Adina Roth – Head of Jewish Life

Toldot – Children of Humanity

This past week has not been an easy one for Jewish communities around the world as we see fighting, hatred and polarising from Caulfield to Coogee to Cape Town! I was talking with my rabbinical school study partner Miriam and she was expressing concern that because Jewish people don’t feel safe in the outward world, we are turning inward and creating a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness. She said, ultimately this doesn’t serve us, we need to be an outward looking people, seeking dialogue, inter-faith discussions and universal connections. I reflected to myself that in these few weeks, so much trust has broken down and I have become inward looking, relying on the warmth of the Jewish community, of Emanuel School, of our allies and supporters. It feels as if there is a lot of hate out there and it feels safer and more comforting to stay closer to home.

This week’s Parsha, Toldot, speaks wisely and sensitively to this concern of inside and outside. At the beginning of the portion, our matriarch Rivkah become pregnant with twins. We are told immediately that ‘the twins struggled within her.’ Rashi is interested as to why the twins were struggling and he offers two incisive ideas. One interpretation of the struggle points to differences between the boys. He says that when Rivkah walked past the ancient Yeshivot or houses of Torah study, Yaakov would kick to get out and study Torah. In contrast, when she walked past the places of idol worship, Eisav kicked to exit. This first interpretation kind of parodies the boys as super different from each other; ‘Torah boy and pagan boy.’ It is ‘easy’ and sometimes lazy to point to seemingly superficial differences between people. Rashi however doesn’t stop there, he offers a second interpretation. He says Yaakov and Eisav were ‘fighting with each other as to who would inherit, in this world and the mythical world to come.’ This second interpretation is borne out by the plot of the story as the entire energy of their story is about a struggle as to who will get the blessing, Yaakov or Eisav. Avivah Zornberg wisely points out that Rashi’s first interpretation (God vs idols) highlights differences between the boys but the second interpretation suggests something profound, which is that at the end of the day, these seemingly different boys wanted the same thing!!

This kind of insight is important when considering raising families. Sometimes differences between siblings become highlighted, ‘the academic one, the sporty one, the more mainstream one, the individual.’ It might also be helpful to think about our children as ultimately wanting the same things, to feel joy, to feel loved, to feel belonging. This perhaps becomes even more prescient at the moment, where it feels as if the events since Saturday 7 October have drawn sharp distinctions between people, ‘us’ and ‘them’. While Israel battles a threat to its existence, I am drawn to my Chevruta Miriam’s concern that if we end up constructing a reality based on differences, it becomes self-fulfilling and we actually experience ourselves as radically different from each other and retreat inwards. The second interpretation of Rashi is an ethical invitation to remember our commonality. As humans there is much we share in common. We long for joy, love, belonging. At the moment, there is great woundedness in our world and many of us are sitting with feelings of alienation from each other and a breakdown in trust. But this small ‘second’ interpretation in our Parsha reminds us of a deeper truth, most humans share a great deal in common. I pray for a time when we can return to dialogue, openness and multi-culturalism, to embrace our beautiful Jewish inheritance and also look to each other with open eyes and hearts as children of humanity.

Shabbat Shalom