Tag: birthright

Parashah Toledoth 2019 (History) Genesis 25:19 – 28:9

Leave a comment

This parashah contains the narrative of how Jacob “stole” Esau’s birthright. After doing this, he also fooled his father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing of the firstborn Isaac had intended for Esau, so twice Jacob supplanted and “stole” Esau’s rights.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

After this was done, Esau pledged to kill Jacob as soon as their father died, so hearing of this, Rebekah had Isaac send Jacob to Paddan-Aram, where her brother Laban lived to find a wife for himself. Of course, this was also her way to get Jacob away from Esau.

My question is this: did Jacob really steal anything?

Esau was a man of immediate gratification and had no respect for his birthright. This we know simply by how easily he gave it up. He wasn’t on the verge of starvation, although he acted like he was; I mean, really? How far could he have been from his parent’s tent when he came into Jacob’s tent? Jacob made a deal- he knew that Esau had something of value (the birthright) and that he, Jacob, had something Esau wanted, so he simply performed a standard business transaction.

In today’s jargon, we might call the deal he made a “steal”, but he did not really steal anything.

Now, let’s talk about the blessing of the firstborn that he is also supposed to have stolen.

First off, Rebekah was the one who thought up the plan to deceive her husband, not Jacob. In fact, we don’t even know if Rebekah was aware of the fact that Jacob owned the birthright of the one who was to receive that blessing (we’ll come back to this point soon.)  According to my Chumash, Rebekah conceived the plan to fool Isaac after she heard him tell Esau he was going to give him a blessing because she remembered the prophecy she received (Genesis 25:23) when God told her there were two nations in her womb, and the older would serve the younger. Remembering this, she knew she had to make sure Jacob received the greater blessing. That was her motivation for the plot to fool Isaac.

Now, let’s get back to my earlier point about Jacob being the one who owned the right to that blessing. Jacob owned the rights of the firstborn, which would include the blessing for the firstborn. When Esau sold his rights as firstborn, everything that the firstborn was entitled to now belonged to Jacob. That includes the blessing the firstborn is to receive. I think we can make an argument that when Jacob fooled his father, it wasn’t so much to receive the blessing as it was to make sure that Isaac did not do something wrong, i.e. giving the blessing for the firstborn to one who was not entitled to it.

Many “Christian” Bibles have a subtle anti-Semitic tone to them. In fact, most of the Bibles written have copied, or at least maintained, these chapter titles that are phrased in such a way as to mislead the reader. One that really gets my goat is in Acts when Shaul has his revelation of Yeshua. They almost call this one “Paul’s Conversion on the Road to Damascus.” Oy, how I hate that! Paul never converted to anything! Today’s section of the Bible is sometimes titled “Jacob Steals Esau’s Blessing”. I found that in an old, Dartmouth Bible I have. A newer Bible, the NIV Study Quest Bible, gives this section the title “Jacob Gets Esau’s Blessing”, so it is a little better than saying it was stolen.  The NLT says he stole it, and most of the others I looked at (about a dozen or so) either have no chapter title or say “Jacob Tricks Isaac.” I would agree that he did trick Isaac, obviously, but I still maintain a less accusatory title would have been something like “Jacob Receives the Blessing of the Firstborn.”

As I said before, if anyone should be blamed for tricking Isaac, it should be Rebekah since it was her idea, to begin with.

After all, that blessing belonged to Jacob the moment Esau sold it to him. And this selling of non-tangible things wasn’t unusual for that culture. In Genesis 30:14, Leah’s son, Reuben found mandrakes, and when Rachel asked for them Leah offered to give them to her in exchange for the conjugal duties of Jacob. Here we see the same sort of transaction, where an intangible right is being bought and sold. So what Jacob did wasn’t as terrible, for that culture, as we would consider it if it was done today.

When we look through the Bible, we see that in order for God’s plan to come to fruition, he often “breaks the rules” that people have created so that his will is done. The firstborn not receiving what mankind mandated the firstborn should receive is one example of this, and we see it in this parashah, and also later with Manasseh and Ephraim, then David, Solomon, and throughout the kingships of the Northern Kingdom of Israel up even to the day they are destroyed by the Assyrians.

We have to live under the laws and regulations of this world, which will have an impact on our lives; however, they will not have any impact on God’s plan for us. So no matter who cheats you or steals from you, or just misleads you, remember that you can trust in God to steer you back onto the course he wants you to be on. In fact, someone’s treachery against you may actually be God’s way of getting you where he wants you to be!

