Parashat Tol’dot: A Hidden Collaboration Part 2

The following essay is a continuation of the revised version of the d’var Torah I posted here in 2023, 2024 and 2025, each time adding more supporting commentary. This year I have re-edited it also into three parts:

Rivkah and Isaac both in one way or another had a responsibility to educate Jacob and Eisav. For one, Jacob needed to take on more of Eisav’s good characteristics. Perhaps, the most important of these is that he went after what he wanted without hesitation. In fact, we never hear of him being reluctant when it comes to his desires, but instead says and does what he wants with simplicity and directness.

 Something else Jacob needed to learn was to have more empathy. Based upon the story of the lentil stew, where Jacob’s lack of empathy is on full display, maybe Eisav only cared about being first born out of what gave him superficial pleasure, but Jacob wanted it out of intrinsic (and thus pure) desire. It was his Keter. 

Jacob feels a deep desire for the patriarchal blessing because it is his destiny (as indicated by the prophecy given to Rivkah), and not having it initially allowed him to appreciate and utilize it even more. Jacob is well-known to kabbalistically represent Tiferet, and thus truth. This means he can sense the truth before it is fully materialized, and so he can take on the part he needs to play. Later on in his life, he senses others’ truth by bestowing/revealing blessings. Perhaps this was also a way to mitigate the pain he caused his brother, even if he didn’t intrinsically really want the blessing.

Kabbalistically, Jacob represents the divine emanation of not just truth, but beauty from harmony, as previously discussed. Harmony is when we see that every action can matter for our benefit and for others. Consequently, as spoken about before, what is beautiful makes our heart feel the most in harmony, and thus we have the most will to break through illusionary boundaries and limitations. 

As I mentioned in my book, Better Than You Wished For, the heart is a fascinating organ when you consider that it releases more energy than even the mind. It is the first organ to form because it has the ability to regulate the entire body. When the heart works well, the mind is in the proper balance to be open and naturally see good things and the truth.

At first, both Jacob and Eisav sound one-dimensional as characters. The Torah says regarding Jacob and Eisav that one is for the fields and one is a “dweller-in-tents” (prefers to be indoors). His parents probably didn’t want to embarrass Jacob by saying that he needed to develop his character. Jacob needed to develop his personality, a more multidimensional/balanced attitude, and a leadership attitude in order to be the father of 12 different tribes with different dominant characteristics.

Why is it that in the common discussion of the Torah, we tend to focus on certain specific tribes like Judah and Levi, and don’t focus equally on the characteristics of all 12 tribes? Perhaps because these characteristics are irrelevant to a person’s deeper and more transformative qualities, which are infinite because we are divine. Maybe because of this, we are discovering more of our identities over our entire lives. A person’s culture or profession, for example, only says so much about the actual individual. This also goes for more detailed characteristics, for example, how you reveal your regal self (connected to the divine attribute of Malkhut/Shekhinah). No one else can define this for you because this identity is unique to you. 

As a side note, it is worth mentioning how the parents did their best for their children. That they were following the Jewish principles that we don’t embarrass people or say something to them when we know that they will not take it well. Neither of their children is perfect, but they don’t come out and say that bluntly. 

Rivkah gives Jacob some “game” for his father and also dresses him like Eisav to “impersonate” him. This is “walking around in his shoes” as the English expression suggests: a process of developing empathy for his brother, something which he previously lacked. This is how he can become a source of blessings. The Zohar (142b) explains that Eisav’s clothing that Jacob wore was actually stolen from Nimrod, a king we first hear about in Genesis 10:8, who inherited it all the way back from Adam haRishon (the original man). By now wearing this outfit, Jacob could better impersonate the divine attribute of Tiferet (beauty). The Zohar says that he embodied the supernatural beauty of mystery and emitted an aroma – which Eisav didn’t do when he wore it. 

When Isaac gives the blessing, if you pay close attention to everything he says, the objectives are to make Jacob question himself and to bring out the good attributes of the blessing that Jacob needs in order to have empathy. This seems to hint at the fact that Rivkah and Isaac are both privy to this so-called “deception”, and that it is a pedagogical device intended to teach Jacob that he could outsmart “evil.” The Zohar (138b) also explains that Isaac knew that Eisav could not rule over Jacob. Therefore, Jacob needed to take on the positive characteristics of the snake (from the garden of Eden) and therefore learn to be more clever than Eisav. 

What so-called negative characteristics can be used for good?