Shabbat Toldot

Thursday, 23 November 2006

With Toldot, like every Parasha of Torah, there are many questions raised and many levels on which each issue can be explored. I would like to focus on the word B'choratechah, translated by both the 1917 and current JPS versions of the TaNaKH as your birthright. In doing so I would like to explore the nature of this birthright as well as to ask what was it in Esau’s nature that caused him to value it so little that he virtually gave it away. I would suggest that we should see how this can be interpreted in light of Micha’s prophetic admonition that the Eternal requires that we do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God and question how all of this relates to us today as Progressive Jews.

Shabbat Toldot

The first point to make is that the birthright under question refers a specific right granted to the firstborn son. But which specific right? One option is to look at this as the double portion of material inheritance to which the firstborn son was entitled. It is this option that one frequently encounters when looking at medieval commentators. But it is the second possibility that of cultic or religious inheritance that I would like to explore here. There is a strong stream of tradition in Midrash that sees the priesthood transmitted, as symbolised by the kutonot or (garments of skin), from Adam through Nimrod to Abimelech. The right is then removed from its “natural” progression and given to Abraham. This ritual/religious/spiritual inheritance is then passed to Isaac and willingly surrendered by Esau to Jacob for a pittance.

But what was it in Esau’s makeup that caused him to hold this spiritual bequest as being of so little import? The traditional rabbinic approach answers the issue by looking at what they see as the contrast between Esau’s nature and Jacob’s. Esau is the man of the physical world, the hunter, and the practical provider. Jacob is seen as the scholar who stays home, the man who obtains what he wants by his wits rather than force. In the Rabbinic mind Jacob becomes the image of the rabbi and worthy of the inheritance, at least once he overcomes his moral shortcomings. Esau is the man of blood and so unworthy. But is this really fair? After all if we look at the chain of the priesthood in Midrash even in the scant outline given above we note the position of Nimrod, himself a mighty hunter. We also note that at the time the priest’s role was to perform animal sacrifice with its blood and very physical nature at the centre of the cult and the primary expression of corporate worship. Surely we are justified in looking for an alternate explanation. In those days the sacrifice represented the fulfilment of Keva as well as Kavanah, an integral part of covenant and of humanity’s relationship with the Eternal and so the question is not a trivial one.

I would like to suggest at this point that we look at the other side of the nature/nurture argument. We need to remember that during the Akkaidah Isaac had a unique and uniquely unpleasant opportunity to view sacrifice from the animal’s perspective. Surely such an experience would have caused Isaac to shrink from performing the role of slaughterer that ritual demanded of him. It is not unreasonable for us to speculate that Isaac’s experience would have transformed the sweet smell unto the Eternal into the odour of sanctity, a derogatory sanctimoniousness, for him. Such an environment would in turn have left Esau, Isaac’s favourite lacking a positive role model to emulate.

But how does this relate to us and to Micah’s definition of religion? Let us look at the requirements set out by Micah and see how they relate to Esau and ourselves. First we are required to be just. At what point in Torah does Esau act unjustly? Even his plan to kill Jacob, an action never actually attempted, could potentially be seen as just in the light of Jacob’s fraud and deception. Was he unmerciful? When the brothers meet again on Jacob’s return from Haran Esau approaches Jacob with overwhelming force but rather than seeking vengeance he falls upon him with tears rather than violence, surely an act of mercy. It is his inability to participate in a real relationship with the Eternal that is Esau’s flaw, not any inability to interact humanely with his family or companions.

And what of us? I truly believe that as a community we seek to act justly and that we search out ways to temper that justice with mercy and loving-kindness. We are not perfect and like Esau we often fall short in the light of harm done to us and in the danger we see around us. No, I would suggest that where we too, too often fail is in the third requirement, to walk humbly with the Eternal. How often are our prayers acts of Keva only, lacking in Kavanah? We seek to redress the absence through physical means, we add organs or guitars or new tunes and writings and call the results creative services. But these things by themselves are incapable of filling the void or of being truly creative. There is no substitute for Kavanah. Words and music and silence are all only creative and of value when they help us to experience Kavanah. Else they are mere distractions and entertainment.

Are we Isaac? Have our own experiences inured us to the Voice that calls to us? Or can we yet listen with our hearts and so share with our children their real spiritual inheritance and our own?