Thoughts on parashat Toldot.
The Hebrew Bible has been accused of containing fictional or idealized events and phenomena, especially incredible or miraculous events. The main problem with this critique is that the Bible contains testimonies that are often non-falsifiable. The proposed “methods of verification” of the biblical stories often consist of confronting factual layers with the knowledge of the world we have today… with our current well-founded contemporary beliefs. Beliefs about what is possible in our world, what we deem as impossible, what is probable and what is not. This is why the process fails. The Bible cannot be fact-checked and approved (or disapproved) and put away in the archive “as done.” This process entirely misses the point of the Torah. The most important question respecting the biblical narratives has nothing to do with whether it happened or not, but instead the relevance is the message of the story.
The Hebrew Bible does not idealize its human characters. They are often eminent people with unique qualities but, at the same time, are “painfully human.” Our biblical characters are not idealized heroes. Even the greatest, the most righteous and pious of them, like Moses, had their human flaws: impatience, tendency to anger etc.
This week Torah portion tells the famous story of how our patriarch Jacob took the birthright of his brother Esau:
Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the open, famished. And Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished”—which is why he was named Edom. Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” And Esau said, “I am about to die, so of what use is my birthright to me?” But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Jacob then gave Esau bread and lentil stew; he ate and drank, and he rose and went away. Thus did Esau spurn the birthright.(Gen 25:29-34)
There are some additional details to this story provided by our biblical commentators. Ibn Ezra, for example, tells us that Esau lived a very hazardous life as a hunter and believed that he might very well die before his father and never enjoy the portion of the first born. That’s why he said I am about to die (hebr. ani holech lamut) (Ibn Ezra on Gen 25:32). In another commentary he claims that Esau saw that his father had become poor in his old age and that there was little for him to inherit. Thus, he didn’t care about it. (Ibn Ezra on Gen 25:34)
We do not know exactly how much time passed between this event and the actual “taking” of the birthright by Jacob, but from the way the Bible tells this story, as well as many others, it can be inferred that these situations were distant in time.
After the events described above (Gen 25:29-35), the entire next chapter (Gen 26) tells a story of the famine in Isaac’s land, his journey to Gerar (which was a city or region probably located in the Negev Desert) and his alliance with Abimelech. Isaac settled in Gerara and it seems that he stayed there for at least a few years. The story ends with the mention that Esau, reaching the age of 40, married two women, Yehudit and Bosmat, and they were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah. (Gen 26:34-35). Then, the Torah, going back to the birthright story continues: When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” He answered, “Here I am.” (Gen 27:1) Therefore, we can confidently assume that many years have passed between the reckless consent of Esau to give away his birthright and Rebecca and Jacob’s plot to take it.
This means that the question of the birthright was probably a bone of contention between the brothers and Jacob had been planning this takeover for years waiting for the right moment. It is hard to imagine this was not facilitated by the fact they were twins, conceived at the same time, born the same day, one after another. In biblical times the birthright son was entitled to a double portion of the father’s inheritance: one portion as the firstborn son and the second portion as the new head responsible for the whole family including the care of his mother and unmarried sisters (Gen 48:22, Deut. 21:17). This sheds some additional light on Rebecca and Jacob’s deceptive actions to take Esau birthright. It is probable they believed that Esau, given his personality and lifestyle, was not fit to inherit Issac’s birthright. However, the law was set in stone and there was not a legal, or moral, way around this inheritance law, so they cheated… doing what they surely thought was morally and effectively the right thing to do.
Thus, Jacob’s and Rebecca’s decision might have been reasonable and right in the long run. Nevertheless, they are not exonerated from their behavior which violated many ethical standards. Yes, Jacob actually got Esau’s consent, which was given recklessly and casually. But, what is absolutely ethically indefensible, is plotting against a disabled father and deceiving him to obtain the birthright. The result of these actions was as follows:
Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him, and Esau said to himself, “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob. (Gen 27:41)
Why does the Bible tell us these kinds of “embarrassing family stories” and why does tradition pass them on from generation to generation? There are many reasons. The Bible and our tradition want to show us the real life of our ancestors, with all its ups and downs, without sweeping anything under the rug. This, in turn, is aimed to guide us to conduct rightly, even through our embarrassment and sometimes deliberately through it. This is to teach us: to critically analyze ethical situations, to sensitize us to the harm of those we hurt, to remind us of our own imperfections, our own faults, sins, lies, manipulations and deceptions. Perhaps the Bible tells us all these embarrassing stories so that we should feel uncomfortable and accept it with humility. There is nothing wrong in this, we do similar things in our life; our successes sometimes contain dishonesty and manipulation in the background, and sometimes it is never revealed. This parasha gives us a radical example so that we may not forget, so that we may be motivated to correct our behavior in the future, to do better, to be better.
The Hebrew Bible is not immoral. This confusion often comes from the belief that the Bible allegedly promotes the imitation of its characters. This analysis is far from the truth – far from the point. The ethics of the Hebrew Bible is not as a role model ethics (as is the case with the Christian New Testament). Yes, it contains stories with positive moral messages that are to be followed (the entire Exodus story is about necessity of leaving slavery, poverty, ignorance, illness, about fighting the oppression and striving from freedom) but it contains many stories telling us what we shouldn’t do. For example, almost all the family stories from Genesis are stories of dysfunctional families, they tell you how not to treat your siblings, children, parents, spouse. Thus, even though the Hebrew Bible contains descriptive ethics – stories that tell us how to behave and how not to behave, the ethics of the Hebrew Bible is primarily a normative ethics, in which moral norms and standards are codified into law. Nevertheless, not all the ethical standards expressed in the Hebrew Bible have been codified, for a simple reason, many of the ethical situations in our lives are too complex and too situational to be codified into law. Thus, the Torah being aware of this also contains general ethical demands like, And you shall do the right and the good (Deut. 6:18) urging us to use our conscience and to act beyond the letter of the (ethical) law. For this reason, we also need biblical stories, which often show us examples of what are the outcomes of unethical behavior. This week’s parsha, Toldaot, is a glowing example of this.
Shabbat shalom!
