Daniel Samowitz – Jewish Life Madrich

Toldot – my brother

We return to the story of twin brothers Jacob and Esau, sons of Isaac and Rebecca. Interestingly, Isaac and Rebecca missed one of the prime rules of parenting. If parents feel some favouritism, they are never to show it, but they did. The Torah states that Isaac loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob. They each had their favourite son.

The parashah tells us that Isaac and Rebecca endure 20 childless years, until their prayers are answered and Rebecca conceives. She experiences a difficult pregnancy as the “children struggle inside her”. God tells her that “there are two nations in your womb,” and that the younger will prevail over the elder.

Esau emerges first, Jacob is born clutching Esau’s heel. Esau grows up to be “a cunning hunter, a man of the field”, Jacob is “a wholesome man,” a dweller in the tents of learning.

Returning exhausted and hungry from the hunt one day, Esau sells his birth right (his rights as the firstborn) to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew. This really brings up the question of how good can red lentil stew really be? How do we look at this act from Jacob? If my brother is so hungry and tired and I make him sell me his birth right just to eat what does that say about me?

Isaac grows old and blind, and expresses his desire to bless Esau before he dies. While Esau goes off to hunt for his father’s favourite food, Rebecca dresses Jacob in Esau’s clothes, covers his arms and neck with goatskins to simulate the feel of his hairier brother, prepares a similar dish, and sends Jacob to his father. Jacob receives his father’s blessing. When Esau returns and the deception is revealed, all Isaac can do for his weeping son is to predict that he will live by his sword.

There are so many fascinating ideas or dilemmas that come out of this week’s parashah, but for me this idea of how do we as parents, educators, madrachim, peer support leaders and so on deal with this dilemma of our love and connection with our sons, daughters and students. In this parashah I think Isaac and Rebecca are showing us what not to do, but I was recently reading Janusz Korczak book How to Love a Child and came across this idea:

“Understanding their uniqueness: This is the key to nurturing children. We need to understand the ‘spark’ in each child, respect the ‘mystery’ in each child and therefore, while we try to understand and work with their uniqueness we should not try to reduce each young person to a totally understood human being. We need to lead each child to where s/he needs to go. It is not about ‘making you into something’, rather about helping ‘make you what you can make of yourself’. With that idea, treating each child as unique and loving them for who they are, seems like the right path. Perhaps we may have favourites but if we connect with the uniqueness and difference of each child then we can allow them to make of themselves whatever they choose.”