Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Arguably the key events of Parshat Toldos revolve around the birthright. Near the beginning of the parsha, Esau sells his birthright to Yaakov for a bowl of soup, and near the end of the parsha, Yaakov receives the blessings of the firstborn through seeming subterfuge.
How did Yaakov get the blessing Yitzchak had meant for Esau? Rivkah overheared Yitzchak’s instructions to Esau, to prepare for Yitzchak the food he likes so that Yitzchak will bless him. Understanding the dire ramifications this wold present for Yaakov, Rivkah sets about a plan so that Yaakov will get these blessings instead of Esau, and she commands Yaakov to obey her instructions. Yaakov is to go to the herd and bring his mother a goat to prepare and cook. He will then don Esau’s special clothes and go in to get the blessing from Yitzchak. Yaakov even argues, “What if [uly] my father touches me?” So Rivkah instructs him to put the hairy goatskins on his arms so that he resembles the hairy Esau.
Naturally, Yaakov resists. Yaakov is the model of truth and integrity. How can he deceive his father? But Rivkah insists, even accepting responsibility for the consequences of this deception, “Oliy killiloscha, Beni/Your curse [punishment for this sin] will be on me, my son.”
With that, Yaakov goes in to his father. Yitzchak asks who is there. Yaakov answers, “It is I, Esau [is] your firstborn.” At first Yitzchak is suspicious at the speed his son has come back from the hunt to serve him this meal. Yaakov reassures his father that God made him succeed. Yitzchak is still suspicious. Asking him so to come closer, Yaakov approaches him, Yitzchak feels Yaakov’s arms, proclaims, “The voice is the voice of Yaakov and the hands are the hands of Esau.” With that, Yitzchak gives Yaakov the blessing of the firstborn.
Two major questions arise. First, why go through this elaborate ruse? Why couldn’t Rivkah go to Yitzchak and explain why Esau was unworthy of the blessing? And then, having gone through this deception, how can we still claim that the overriding characteristic of Yaakov is truth?
It must be noted that Yaakov hoped he would not succeed in this deception. His argument of uly/what if implies a desire for that outcome, and the deception would be revealed. If Yaakov wanted to avoid being discovered, he would have said, “pen/Lest.”
There’s more to Truth than what meets the eye or the ear.
A medrash may throw some light on our discussion. When Noah built the ark, all the creatures entered in pairs. Falsehood came and requested entry. Noah told falsehood that it needed a partner. Noah knew that the falsehood of the serpent caused Adam’s downfall, and he did not want it to survive for the future in the ark. What entered the ark as falsehood’s partner? Destruction; everything that falsehood touches will eventually be destroyed. Falsehood has no reality and cannot exist over time. When Noah saw falsehood’s partner, he gave them both entries, assuming falsehood would self-destruct, since this world is by nature transient and temporary. Absolute reality and truth exist only in the spiritual world. Our mission, writes the Sifsei Chaim, is to invest this temporal, physical world with the eternal truths of the spiritual world.
Hashem created the world by contracting Himself and creating space within Himself for the universe and for ourselves. This is the reality. We truly exist while we live our lives as spiritual beings rather than as physical creatures. Rabbi Moshe Schwab z”l in Maarchei Lev presents a wonderful metaphor to highlight this difference. Children playing a game of Monopoly will complain to their mother if their sibling swiped some money from them. They take it very seriously. But the adults know that this “money” is only paper and has no true value. Unfortunately, we tend to view this world through the lens of Monopoly, a common tactic of the yetzer horo, when the only thing of true value is the Torah and a life lived according to Torah values. The money we earn can become truth when it is used in the performance of mitzvoth.
There is often a conflict between apparent reality and essential truth, writes Rabbi Lopiansky in Golden Apples. For example, while we will all agree that theft is evil, the apparent reality is that the thief has gained something. In contrast, the one who gives tzedakah seems now to have less in the apparent reality of this world, but has gained much in the true reality of the spiritual world. The challenge lies in aligning the two realities and living one’s life in this physical world of apparent reality with the essential truth of the spiritual reality, to maintain that integrity.
Yaakov, continues Rabbi Lopiansky, needed to reveal the falsehood of Esau using Esau’s own deceitful tactics.
The Shvilei Pinchas adds another, deeper layer to the conflict between truth and falsehood. The battle in olam hazeh, this physical, temporal world exists because of two opposing systems in the world - truth, represented by Torah, and falsehood, represented by the yetzer horo and sin. At the very beginning of creation, mankind was presented with this conflict. The primal serpent, the manifestation of the yetzer horo, knew it would not succeed in causing Adan and Chava to sin through truth or logic. It needed to resort to falsehood and deceit, telling Chava that if she ate from the tree, she would be like God and be able to create worlds. God was jealous, the serpent said, and therefore forbade her from eating of this tree. The scheme worked, Chava shared the fruit with Adam, and falsehood brought death to the world.
Esau was now using this same kind of falsehood to trick Yitzchak into giving him the blessing designated for the firstborn, even though he had already sold it to Yaakov. He kept deceiving his father into believing he was righteous, asking questions of halachah that he knew were spurious questions. The gravest sin would have been for Yaakov to stand idly by and allow sheker/falsehood to succeed and get the blessing.
