of it? I'll let Yaacov buy the birthright and it will be his."  Yaacov did buy the birthright.
That's why after he sold this birthright and ate this red lentils, that they called his name from then on Edam, because he ate this "red stuff".  Edam also mean Edamam, earth, blood. Esau believed that we are just flesh and blood. We come from the dirt and go to the dirt. There is nothing we can do about it.  We are completely predetermined.  You can pray to G-d from morning to night and it will not help you one bit.  Of course, he believed it, like many Jews who were taken in by the arguments of Newton and others that everything was cause and effect and nothing could go beyond cause and effect. We know that this is not true.  Even scientifically it is not true. We believe in quantum leaps and things like that, but he believed in it.  Jacob, on the other hand, was a spiritual person.  He was only interested in spirituality and attaching himself to G-d and praying and so forth, but that is not enough. You cannot just base your life on spirituality and trust in G-d, because G-d has told us we cannot rely on a miracle. We have to help ourselves.  That is why it is a Jewish law that you cannot live in a town where there is no doctor.  You cannot say, "G-d made me sick and can
cure me."  You have to go out and make a living.  You cannot say you will learn Torah all day and G-d will take care of you.  G-d will not take care of you.  You cannot say, as I heard somebody say recently, "When I see that there are lots of guests in shul and I bring them to my house and even if my wife has not prepared any food, because G-d will provide." Well, G-d will not provide.  It just means that either he and his wife or some of the guests will go hungry.  You cannot have a foolish type of belief.  Yes, we have faith in G-d that eventually we will be able to do things, but G-d helps those who help themselves.  That is a basic Jewish principle.  That's why I know that some people on the orthodox ultra-right have actually advocated this position.  I had a great godol tell me that many people in the yeshiva world are making a terrible mistake because they are not training their youngsters to give them an occupation because they say G-d will provide.  G-d will not provide.  That is not the Jewish way.  The Jewish way is that you have to provide.  You have to take reasonable steps.  Sure, G-d will help you in the long run, but you have to make some effort.  You have to get an occupation.  Of course, Esau, on the other hand, did not believe it did any good to pray to G-d.  All you have to do is do material things, but, of course, the problem is that after he drank these lentils, he was still hungry.  He had a spiritual longing.  Unfortunately, this is 90% of American Jewry today.  They do not realize that they need spiritual things. When they do realize they need spiritual things, they do not realize that they are within Judaism, and, therefore, they look far afield for it.  Man cannot be satisfied with just material things.  Man is not just a determined creature.  Man is more than a machine.  Man is a machine plus.  If you believe that man is just a machine, you are not going to have any
satisfaction in life.  You are not going to have any feeling of accomplishment.  Everything you do it predetermined so, therefore, why should you do anything? We know that G-d helps those who help themselves, and we know that Rivka was right.  Yaacov could not just rely on spirituality.  He had to have a material base. We all know, too, that in America today we have to infuse spirituality into the lives of our youngsters.  We cannot tell them that everything is just making a living and so forth.  Those few on the religious right who say that G-d will provide are also wrong.  You have to have a material base, otherwise their Torah will be destroyed and they will be destroyed.  Let us all hope and pray that we will learn the lesson that Rivka taught Yaacov, and that we will realize that spirituality is important but it also needs a material base.  This, of course, is the way the Kleeyarker explains why Rivka did what she did.  This is a lesson that I think we have to learn in our own day.  For the 90% of Jews interested only in material things and earning a living, we have to give them spirituality, and for those few Jews immersed in spirituality, we have to tell them that they need a material base, too.
I am reminded of the story of a twelve year old youngster who went up to Pincus Zuckerman and asked for his autograph.  Pincus said, "Sure."  The boy asked for a second autograph, and Pincus said, "Sure."  He was very flattered.  Then the boy asked for a third one.  Pincus Zuckerman was a little confused now.  He asked, "Why do you want three autographs from me?" The boy replied, "Well, you see I have a friend down the street who promised me that if I give him three Pincus Zuckerman's he'll give me one Yitzhak Perlman." We know from
that the spiritual value of music did not interest this fellow.  All he was interested in was changing cards with his friend. We must have more than material things; we must have spiritual things, but when we have spiritual things, they must be based in the material world, too.  Judaism never says either/or; it always say both.  Let's all hope that our youngsters will have both spiritual and material things so the Jewish community will thrive and the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.