November 17, 2012

Parashat Toledot , Genesis 25:19–28:9 

This week's commentary was written by Rabbi Daniel S. Nevins, Pearl Resnick Dean of The Rabbinical School and Dean of the Division of Religious Leadership, JTS.

Finding Our Way (and God's) in the World

 
What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. When as a girl she sees a stranger at the well, she rushes to water his caravan of thirsty camels, and then invites him to stay at her house. When offered the chance to travel with this man back to a distant land and a mysterious husband, she volunteers without hesitation. When her pregnancy becomes difficult, she seeks out God and challenges God with the bold question, "Why do I need this?" When her husband seems ready to bless the wrong son, she quickly conspires to rearrange the action so that Jacob will receive the primary blessing. In all of these actions, Rebecca is seen as a woman of strength and decisiveness.

Yet Rebecca's strength has dreadful consequences. In deceiving her blind husband, she humiliates him and causes him to shudder in fear. In depriving her eldest son Esau of his blessing, she causes him to explode in anger and to plot his brother's murder. And in securing for Jacob both blessings, she causes him to flee for his life, alone into the lonely night of exile. Is Rebecca strong and righteous, or is Rebecca headstrong and wrong?

Presumably, the way to answer this question is to look at the prophecy received by Rebecca when she sought out God. Here is U.C., Berkeley Professor Robert Alter's translation of the oracle found at the beginning of our parashah (Gen. 25:23):

Two nations—in your womb,
Two peoples from your loins shall issue.
People over people shall prevail,
The elder, the younger's slave.

The problem is that this prophecy is ambiguous, especially in its final clause, "v'rav ya'avod tza'ir." Biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman suggests that this could mean either "the elder shall serve the younger" or "the elder, the younger shall serve."

Rebecca, together with most readers, interprets the prophecy in the first fashion, understanding that Esau must be subjected to Jacob. This interpretation sets the course for their family and perhaps for the history of their descendants. But perhaps Rebecca got it wrong? Perhaps the oracle truly meant that the younger boy, Jacob, was to serve his older brother, Esau? Perhaps Isaac got it right in trying to bless Esau with physical dominion (27:29), while reserving for Jacob the covenantal blessing (28:3–4). Perhaps this family could have been spared the fraternal anger, hatred, and division if Rebecca had only understood her prophecy differently. But perhaps all of this tension was ordained by God, and was a necessary stage in the emergence of Jacob as Israel, patriarch to 12 tribes.

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