The twin
brothers’ struggles throughout life center on the very material aspects of
Jacob’s inheritance: who will get the extra portion due the firstborn? Who will
thereby carry the mantle of the family and the covenant of God? Deceit and
guile have been the hallmarks of their relationship; Jacob’s deceit and guile,
that is. It is interesting, therefore, that the venue for the reunion is not a
country club, lodge, or even a tent, but in the land of Seir in the country of
Edom, out in the open, a place we might associate with vulnerability but more
importantly honesty. You cannot hide much out in the open.
Jacob leaves
Eretz Yisrael with nothing, but he does not return from Haran empty-handed.
Jacob did quite well in Haran; he amassed great wealth. Torah has already told
us how he played in futures and schemed to breed Laban’s flocks and herds.
Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau in the land of
Seir, the country of Edom, and instructed them as follows: “Thus shall you say,
‘To my lord Esau, thus says your servant Jacob: I stayed with Laban and
remained until now. I have acquired cattle, asses, sheep, and male and female
slaves; and I send this message to my lord in the hope of gaining your favor.’”
(Genesis 32:4-6)
The entrepreneurial
spirit seems to be a family trait. Esau, too, is a wealth man:
The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “we came to your
brother Esau; he himself is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men
with him.” (32:7)
Four hundred
retainers? Esau has not only wealth but also great power. He has his own army. Not
surprisingly, Esau views Jacob’s attempt to propitiate him with 200 she-goats and
20 he-goats; 200 ewes and 20 rams; 30 milch camels with their colts; 40 cows
and 10 bulls; 20 she-asses and 10 he-asses (32:16-16)
as a nice gesture, but assures Jacob, “I have enough, my brother; let what you have remain
yours." (32:9) Only after
Jacob pressures Esau to accept his gift does Esau relent. Which brother seems
to be the one more attached to material wealth?
From Torah’s
account, it is difficult to argue that Esau is all about material wealth and
Jacob is all about the spirit, but that is precisely what the Rabbis attempt to
do. They go to great lengths to paint Esau a crude and boorish man who seeks
immediate gratification and is wholly unsuited to carry the covenant forward. In
the rabbinic imagination Esau is the symbol, the stand-in for Rome and is said
to have all the worst characteristics of the corrupt, pagan empire and its
notorious emperors.
The Torah,
without benefit of rabbinic commentaries, does not describe Esau in such
unflattering terms. He is attentive to his father’s needs, a loyal son who
labors to bring food home to the family, who lives simply (a man of the earth),
and who is willing to reunite with the brother who tried to cheat him out of
everything, and who does not hold a grudge or desire revenge. He is a self-made
man. It’s difficult to ignore all this, yet the Rabbis succeed to a large
degree. They go so far as to tell us that the twins’ personalities, priorities,
and proclivities were determined even prior to birth. While yet in the womb,
before even tasting life in this world, Jacob looked forward to olam ha-ba (the world-to-come) and Esau
sought nothing more than the material pleasures of life in this world. Seder
Eliyahu Zuta tells us,
When Jacob and Esau were in their mother’s womb, Jacob said to
Esau, “Esau, my brother our father has two of us, even as there are two worlds
before us—this world and the world-to-come. In this world there is eating,
drinking, and the give-and-take of business. But with regard to all such
activities, the world-to-come is quite different. If it be your wish, you take
this world, and I will take the world-to-come.” Thus it came about that Esau
took this world as his portion, and Jacob took the world-to-come as his.
It seems
important to note here that Jacob presents this world and the world-to-come as
an either/or decision and stakes his definitive claim on olam ha-ba, as if only one of them could prize the world-to-come, and seems to talk Esau into accepting
this world alone. It is also important to note that Esau never responds. Jacob
frames the choice, decides who gets which portion, and locks Esau into a
decision he does not really make. Ever the manipulator. This is not, of course,
how the Rabbis intend us to read this midrash. They expect us to understand
that Jacob is the righteous brother, the tzaddik,
from conception. Esau from the get-go is, well, Esau as we have been schooled
to think of him: rough, pagan, unsophisticated, undeserving.
As types, this
is a useful dichotomy. It helps us broaden our view and reconsider our own priorities.
When are we being Jacob? When are we being Esau?
