Rebbetzen Tziporah – Toldot

Dear friends,

 

I grew up in a world that thought that family is good, women can take pride in their femininity, men in their masculinity, and both can live lives of meaning. The distortions that you may have noticed didn’t emerge out of nowhere. They are the result of having little faith in Hashem’s way of bringing order to the world. We tend to trust only ourselves, and look towards only the great Self to define right and wrong. The goal is to make yourself happy, but the result is higher and higher stats of anxiety, suicide, and unbridled anger in which random murder just generates a yawn and maybe “where did it happen?” when you hear of a shooting in a public place. We have more illusory control and less real satisfaction in life. When I began to look for the roots of the distortions that we all live with, it took me to this week’s parshah.

 

The Parshah begins by telling you what Rivka had to go through before the birth of Yaakov and Eisov. Rashi says that when she passed an idolatrous temple, Eisov wanted to escape the womb and enter the world, and when she passed Shem and Evver’s House of Study Yaakov wanted to leave and be there. Besides the physical discomfort that she no doubt encountered, she was left wondering about who the child she was carrying really is; does he have an inborn need to live with irresolvable conflict between the world of pagan beliefs and belief in G-d? She consulted Shem, and was told that there are two children inside of her and that their fates will be very different; they will live with constant struggle and irresolvable competition. Could that have comforted her? Would it comfort you? There are another two questions that are natural when you read the narrative. The one that hit me the first time that I learned this episode was the idea of a fetus having strong opinions. The only word that fits the question is, “huh?”   The other question was that Eisov seemed doomed by no choice or fault of his own.

Not surprisingly, Maharal opens up an entirely new way of thinking. He wrote about people having inborn essential natures. The only difference between what happened in the Torah and what happens every day in every newborn’s conception is that Rivka knew what their inner drives would be, and we don’t until we watch them emerge.

Everyone has certain inborn traits that are not negotiable. It used to be fashionable to attribute everything to the environment to which you are exposed (this theory is still in style in some WOKE articles). It is now accepted that there are hereditary traits that are part of your makeup as well. You may be as driven towards music, for instance, as Eisov was to idol worship. You may need movement and activity as much as Yaakov needed truth. You aren’t accountable for your heredity per se; you are accountable for what you make of it. Eisov is the perfect example; he is described as being hairy and red-headed. The Alsheich points out that no one really cares about this sort of detail since usually the way a person looks doesn’t really give you much understanding of who the person is. 

In Eisov’s case, it was different. He had the passion of a red-head, and the ability to soak up whatever was around him the same way a spool of wool absorbs every bit of pigment when dipped in ink. Yaakov is described as smooth, like a piece of glass that never absorbs color from its environment. The other person described as “red” is Dovid. He was a fighter. His battles were never for booty or driven by ego. They were about a deep-seated desire for kavod shamayim, and recognition that in order to reveal Hashem’s presence, you have to do battle with the forces that conceal them. He was a man of war, and so was Eisov. The difference between them is that Eisov’s descendants are fighting for their own glory, (think Putin. Now stop and forget him!) while Yaakov’s descendants resist being drawn into any form of long-term allegiance other than their deep allegiance to Hashem.

There is still a problem. You may very reasonably think that life’s not fair. Isn’t easier to be Yaakov than it is to be Eisov? What if your difficult stormy nature gets the best of you? What if you feel as though there is a bit of Eisov inside you?

Mesilas Yesharim offers you a bit of truth. You are only judged for the process, your efforts, and longings. Success isn’t the “product”; it’s the process. You may at times get tired of the great battle between You and You. You may occasionally lose the battle and feel disgusted with yourself. This is what happened to Eisov. On the day of Avraham’s funeral, his vicarious experience with death touched his aggressive/impulsive/pleasure-oriented self. He wanted to escape mortality and went on a vacation from moral sensibility. He womanized and ended up with physical violence. He felt profoundly weary. In fact, when he returned from his various exploits and found Yaakov making soup for the mourners who would be coming home from the funeral, Eisov says, “give me soup…because I’m weary”. Notice. Not hungry. Weary.

What can you do if you have a bit of an Eisovdic streak? You can remember that Hashem is there with you and for you in the black moments. The Sfas Emmes says something that I found fascinating. The best way to feel the surge of willingness to fight the great battle between you and you is to remember that no matter where you find yourself, there is respite on Shabbos. The day has enough holiness that when you keep the halachos you can open up a door that stays closed all week. Shabbos brings that message home to you. There is an entirely different world, beyond the one that you see as your battlefield. It is one in which instead of seeking to control everything except for yourself, you return every thought of control and mastery to the Master. This process allows you to let go of the anxiety-producing fantasy of control, which is often the cause of self-hate. Let your message to yourself be, “I don’t want to be King. I want the joy of handing over the reins to the One who created everything that I will ever know, see, or experience.”

There is a Yaakov hidden in you. It’s the part of you that can resist the outside the way a ball of glass can be thrown into an inkwell and after a brief rinse, it’s clean. You are more resilient than you know.

 

You may very reasonably wonder who I am to say this sort of thing. It’s the result of my hearing about a friend who just had her first child in her fifties. She did battle with despair; it was stormy and rough, and Hashem let her prevail.

 

Love,

Tziporah