Now Rivkah who, according to the medrash, was a gilgul/reincarnation of Chava had come to repair that breach. She tells Yaakov to listen to her voice, now for a mitzvah, and repair the sin of Adam when he listened to her and ate of the forbidden tree. She clothes Yaakov in the clothes of sheker to rectify the original sin based on sheker.
In reality, eternal truth doesn’t need clothes, writes Rabbi Goldwicht z”l. Adam before the sin was unclothed. After the sin, the clothing was an outer accoutrement that covered his internal essence. That external clothing can be a metaphor for how we change our outer selves, our demeanor and actions to conform to different circumstances. Yaakov had to wear the clothing of sheker to play the part of Esau. As Rebbetzin Smiles so succinctly put it, “Yaakov wore the clothing in order to unclothe the naked truth.”
The physical world must be aligned with truth, and sometimes it takes a disguise of external clothing to reveal that truth. Tamar used this tactic in luring Judah to the truth of her claim as part of the Judean family. And Ruth dressed in her finery to meet Boaz on the threshing floor. Between them, these women became the ancestresses of the Davidic Dynasty. Hashem wanted Yaakov to dress up as Esau to reveal the truth, that Esau had already sold the birthright for a measly bowl of soup.
Where does the Torah tell us that Esau was deceitful, asks Rabbi Mordechai Ezrachi in Birkat Mordechai? When the Torah describes how the twins diverged as they grew up, it parallels Yaakov ish tam/Yaakov was a pure, innocent man with Esau being an ish yodea tzayid/a man who knows how to hunt. Hunting, by definition, notes the Ibn Ezra, is based on deceit, on luring one’s prey with falsehood. A man of integrity does not become a hunter [excluding hunting in order to eat CKS].
Yaakov, because he is being deceitful, is crying when he goes in to his father albeit he will benefit from the blessing. In contrast, Esau would be joyful under similar circumstances, knowing he is getting material benefit from his ploy. Yaakov is desperate to maintain his integrity, so when Yitzchak asks him who he is, he answers with words that can be understood on multiple levels, “Ani, Esau bechorecha/It is I, Esau [is] your firstborn.”
What we perceive as truth is not necessarily the ultimate truth, but our perception is the only gauge we have. Rabbi Ezrachi presents an analogy. If you want to hang a picture on a wall, you measure the distances so that the picture will be straight. But what if the wall itself is not plumb? You will still undoubtedly hang the picture as it is straight in relation to the wall, having no other barometer of true alignment. What was Yaakov’s barometer? His mother told him that she had gotten the prophecy from Hashem when she was pregnant that “the elder shall serve the younger.” This was ultimate proof from Hashem, not subjective proof from his perspective, and so he listened to his mother.
Rivkah had another advantage in this scenario. Having been raised in the home of Besuel and Lavan, explains Rabbi Zwei in Infinity of Torah, she knew about deceit and manipulation. But her manipulation was to benefit others rather than herself. She understood, for example, that when Eliezer asked her for a little water, he was too embarrassed to ask her for enough water for himself and his entourage, let alone his camels. She intuited his needs and met them all.
When it came to the blessings, Rivkah knew that if Yitzchak were cognizant of all the facts, he himself would want to give the firstborn blessing to Yaakov instead of to Esau. But if she told him outright about Esau’s character, it would hurt Yitzchak terribly. Instead she devised this ruse to get Yitzchak to bless Yaakov instead of Esau. She was later proven right. When Esau returns to find that Yitzchak had given the blessing to Yaakov, Esau cries out, “He has twice tricked me.” The truth now comes out, that Esau had sold the birthright to Yaakov, and Yitzchak validates the blessing he unknowingly had given to Yaakov.
Rivkah brought about a revelation of truth by getting Yitzchak to do what he truly subconsciously wanted to do. And Rabbi Mintzberg explains that for this same reason of bringing Yitzchak to the reality of what he actually wanted to do, to bless the firstborn, Yaakov was permitted to enter into this deception.
We live surrounded by falsehood, tells us the Sifsei Chaim, and it is hard to figure out what Hashem wants from us. It would be beneficial to take a few minutes each day to contemplate some aspect of your life and plan how you can align it more closely with your goal of living a true Torah life. In my family, am I giving my full attention to the children and not being distracted by the phone or other chores. In my business dealings, am I always totally honest both in speech and in action. When I take a drink of water and recite, “Shehakol nihiyeh bidvaro/Everything exists through His word,” do I observe the glass of water in my hand with the thought that this exists, as does my whole world, because Hashem wills its existence. Truth is higher bar than our personal perception.
This absolute level of truth is what Yaakov was afraid of transgressing writes Rabbi Dunner z”l in Mikdash Halevi. While Rivkah could take upon herself the anger of Yitzchak and particular punishments, Yaakov was more afraid of the effect such falsehood would have on his own character. The Torah admonishes, “Cursed is the one who puts obstacles in the path of the blind.” Even though the purpose of this deception was for the good and for absolute truth, there could still be consequences, and perhaps Yaakov’s character would begin on a path of corruption and deceit. Falsehood knows how to deceive us and, together with its partner, achieve destruction. Be careful: “Midvar sheker tirchak/Stay far away from falsehood.”