Always trust God to direct and rescue you no matter what happens in your life, whether it be a blessing or tsouris.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. Share this out with friends and family and check out my entire website- so many people have told me that they were blessed when they saw my testimony.

I welcome your comments, and until next time, Shabbat shalom and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Toldot (the history) Genesis 25:19 – 28:6

Leave a comment

One of the best known stories of the Bible is in this parashah- the selling of the birthright. Or, as some describe it, Jacob steals Esau’s birthright and blessing.

We all know the story: Esau, Mr. Right-This-Minute-Who-Cares-About-Tomorrow , comes in from the field after a hard day, sees Jacob with some lentil stew (“That red stuff! Give me some of that red stuff!”) and says if Jacob doesn’t give him some stew he will starve to death. Jacob takes this opportunity to offer the stew for a price- the birthright of the firstborn.

Esau, not caring for anything past right now, says (essentially), “Sure, take it. After all, what good is it to me if I am dead.”  Jacob then feeds Esau, and please note he also gives him bread and water, so he wasn’t all that bad. Consider Ebeneezer Scrooge, who wouldn’t even pay an additional half-penny for a piece of bread. After eating, Esau goes on his merry way, forgetting the whole thing.

Now later, Rivka (Rachel) gets wind that Yacov (Isaac) is getting ready to give the blessing to Esau, so she gets Jacob to cross-dress as Esau and “steal” the blessing. Of course, afterwards Isaac can’t give the firstborn blessing to Esau and Esau gets second-best, which doesn’t go over very well with him.

I want to mention that there is no mention, anywhere, that Rivka knew of the selling of the birthright so what she cajoled Jacob into doing was her own idea. Like mother, like son?

So, here’s the question: did Jacob really steal anything?  After all, he did buy the birthright, so he also owned the blessing that goes with the birthright, right? If you buy a plot of land and it isn’t specified about the mineral rights, then you own the mineral rights, so if you own the birthright of the first-born, you own the blessing that the birthright is entitled to.

Here we see another example of how God’s ways are not our ways:

  1. Ishmael is first-born to Abraham but Isaac, the younger, gets the birthright;
  2. Jacob is younger than Esau, but Jacob gets the birthright;
  3. Ephraim is younger than Manasseh, but Ephraim receives the blessing under the right hand of Israel (reserved for the eldest);
  4. Solomon is much younger than Absalom and some of his other brothers, but he gets the kingdom.

Humans give the birthright and a double portion to the first-born son, but God has made sure that from the first of the Patriarchs all the way down the line, the son that is worthy is the one who gets the blessings.

Jacob did not steal the birthright or the blessing- he bought the birthright and by ownership of same, was entitled to the blessing. We could look at it this way: because Jacob owned the first-born blessing, which Isaac was going to give to Esau, by fooling his father Jacob actually saved his father from sinning against Jacob by giving Jacob’s rightful blessing to the wrong person!

What would have happened if Esau had been just a little more mature, just a little more cognizant, and just a little less immediate?  Maybe he wouldn’t have given up his birthright so quickly, but in the long run it was good that he did. We see later, at the end of the parashah, that Esau just didn’t “get it”: when Isaac and Rebekah show their displeasure with Esau’s Hittite wives, he goes and marries Ishmael’s daughter.

Just not getting it.

But Jacob knew what he was doing from birth- after all, he did supplant, did he not? He knew what he wanted and how to get it, and although he was a bit sneaky and manipulative, it served him well and (eventually) served us all well. Jacob married well, too- Rachel was just as sneaky as Jacob was, stealing the family gods then pretending to be in her time of Nidah to prevent Laben from finding them.

But, then again, that’s another story.

 

Parashah Toldot (the generations) Genesis 25:19 – 28:9

Leave a comment

This parashah has one of the best known stories of the bible- the selling of the birthright. Esau is hungry and asks his brother, Jacob, for some lentil stew he was making. Jacob says he will give it to Esau if Esau sells his birthright as the firstborn to Jacob. Esau is hungry, probably not even near death or starvation, but as the bible says, he “hated his birthright” (took no special interest in it) so sold it for some soup. If you read carefully, you will realize that Jacob also gave Esau bread and drink. He wasn’t all that cruel.

The next thing that Jacob “stole” was the blessing of the firstborn that Isaac was going to give Esau. Now, this is also on Rebekah’s head because the whole scam was her idea. Once Esau learns of this he lets it be known he is planning to kill Jacob, so Rebekah (again with some deviousness) gets Isaac to send Jacob away.

For both a Patriarch and Matriarch of Judaism to steal, lie and cheat, you would wonder why they were so loved by God, right?

