Torah of Recovery: Toldot

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Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 544

25:11. Isaac lived at the well Lahai-roi. He lives at the place where Hagar was told by an angel that she would give birth to Ishmael, Isaac’s brother (Gen 16:14). Ishmael remains significant in the background. It is as if Isaac recognizes that his miraculous birth and his being spared from sacrifice have given him everything that otherwise would have been Ishmael’s. Living at Lahai-roi, he is reminded that Ishmael’s life, too, was divinely determined.

Dr. Avivah Gottleib Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3464, 3500, Kindle edition

The Torah text begins: “This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac” (25:19). Rashi accounts for the redundancy: Since the text has just said, “Isaac, son of Abraham,” does it have to add, “Abraham begot Isaac”? But the mockers of the generation were saying, “Sarah conceived from Avimelekh—she lived with Abraham for many years without conceiving.” What did God do? He formed Isaac’s facial features like Abraham’s, so that everyone testified, “Abraham begot Isaac.”… In the world of appearances, the real nature of things is often thoroughly masked; there is testimony and countertestimony; not even Abraham is exempt from the turbulent processes of interpretation. But here, for once, God intervenes to prevent disintegration and skepticism; in order to do this, however, He has Isaac masquerade in a face whose simple affirmations run counter to the differences that are basic to his being. He lives and explores his truth—his discontinuity from his father—while wearing a mask that proclaims continuity and resemblance.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 547-548

25:19. these are the records of Isaac. Isaac’s life is different from his father Abraham’s and his son Jacob’s. Unlike them: He never leaves the promised land. He never fights. He has only one wife. His name is not changed. He is pictured going to meditate. He lives the longest. There are fewer stories about him. He is a relatively passive figure, acted on by his father and his wife and his son. Why is he different? Presumably because he has once lain on an altar as a sacrifice to God. Even though the sacrifice is not consummated, his life is now consecrated, and his life is distinct after this. The actions that parents take regarding their children impact on their children’s lives ever after.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 283

Isaac prayed furthermore that all children destined for him might be born unto him from this pious wife of his, and Rebekah made the same petition regarding her husband Isaac and the children destined for her. Their united prayer was heard.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 87

Rebekah hears the voice of God before Isaac does (God first speaks to Isaac in the next chapter, 26:2). In matters of revelation, man is not more important than woman. The message is what is important. Rebekah hears first because her need arises first.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3668, Kindle edition

In Maharal’s reading, Rebecca confronts the despair of the self, and discovers that the question of meaning has a dynamic force. Her despair is not to circle hollowly upon itself, but to launch searchings and researchings, inquiries for God. For Ramban, angst sends Rebecca into an encounter with God. For Maharal, the questioning itself is a mode of quest. The self—the sense of “I am”—is threatened by lassitude, by vacancy, by the dearth of given meanings. What is called the batel experience—leisured, passive, bored, empty, unoccupied, in the dual sense—must be counteracted by an energy generated by absence and longing.

Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 179

If so why: The Hebrew is an incomplete sentence, which literally means 'If so, why then am/do I...?' The sense requires something like, 'Why then did I yearn and pray to become pregnant?' or 'Why do I go on living?'

Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 179

She went to inquire of the Lord: Generally one would go to a specific sanctuary or to some charismatic personage of recognized authority. In this case the narrative is tantalizingly short on details. According to verse 11, the couple is living at Beer-lahai-roi at this time, the place where Hagar had received the divine announcement concerning the birth and destiny of a son, as told in 16:7-14. This may have influenced Rebekah to go to the same site. It is to be noted that the divine name YHVH is carefully employed in both inquiry and response, as though to dissociate her action from any pagan cultic rite.

Union of Reform Judaism: The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 422

[Toldot] focuses heavily on Rebekah as the more active member of this family. Rebekah runs the family and undertakes the task of determining the destiny of God’s blessings. As the one who blesses, Isaac has authority; but in determining who gets blessed—seemingly against Isaac’s intentions—Rebekah has the power. She independently seeks God and alone receives God’s answer about the future.

