וַיֶּאֱהַ֥ב יִצְחָ֛ק אֶת־עֵשָׂ֖ו כִּי־צַ֣יִד בְּפִ֑יו וְרִבְקָ֖ה אֹהֶ֥בֶת אֶֽת־יַעֲקֹֽב׃
Now
Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison; and Rebekah loved Jacob.
-
Bereishit/Genesis 25:28
Something
that strikes me about this psuk/verse is that Yitzchok/Isaac loved Esav
conditionally – that is, a reason is given for his love of Esav – that he ate
of the food Esav provided (literally, “Yitzchok loved Esav because the game was
in his mouth”). There are various interesting rabbinic commentaries about what,
exactly, this means – and I encourage you to check them out – but the main
thing that jumps out at me is that Yitzchok does not love Esav unconditionally,
because he is his son – rather, he loves him because of what Esav can do for
Yitzchok.
In
contrast, Rivka/Rebecca loves Yaacov/Jacob. No reason is given. No
justification. She just loves him. Now, the rabbis come up with various reasons
why she loves him – but these are additions to the text – no reason is given,
in contrast to the reason given for Yitzchok’s love for Esav. The most
interesting commentary to me comes from the Chizkuni (unsurprisingly – I often find
his commentary very illuminating) – the verb used for Yitzchok is in the
perfect, or past tense – because the love is conditional and will at times
cease to exist. However, the love provided by Rivka is described in the kal
participle, effectively the present tense – because it continues at all times.
He does not quite make the leap to it being unconditional, but I think this
makes sense as a reading of the psuk/verse.
I
believe that the conditional love that Esav received from his father contributed
to his path in life being very negative. He takes much longer to mature – when he
sees how displeased that his father was with his choice of wives, so he marries
a cousin, a daughter of Yishmael/Ishmael – just to please his parents, not out
of love. Meanwhile, the unconditional love that Rivka generously gives Yaakov
helps set him on a better path, being able to have a profound experience of prayer
in his dream of the ladder to heaven with the angels, choosing a wife he loves,
Rachel (we won’t get into his marriage to her sister Leah at this time), and
wrestling with the man/angel/G!d who gave him his new name.
Of
course, the fact that each parent had a favorite child set them up for
conflict, and there was bitter rivalry that led Yaakov to trick first his
brother and then his father to get the birthright and the good blessing – one
wonders how different the story would have been if both sons were loved equally
and if there were good blessings and birthrights for both of them. In the end, in
Bereishit/Genesis 33:4, Esav is able to kiss his brother and they embrace (yes,
I know of the midrash that assigns very negative motives to Esav for this – but
I like the positive possibilities inherent in the pshat, or literal reading, of
this verse.) And Bereishit/Genesis 36 gives a detailed genealogy of Esav’s descendants,
which does not necessarily make sense given the broader context of the book and
of the Torah – and there is rabbinic commentary that this perek/chapter
contains some of the deepest Kabbalistic mysteries – which I see as making up
for the lack of unconditional love from his parents.
I
find that the family relationships in Bereshit/Genesis are so revelatory, and
this set of relationships is no exception.
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