But let’s look a little closer at this. As for the “theft” of the blessing, I don’t think it is right or fair to say that Jacob “stole” Esau’s blessing. Here’s why: Jacob was, legally (for lack of a better term) the firstborn ever since Esau sold that birthright. As such, he was entitled to whatever the firstborn is entitled to receive, which included the blessing. True, Isaac may not have known about the sale (most likely he didn’t- if you were Esau, would you tell your father you sold your birthright?) so to get what did belong to him, Jacob had to use a bit of subterfuge to ensure he received what was, now, rightfully his.

As for the original sale of the birthright, we can only wonder what would have happened if Esau had refused to sell it. After all, how far away from the tents of Isaac and Rebekah could Jacob have been? Was it so far that Esau would not have been able to make it all the way there? And would Jacob, really, have allowed Esau to starve? I always say you can’t make an argument from nothing, but I have to tell you, even if Esau refused to sell the birthright I just don’t see Jacob letting his brother starve or die of thirst.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what would have happened if the birthright hadn’t been sold because the fact remains it was sold. Esau was a man of the moment- now, now, now. Jacob was a thoughtful man, planning out his moves and showing patience and maturity.

When we read about the events in the bible we need to remember to filter them with the cultural ethics of that time. It was a very lawless period, and even though there is evidence that moral codes existed, it was certainly not like anything we know today. For instance, both Abraham and Isaac said their wife was their sister so men wouldn’t kill them to be able to marry her. Therefore, if the woman was married it was morally wrong to have sexual relations with her, but if you murder her husband, then it’s OK to marry her.  Adultery is definitely out, but murder is fine. Huh?

I would go as far as to say that when Jacob bought the birthright of Esau, it was Esau who is the real villain because he had no respect for himself or his obligations that come with being the firstborn. Back then the firstborn was to not just to get a double-portion of the inheritance; he was to be the leader of the family. There were responsibilities on him because the family was more than just parents and kids- there were all the servants, too. Remember Abraham took 300 men with him to fight against the 5 kings when he rescued Lot. Isaac is very wealthy and powerful, meaning he must have had many servants. Esau, as firstborn, was responsible to take over the family business, if you will, and be the leader. From what we read about him, it doesn’t seem that he would have been all too keen on that. He liked to hunt, he was a man of strong emotions, of immediate desires and needs, and he apparently (by his choice of wives) didn’t “get it”, as far as being faithful to God was concerned. He really had it all going for him, and yet he thoughtlessly threw it all away for a bowl of stew.

Jacob, on the other hand, showed faithfulness, thoughtfulness and planned ahead whereas Esau planned as far as his nose, and no further. Esau was not a very good choice to carry on the position of Patriarch, and Jacob clearly was. The fact that he fooled his father to gain the blessing that (as I explained above) he really deserved only showed that he was willing to do what needed to be done to attain that which he was entitled to. We see this later on, when Laban tries to fool and cheat him out of the rightful payments, and Jacob turns it to his advantage. But…that’s for later on.

In Genesis 25:23 God tells Rebekah that she will have two sons, and the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob was God’s choice from the beginning, so we could say that anything Jacob did in order to secure his position as the birthright holder was in keeping with God’s will.

In that verse God tells Rebekah she has two nations in her womb, …”even with 

When Jacob took his entire retinue with him to return to the land of his father, Esau seems to have had many more men with him than Jacob had. Esau was the stronger of the two, but he (Edom) eventually served his brother (when Israel was under David) so what God told Rebekah was fulfilled. We can see that this shows strength in numbers is not going to get in the way of God’s plan. We see that throughout the bible, and even today- the creation of Israel, the 7-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, even in the midst of the current terrorism, Israel is the weaker of the surrounding nations yet they cannot come even close to subduing or overcoming this tiny little nation. That’s because this tiny little nation is like an iceberg- we only see the land of Israel but what supports Israel is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings- the Holy One of Israel, God, Almighty. Nothing is more powerful, so although the people of one nation may be more powerful than the people of the other, Israel has God on their side and no nation or group of nations can stand against Him.

We may not understand or even agree with what the Patriarchs and leaders we read about in the bible did, but it represents that they were no different from us than we are from each other. God is the God of doing great and wonderful things with schmo’s and schlemiels like you, like me, like Abraham, like Jacob, like Shimshon (Samson), and even with people like Jonah, who was about as unwilling a prophet as any I’ve ever read or heard about.

God can do whatever needs to be done, with whomever He chooses to do it with. If you want to be one of those He chooses, then remain faithful, listen for His guidance, accept His grace and don’t worry about the opposition.

What can man do to us when God is with us?