Cain and Hevel, Esav and Yaakov: Case studies of Midrashic slander (Toledot)

Nowadays  there is a widespread religious fixation against gossip and slander, especially when it is false. Yet, when it comes to “lashon hara” – speaking ill about others  – most of us remain guilty. And I most certainly speak for myself as well.

The Torah is clearly opposed to the bearing of tales about others:

•  “You shall not go about as a talebearer (rakhil) among your people (Vayikra/Leviticus 19:16)
•  “You shall not carry a false report.”  (Shemot/ Exodus 23:1)

What’s more, the Torah is not hesitant to publicly shame and punish the prophetess Miriam, sister of Moshe and Aharon, for this very transgression.

(Bamidbar/Numbers12:1-15)

This striking episode makes the Torah’s distaste for gossip manifest, and proves, as well, that the Torah is not hesitant to report the misbehavior of even the most righteous and exalted personalities. And this is hardly an isolated case. Which makes it all the more troubling that the Midrash – the legends of the Talmud – is a virtual industry of slander – most, if not all of it, totally fictitious, and utterly gratuitous.

Just a few weeks ago we read Parshat Noah which offers unequivocal praise of Noah. Yet the sages of the Talmud/Midrash deliberately misread the Torah’s words in order to downgrade Noah’s  righteousness and reclassify him as merely a relative tzaddik, i.e. relative to his own era but hardly much of anything compared to the later Avraham.

(Bereishit/Genesis 6:9)

The Torah is explicit- Noah was a tzaddik in his generations – plural. The man lived to be older than 600. Which means he lived through 12 generations and remained righteous throughout without faltering even once. But our Midrashic rabbis make “generations” conceptually singular. (Yeah, the guy was okay … for his time.) Why? Because they don’t want Noah to upstage Avraham whose own behavior begs a lot more questions. And, besides, Avraham lives only 170 years, hardly long enough to reach the doddering stage where we might forgive him for behaving inappropriately after a few l’chaims.

The first examples of midrashic lashon hara concerns Cain who, unlike his brother Hevel, worked as a farmer as commanded by God. Cain brings an offering of produce as a gift to the Creator. His brother Hevel then attempts an end run by sacrificing a sheep as his offering to God. Never mind that he was disobeying God by NOT working as a farmer. Never mind that he killed an innocent sheep which he had no right to do. Never mind that had he wished to make a comparable offering he would have brough wool to God not the entire animal. After all, Cain did not bring the earth as an offering, only what the earth yielded.

There is a whole lot to unpack in this story, which I have attempted in an earlier essay (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bereishit-cain-and-abel-a-lesson-how-not-to-be-a-parent/). But right now I’m concerned with the entirely unnecessary and uncalled for Midrashic tirade against Cain.

The Midrash treats Cain as the first murderer and also as a model of jealousy, greed, denial of divine justice, and evasion of responsibility.

• His offering to God “From the fruit of the ground” (4:3) is read as “from the worst,” in contrast to Hevel’s “firstlings and their fat.” Cain is compared to a bad tenant who eats the first fruits himself and gives the king the leftovers (Bereishit Rabbah 22:5).
• A common tradition says Cain brought flaxseed, a cheap offering (Tanchuma Bereishit 9; Rashi on 4:3).

The Torah doesn’t say what Cain said to Hevel in the field (4:8). The Midrash fills the gap with conjectural motives that are all to Cain’s discredit (BR 22:7):

• The brothers divided the world, one taking the land and the other the movable property. Then Cain said, “The ground you’re standing on is mine.”
• Hevel was the stronger and had Cain pinned. Cain pleaded, “We’re the only two in the world. What will you tell our father?” Hevel had pity and let him go, and Cain got up and killed him (BR 22:8).
• Not knowing where the soul leaves the body, Cain struck Hevel all over, with a stone, until he found the neck (BR 22:8; Tanchuma Bereishit 9).
• When Cain says “I don’t know” (4:9) it as an attempt to fool God, like a person who thinks he can hide from someone who sees everything (Bereishit Rabbah 22:9).
•  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is read as an accusation: “You are the keeper of all creatures, and you ask me?” He is compared to a thief caught at night who says, “I was doing my job, stealing. Yours was to guard the gate” (Tanchuma Bereishit 9).

(Note: Lest you think I am some sort of Midrashic scholar, rest assured that I am not. AI was most helpful in this research. And the above list is only partial.)