But this
dichotomy also becomes embroiled in the Rabbis’ own contradictions that appear
to paper over the text of Torah with hypocrisy, and surprisingly this, too,
teaches us something precious and valuable. Midrash Eliyahu Zuta continues:
Now when Jacob came back from Laban’s house and Esau saw that
Jacob had wives, children, menservants and maidservants, livestock, and silver
and gold, he said to him, “Jacob, my brother, did you not say to me that you would
take the world-to-come as your portion and that I would take this world as
mine? How, then, did you come to all this wealth—wives, children, money,
menservants, and maidservants? Why do you, like me, make use of this world?”
Jacob replied, “What few possessions I have are what the Holy One has given me
for my use in this world as the need arises.” In that instant, weighing the
matter in his mind, Esau said to himself: If the Holy One has given him so much
of this world, even though it is not his portion, how much more and more will
God give him of the world-to-come, which is his portion!” (Seder Eliyahu Zuta
19)
How easy it is
for us to maintain a narrative about someone—their moral caliber, their
motivations, their actions, their behavior—and then explain even contradictory
evidence to fit the narrative. In the imagination of the Rabbis, Jacob chose olam ha-ba over this material world. He protests
he has but “few
possessions,” which it is God’s will that he own, and which are for “my use in this
world as the need arises.” But Jacob is hardly living at subsistence levels.
We have seen him conniving to breed Laban’s animals in order to amass great
wealth, and in this week’s parashah, we see him using that wealth to manipulate
his brother’s feelings toward him. Remember the impressive roster of animals
Jacob sends on ahead to conciliate Esau?
The Rabbis’
insistence that Jacob is spiritually pure and righteous, and their inability to
see that their own words contradict the text is more than midrash. Our brains are
constructed to notice and lock onto patterns. In fact, brain scientists tell us
that our brains are pattern recognition machines. This capacity is largely what
has helped the human species progress as it is has. But there is also a down
side to this marvelous and unconscious skill. As neuroscientists who study
brain plasticity say, “What fires together wires together.” When we observe
certain behaviors or events and associate them with our feelings about someone,
future behaviors and events tend to confirm and reinforce those feelings. For
the Rabbis, Jacob can be seen only as spiritually pure and righteous, just as
Esau can be seen only as crude, materialistic, and lacking in spiritual
sensitivity. Accordingly, Jacob’s great wealth not only failed to prove that
he, like Esau, had a stake in the material world, but even “proved” to the
Rabbis the opposite: Jacob only accepted what God ordained he should have. He
didn’t really want it, but what could he do?
If we maintain a
narrative fixed in our minds we run two risks: First, narratives usually come
with value judgments and presumptions. With a fixed narrative wired securely in
our minds, we have a strong tendency to see everything
a person says or does through the lens of that narrative. The “good” can do
no wrong; the “bad” can do no right. And that leads to the second risk: In the
case of someone who has exhibited consistent behavior over a long period, we
fail to see when the pattern (the behavior) changes. Inadvertently, the Rabbis
warn us of these dangers.
I suppose there
is a third danger. We all have narratives about ourselves that include who and
what we are, what we are capable of, what our limitations are, and more. How
often do we make a decision because “that’s the only option for me”—at least,
according to the narrative?
We apply such
narratives to ourselves, to others in our lives, and to groups and nations
around the world. “You know what they’re like…” “The only thing they care about
is…” If someone asked us, “Are you prejudiced?” we would reject the very
suggestion, yet carrying such narratives (as we all do) is the basis of
prejudice: pre-judging.
But good news!
Our brains create the ideas that constitute our minds, and our brains are
plastic: they can change. Here
Dr. Normal Doidge, the author of The Mind
that Changes Itself explains neuroplasticity and its the dramatic
implications, and here you can
hear Dr. Michael Merzenich’s TED Talk on re-wiring the brain and the
implications of that. Applied neuroplasticity? Dr. Richard Davidson describes
research on neuroplasticity and meditation here.
And this barely scratches the surface. (You might wish to begin with this
highly simplified illustration of neurpasticity.)
Our Sages were
quite correct: we can do teshuvah, we
can reshape our minds, and we can change in very significant ways. Perhaps
Jacob’s t-shirt should read, “I’m a work in progress and I’m working on me.”
Come to think of it, we could all wear that t-shirt.
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
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