Union for Reform Judaism, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 465

The oracle specifies that Rebekah is carrying twins and that each child will develop into a nation. Their future relationships, however, remain ambiguous (see at v. 23). Which of the two peoples shall overcome the other? Who will serve whom? What if Rebekah misinterprets the prophecy? What if its ambiguity is part of the divine purpose? What if, by eliminating the ambiguity—by urging Jacob to steal the blessing meant for his brother—Rebekah is not acting in harmony with the will of God?...Rebekah must have suffered deeply in separating from her beloved son Jacob. She pays a very high price for her determination to ignore the ambiguity of God’s word. The outcome of Rebekah’s story may, perhaps, teach us to allow the divine process to unfold for a while, before we decide to take action on God’s behalf. Perhaps the gift from our biblical mother Rebekah in this parashah is her prompting us to sense ambiguity, to appreciate nuance—and to have the wisdom and patience to let divine intention blossom in its own time.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 284

Esau would insist that there was no life except the earthly life of material pleasures, and Jacob would reply: "My brother, there are two worlds before us, this world and the world to come. In this world, men eat and drink, and traffic and marry, and bring up sons and daughters, but all this does not take place in the world to come. If it please thee, do thou take this world, and I will take the other."

Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 181

The two lads pursued incompatible vocations and lifestyles. The description of Esau as a hunter...reflects a very early stage in the history of Edom, the time when the tribe was still engaged in hunting as an economic necessity and had not yet become a settled monarchy...Hunting as a way of life was held in low esteem in Israel. The only hunter, other than Esau, mentioned by name in t heBible is Nimrod, in 10:9...no Israelite or Judean king or hero is ever mentioned as indulging in the sport [of hunting]...hunting was sometimes an economic necessity even in Israel. Nevertheless, it is highly significant that sacrifice in Israel was restricted to domesticated animals.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 297

Isaac's eyes had suffered earlier in life, too. When he lay bound upon the altar, about to be sacrificed by his father, the angels wept, and their tears fell upon his eyes, and there they remained and weakened his sight.

Rabbi David Kasher, Parshanut: 54 Journeys into the World of Torah Commentary, p. 65

The verse that told us about Isaac’s blindness said that his eyes had become dimmed “from seeing.” That phrasing is awkward. From seeing what, exactly? Now we have an answer: he saw the angels crying for him… So the image of angels crying into his eyes, and somehow scarring them permanently, gives us a tangible metaphor for some more profound, internal scarring. Whatever happened to Isaac up there on the altar, when he came back he was never the same.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3619, Kindle edition

In recent times, we have become painfully familiar with the notion of a response to trauma that is delayed, repressed, and that emerges in psychosomatic dysfunction…Just such a repression is, I suggest, implicit in the notion of Isaac’s delayed blindness. He is a man whose “ashes were as though heaped on the altar,” as the midrash so paradoxically describes the after-effects of the Akedah. After such ashes, what fire? Imprinted deep in Isaac’s consciousness is the spectacle, wept by angels, of his own death. In old age, the vision explodes in fatal bloom: his awareness of death fills every moment of life. “Look, now, I am old, and I don’t know the day of my death.… let me bless you, before I die” (27:2, 4). Death haunts his imagination, the angst of one who saw nothing else in an eternal moment of his youth.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 297

Nevertheless his blindness proved a benefit for Isaac as well as Jacob. In consequence of his physical ailments, Isaac had to keep at home, and so he was spared the pain of being pointed out by the people as the father of the wicked Esau. And, again, if his power of vision had been unimpaired, he would not have blessed Jacob. As it was, God treated him as a physician treats a sick man who is forbidden to drink wine, for which, however, he has a strong desire. To placate him, the physician orders that warm water be given him in the dark, and he be told that it is wine.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 299

Esau sallied forth to procure what his father desired, little recking the whence or how, whether by robbery or theft. To hinder the quick execution of his father's order, God sent Satan on the chase with Esau. He was to delay him as long as possible. Esau would catch a deer and leave him lying bound, while he pursued other game. Immediately Satan would come and liberate the deer, and when Esau returned to the spot, his victim was not to be found. This was repeated several times. Again and again the quarry was run down, and bound, and liberated, so that Jacob was able meanwhile to carry out the plan of Rebekah whereby he would be blessed instead of Esau.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 299

In spite of his great respect for his mother, Jacob refused at first to heed her command. He feared he might commit a sin, especially as he might thus bring his father's curse down upon him. As it was, Isaac might still have a blessing for him, after giving Esau his.