Why the rabbis of the Midrash feel this compelling need to beat up on a depressed, mistreated man is troublesome. Clearly, they felt that the raw facts would not allow for an eternal condemnation of Cain, hence the need to somehow upgrade Hevel by totally pulverizing his brother.

Which brings us to this week’s parsha, Toledot, which introduces two other – and  in key ways very similar – brothers;  Esav and Yaakov.

The Midrash is not content to accept the fact that, for whatever reasons, God chooses to drive Jewish history through Yaakov and his progeny. But why should this mandate the relentless, utterly fictitious vilification of Esav?.

Left to our own devices we would conclude – correctly – that Esav was a type we’re all familiar with: a big, burly, teddy bear of a guy. Not overly bright. Ideally cut out to be an outdoorsman and hunter. He is very sentimental, and totally dedicated to making his father happy the only way he can, by preparing and serving him meals from his haul as a hunter/trapper. When he is swindled out of his paternal blessing he bawls like a baby.

Yaakov does not come across as a paragon of achievement and virtue, if at all, until much later in life. Clearly he is his momma’s boy just as Esav is his daddy’s son. And like his mother “the sister of Lavan” Yaakov hangs out at home learning from her the art of deception and, yes, theft. Eventually, after many years, he matures and even comes to accept the God of his father and grandfather as his God. But this is well into the future. (And no, I do not accept that he was busy learning in the mythical yeshiva of Shem v’Ever)

We have to accept Yaakov’s ultimate destiny. But the Torah gives us no reason, nor does it command us to do so at the expense of the unvarnished truth. And such unvarnished truth makes Esav look like a pretty good  – if lumbering and primitive – guy, while portraying Yaakov as a trainee swindler with an excellent professor in his mother.

The Midrash proceeds to attack Esav with a sledge hammer and wrecking ball from before he was even born!

• Interpreting “the children struggled within her” (25:22), the Midrash says that when Rivkah passed houses of idolatry Esav struggled to get out, and when she passed houses of Torah study Yaakov did (Bereishit Rabbah 63:6).
• His ruddy appearance at birth  (25:25) is a sign that he will shed blood. (BR 63:8).

•  “Ish yode’a tzayid” (25:27) is read as Esav trapping his father with his mouth. He would ask Yitzhak pious questions, such as how to tithe salt and straw, to seem scrupulous about commandments (Tanchuma Toldot 8; cited by Rashi).
• Quoting Tehillim 80:14 Esav is called “the boar from the forest.” The Midrash explains that a pig stretches out its split hooves as if to say “I am kosher,” while hiding that it doesn’t chew its cud. Likewise, Esav seized other men’s wives for forty years, then married at forty to look like his father, who also married at forty (BR 65:1).
• The lentil stew Yaakov was cooking is understood as mourners’ food, because Avraham had just died. God took Avraham five years early so he wouldn’t see Esav go bad (BR 63:12; Rashi on 25:30).
• The Talmud says that on that day Esav raped a betrothed maiden, committed murder, denied God, denied the resurrection of the dead, and despised the birthright (Bava Batra 16b).
• “Let me swallow” (hal’iteni, 25:30) is taken to mean he opened his mouth like a camel to be fed (BR 63:1)
• Esav’s Hittite wives burned incense to idols and the smoke contributed to Yitzhak’s blindness (Tanchuma Toldot 8; Rashi on 27)
• Esav planned to marry Ishmael’s daughter so that Ishmael would kill Yaakov. Esav would then kill Ishmael as the avenger and inherit both of them (BR 67:8). (The Torah is very clear thaat Esav married Ishmael’s daughter to make his parents happy)
• In the reunion  of the two brothers (33:4), the word “and he  (Esav) kissed him” has dots over it. One view in the Midrash is that Esav tried to bite Yaakov’s neck, which turned to marble (BR 78:9).

Now isn’t it strange that the very rabbis who taught us: “הוֹוֵי דָּן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת”, we should judge every person meritoriously (Pirkei Avot 1:6) couldn’t muster a better spin on the story about the lentil soup for which Esav gave up his birthright?  Imagine a Midrash like this which would be far more consistent with the overall story:

Bone tired and famished after hunting game for his father Yitzchak, Esav lets himself be swindled out of his birthright because he doesn’t want to fall asleep before preparing and serving his father the meal Yitzhak was expecting. He deems his entire life worthless if he cannot perform this act of honoring his father.

Now that would be an appropriate, and credible midrash. And that would be consistent with the dictum from Pirkei Avot. Neverthless the Sages choose the low road of slander, besmirching Esav because they – apparently – felt a need to destroy him in order to add much needed luster to his younger twin.