The 5 Books Meander, Week 6 (Toledot)

In brief:
Toledot kicks off the story of Isaac and his family of tricksters. I mean no disrespect here. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that everyone in this family is, well, one who tricks. Almost everyone that is. More on that in a moment.

We learn that Esau — Isaac and Rebekah’s eldest child — has traded his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. Which I think is so specific it has to be true. Or invented by someone who really loves stew.

There are inherited wells, stopped and unstopped, which is a metaphor and a half. Isaac shows that he’s picked up the trick of (deep breath here): pretending your wife is your sister in a way that makes people feel uncomfortable and/or angry and/or in debt to you.

And then we get to a moment as complex in its own way as Abraham and the binding of Isaac before it.

Rebekah tells Jacob to trick Isaac into thinking Jacob is Esau, so that Jacob might receive his father’s blessings and all that goes with them.

Did I mention that this is a family of tricksters? They are such tricksters that when Jacob shows up in disguise, Isaac suspects right away that something is up. ‘Are you really Esau? Seriously? You’re not pretend-Esau?’ You get the feeling this family is tricking each other all the time. Everyone that is except innocent Esau.

A couple of thoughts:

• In my hazy memory of this section from childhood, I carried a bias against Esau. Esau, who is so hairy, his name means “hairy.” Esau the violent, one assumes. The simple, perhaps. But reading the text this week, I met Esau the hunter, who’s really the hunted. Esau, unloved or at least underloved by his mother. Esau who’s so much an innocent sheep that if you want to convince your dad that you’re Esau, you put on sheep’s clothing. The story of Jacob and Esau has just begun in this week’s portion. But already it’s hard to know who to root for, and easy to see why their story has had power for so many years.
• The Torah experiences the past, present, and future as part of the same gust of wind. There are promises made to our descendants (…like stars in the sky and grains of sand on the beach). Land left by ancestors. Wells left with life-giving water. Birthrights to be bargained over. Blessings. Covenants. Curses to be endured. Our moment is a bead in a chain. And the awareness of that truth is what it means to live a human life. To remember and to receive — the good and the ill. To make our stand and then to pass things along — the good and the ill. I know we’re still only in the first half of the first book, but if we learn one thing from the Torah, I suspect that might be it. It’s a big ‘un. It’s mortality. And it brings with it appreciation, obligation, and the potential for peace, as we learned last week. The peace of Abraham.

If you’d like to join in… this is the place for comments and commentary on Toledot (Gen 25.9 – 28.9)
Next up: Va-Yetse’ (Gen 28.10 – 32.3)
-Cecil