פרשת תולדות
This week’s Parsha mentions the episode of Esav’s sale of his birthright to Yaakov. The Gemorah in Bava Basra דף ט”ז mentions that on the day that Esav sold his right to the firstborn, he transgressed 5 sins. On that day he murdered, had relations with a married woman, denied certain basic principles of faith, and finally, he sold his birthright.
The Passuk says, “ויאכל וישת ויקם וילך ויבז עשו את הבכורה”. Rashi comments that we see from this seemingly innocuous verse the magnitude of Esav’s iniquity of selling his birthright. One could certainly ask, out of these five heinous crimes mentioned in the Gemorah, we would certainly not assume that the most severe was the selling of his birthright?! Similarly, the Ramban explains that his main sin wasn’t even the selling of the birthright, but rather what the verse says what he did immediately after the sale; “He got up and went on his way to go hunting”, which means to say, he went on with his normal life. How does the Ramban understand this ostensibly insignificant act of going back to his normal life as Esav’s greatest sin?
Perhaps we could answer that when a normal person does a sin which he was driven to by his animal instincts, this doesn’t necessarily testify that he is a wicked person in his core, as we all have base desires. But by Esav selling his birthright, which he had no desire to have as there was no inherent pleasure involved, he succeeded in denigrating the spiritual value of the birthright. Such scorn stems from a far worse source then a simple “indulging” of one’s desire and really evidences the true nature of where Esav was holding.
The Rabenu Yonah explains this concept based on a Passuk in Mishle which says that just as the integrity of gold and silver can be determined by melting it into a liquid, and revealing it’s impurities, so can human beings be evaluated based on where they place their importance. The things that a person holds in esteem will usually be indicative of what his true essence is.
Based on this Rabenu Yonah, we may now respond to the question that we asked on the Ramban. Perhaps we could have justified Esav’s actions of selling his birthright by explaining how hungry he was and he just wanted to enjoy a little Chollent. But when we see that he went about his normal life after the sale as opposed to feeling remorse for his crime, this shows beyond all doubt that he didn’t value the spiritual importance of the Birthright.
I would like to explain now how the level of appreciation that we hold for our sacred matters will determine the quality of our reward in the world to come. There is a Chazal which says that the wicked people get whatever small reward they earned, in this world. One could ask why can’t they at least get their reward in the next world where they will enjoy it far more? Based on what we explained, one could answer that the only place that an iniquitous person will enjoy their reward is in this world for this is all they value! To give them remuneration in the next world would be meaningless to them as they haven’t developed the tools to appreciate it.
Some ask how Esav’s sale of his birthright was considered valid as he didn’t receive the proper payment for such a valuable commodity. Based on what we said, we could answer that to Esav, the amount that he received was truly how much he felt this birthright was worth. By him believing this to be the value, he made this his reality and transformed the objective cost of birthrights – vis-à-vis Esav – to be a bowl of Chollent.
On a parallel paradigmatic vein, we can explain the Gemorrah which says that Tzadikim have no reward in this world. To the righteous their spirituality is the only real pursuit which they deem worthy enough to want as a reward, so offering them the physical pleasures of this world would be pointless.
The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva explains even though the Torah seems to promise us mundane rewards for keeping the Torah such as rain, livelihood, and peace, these assurances are only in order that we should be able to perform our sacred duties with no distractions. This is what Chazal meant when they said that the reward for a Mitzvah is the privilege to perform another Mitzvah.
The Gemorah (Succah דף נ”ב) says that in the future, God will slaughter the Yetzer Hara in front of the righteous and the wicked and each one will cry. The Righteous will cry because they will not be able to believe how they were able to conquer something so gargantuan, and it will seem to them the size of a mountain. The wicked will cry because they will feel so much remorse that they were unable to conquer something so small and it will seem to them to be the size of a hair.
Rabbi Fein, the former Rosh Yeshiva of Torah V’daas asks, why is it relevant how we viewed the Yetzer hara? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to simply list our achievements? He answers by saying a powerful chidush. He says that the Tzadikim who viewed their inclinations as mountains, (meaning to say, they treated them with the utmost formidability), their reward will be increased accordingly, but the wicked who viewed their spiritual pursuits as meaningless, even for the good deeds that they did do, they will receive reward only as “a hair’s breadth”. We see from this Gemorrah that the degree to which a person appreciates his spiritual pursuits is directly proportionate to the degree in which his reward will in fact be, and that one can determine merely through his values the intensity of his Olam Habo.
The Gemorah in Kesuvos, קי”א says that an individual who possesses the light of Torah, that light will sustain him in the after-life, and one who lack’s this light, will not be sustained. R’ Shteinman explains this Gemorah to mean that only somebody who has reached the level that the Torah is appreciated by him as the “light of his eyes”, (meaning to say that the Torah is his greatest delight in life), will be sustained by it in the world to come.
May we be Zoche to follow in the footsteps of our forefathers and recognize the truly valuable things in this life!