Rabbi Mark Borowitz, Finding Recovery and Yourself in Torah, p. 42

Rebekah creates a situation where relationships are broken and set afire. I call this “relationship arson.” We create this when we set two people against each other and then stand back and watch them blow. It happens when we say to one person how much better they are than the other and how the other one is going to get something that the first will not. It happens when we condone bad behavior by one person because it is “for the best” or because “God wants it this way.” God, as I understand God, never wants us to treat others as less than human. God wants us to live together in harmony, not in strife. Rebekah sets up the rivalry between Jacob and Esau, and both then play their roles. Isaac becomes a pawn in the drama that Rebekah set up. Everyone suffers. While it seems as if the commentators clean up Jacob’s actions, the Torah never mentions Rebekah again, not even her death.

Union for Reform Judaism, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 461

“Pray come near and kiss me, son.” For the third time, Isaac wants to make sure this is the right son. Is he really being fooled by the costume, as he was fooled by the food in the previous verse, or is he willingly allowing himself to be led through a charade? Perhaps Isaac is allowing himself to be misled; he is blind to what he chooses not to see.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3879, Kindle edtion

When Jacob confronts his father in grotesque mimicry of his brother, he significantly reappropriates dimensions of the self that he had “given” to Esau.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc 3551, Kindle edition

To detach oneself from imposed conditions, from the roles assigned by birth and social rank, is to lose one’s self, but thereby to gain access to a new authenticity of self.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 287

And Abraham had good reason to be particularly fond of Jacob, for it was due to the merits of his grandson that he had been rescued from the fiery furnace.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 303

For each blessing invoked upon Jacob by his father Isaac, a similar blessing was bestowed upon him by God Himself in the same words.

George Robinson, The Essential Torah, p. 315

Perhaps Yitzkhak is once more the reluctant accomplice in a test of God, just as he was in the Akeidah. It is certainly worthy of note that Yitzkhak never reprimands Ya’akov or Rivkah even after their trick has been revealed to him. As Plaut says, Yitzkhak is the weak son of a strong father, of elderly doting parents, someone who never leaves Kina’an, unlike his father and mother, unlike his sons, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. In our discussion of the Akeidah, I have argued that he is not a passive character, but he clearly is one who probably believes “to get along, go along” (particularly if God is the one with whom you want to get along). Significantly, he doesn’t add anything to the tradition or the Covenant, while both Avraham and Ya’akov do, nor does he have his name changed, unlike his father and his son. But he is important as the bearer of the tradition, the one who reopens the wells that Avraham dug, who revives their names—names that glorify God—and keeps their memory alive. If I may be permitted a slightly irreverent analogy, Yitzkhak is like a talented artist who works in an established tradition; he’s not an innovator, a Charlie Parker or a D. W. Griffith, if you will, but without the men and women who carry on the tradition, the work of those geniuses would wither and die.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3344, Kindle edition

“indeed, he is blessed’ ” (27:33). The strangeness of that coda strikes every reader. Instead of insisting on his unconsciousness at the time of blessing, instead of withdrawing words of blessing extorted from him under false pretenses, Isaac tells his beloved, deprived son, Esau, “indeed, he is blessed.”

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 307

Thereupon Esau began to weep. He shed three tears--one ran from his right eye, the second from his left eye, and the third remained hanging from his eyelash. God said, "This villain cries for his very life, and should I let him depart empty-handed?" and then He bade Isaac bless his older son.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3775, Kindle edition

…all this gives us an Esau who is a prototype victim of the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” Isaac has retired from the fray: “The Evil Impulse has ceased to trouble him.” But Esau staggers from murder to murder (indeed, according to the midrash, from woman to woman), in a search for the consummation that will include and redeem all traumas: “a consummation devoutly to be wished,” says Hamlet. “To die—to sleep.”

