Thoughts on Parashat Toldot 5786
Parashat Toldot… Toldot means “Generations”And if you’re talking about generations… You’re talking about a whole lot of drama. So we have a plot, an unethical plot for many commentators, then the reaction to it – anger, fear, reward, punishment… and some would say that some sort of karma. I will focus only on the beginning of the story today: Jacob, Esau and the birthright takeover. Long story short: Two brothers, Jacob and Esau, started to wrestle with each other already inside their mother’s womb, so violently that she cried. God told her “two nations are struggling within your body, two peoples already divided, the elder destined to serve the younger.” They struggle during their birth; then they grow up and become opposite characters, Esau a rugged, impulsive hunter; Jacob a calm, quiet tent-dweller, a kind of social intellectual.[…]
