When Jacob took his family and fled from Lavan, Rachel stole the teraphim Lavan’s household gods. When Lavan pursues them and catches them up he is furious at being betrayed. Why, he asked, didn’t you let me know in advance? I would have given you goodbye party, sent you on your way with celebrations, I could have kissed you all…
Sefer Bereishit
No Sir, She is not my Wife. She is my Sister
The Torah repeats three times with variations, a narrative twice about Sarah and once of Rivkah being taken into a King’s harem because their husbands say they were sisters not wives. The first time, in Genesis Chapter 12, tells how Avram and his entourage had to go down to Egypt because of a famine. He fears that there, they will…
Esav
Here’s a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest “ Good wombs have borne bad sons.” I can’t think of a more apposite quote for this week’s Torah reading. Rivkah produced twins, one good, Yaakov, and the other bad Esav. Both had the same parents, the same upbringing and yet they turned our very differently. Shakespeare’s day it was an argument between…
Deception
How can we revere a man like Jacob, Yaakov, who, it seems from the text of the Torah, cheated his own father? The Torah after all puts respecting one’s parents before all the other ethical rules for human behavior! Yet the fact is that Yaakov only acted because his mother insisted. He kept on repeating that this was deceptive, that…
Emotion or Logic
When one reads the story of how Rivkah pushed her son Yaakov to deceive his father into giving him the blessings instead of to Esav, we usually tend to think about the deceit. We overlook other factors. What happens when an unsuitable candidate seems to be heading for a position of such importance that if the wrong or a corrupt…
Lack of Communication
Rivalries, disagreements between Esav and Yaakov echo earlier family conflicts. From Cain and Abel, through Avraham and Lot and then Yishmael and Yitzchak. It will of course be continued between Yosef and his brothers and then between the tribes, even to the point of going to war against each other. In most cases, it is a lack of communication that…