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3328, Kindle edition

The midrash registers the bitter cries of Esau realizing he is supplanted (“he burst into wild and bitter sobbing” [27:34]); these echo in the cries of the Jewish people on the verge of destruction in the time of Haman: “Mordecai went through the city, crying out loudly and bitterly” (Esther 4:1): “Anyone who says that God overlooks misdoing will himself be overlooked. He is merely long-suffering, but ultimately collects His dues. Jacob made Esau break out into a cry just once, and where was he punished for it? In Shushan the capital, as it says, ‘And he cried out loudly and bitterly.’”

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation: Genesis, p. 158

This is fundamental to an understanding of Genesis – is that the future is never as straightforward as we are led to believe. Abraham was promised many children but had to wait years before Isaac was born. The patriarchs were promised a land but did not acquire it in their lifetimes. The Jewish journey, though it has a destination, is long and has many digressions and setbacks. Will Jacob serve or be served? We do not know. Only after a long, enigmatic struggle alone at night does Jacob receive the name Israel, meaning, “he who struggles with God and with men and prevails” (32:28). The significance of this strange, ambiguous, passage is both literary and theological. The future affects our understanding of the past. We live our lives toward the future, but we understand our lives only in retrospect. Only looking back can we see whether we took the right road, whether a certain decision was justified, whether our dreams were intimations or illusions. Life involves risk, which is why we need faith, and the courage to which faith gives rise. We are part of a story whose last chapter has not yet been written.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 304

Of a miracle done for him at that very moment Jacob himself was not aware. Had he tarried with his father an instant longer, Esau would have met him there, and would surely have slain him. It happened that exactly as Jacob was on the point of leaving the tent of his father, carrying in his hands the plates off which Isaac had eaten, he noticed Esau approaching, and he concealed himself behind the door. Fortunately, it was a revolving door, so that though he could see Esau, he could not be seen by him.

Rashi, cited by Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 3500

Why was Isaac afraid? He said, “Perhaps I have sinned in blessing the younger before the older. I have changed the order of relationship!” When Esau cried out, “He has supplanted me twice,” Isaac asked, “What did he do to you?” and Esau answered, “He took my birthright.” Then Isaac said, “That is what I was anxious about—that I had crossed the straight line of law. Now I realize that I did give my blessing to the firstborn!”

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 306

In his dismay, Isaac had had the intention of cursing Jacob for having wrested the blessing from him through cunning. God prevented him from carrying out his plan. He reminded him that he would but curse himself, seeing that his blessing contained the words, "Cursed be every one that curseth thee."

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, The Everyday Torah: Weekly Reflections and Inspirations, p. 42

One can only take responsibility for the consequences of one's own actions. While parents cast a giant shadow over children's perceptions and actions, their maturation entails a retreat of the parents' ability to impose their own preferences. Ultimately, children learn to become responsible for themselves and their own behavior. We, as parents, need to learn to let our children take charge.

Union for Reform Judaism, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 463

45. “I will…bring you back from there.” As this episode comes to a close, Rebekah remains a woman with a plan. Her hope is that Jacob leaves only temporarily, until it is safe to return. Yet once Jacob leaves home, they never meet again.

Dr. Avivah Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, loc. 4131, Kindle edition

The “demon dance” of Esau, which had fascinated Jacob, is now subsumed into the powerful, controlled movements of a different dance. In this way, Isaac’s limbs, bound and helpless, are finally released. Jacob leaves his father and, whole in skin and bone, arms and legs articulated by the inner music of the Ani—“I am”—he is quickened into life…The blessings that, according to the midrash, had been tenuously his, are to become consolidated, appropriated by the energy of his own being. This is a process of affirming and confirming, “in his hand.” It begins when that hand clothes itself in insincere skins, out of a desire to emerge into greater wholeness.