Toldos

פרשת תולדות

This week’s Parsha tells us about the dramatic way in which Yaakov Avinu stole the blessings from his brother Eisav.  In order to do this, he had to trick his father Yitzchak by masquerading as his older brother.  He had to change his voice, and even the texture of his skin, as Eisav was born very hairy.  To accomplish this, Yaakov’s mother Rivka took two of her own private goats, that were given to her as part of her nuptial gifts and were therefore solely hers, and asked Yaakov to slaughter them, and attach their hides to his exposed skin so that Yitchak would perceive the full tactile effect of Eisav.  The Midrash Rabba makes a strange comment to the effect that insinuates that Yaakov’s two goats were instrumental in earning the Jewish people many years later the two goats on Yom Kippur, one to Hashem and one to Azazel.

The Beis Halevi has three interesting questions on these events.  Firstly, what is the connection between Yaakov’s actions and Yom Kippur?  Secondly, why was Rivka so adamant about Yaakov’s interception of the blessings?  It seems, at least on a surface level, that the blessing Yitzchak was going to give was relegated to the physical pleasures of this world.  Generally, Jews do not seek blessings such as these.  They would be more inclined to pursue blessings of a more spiritual nature.  In fact, this is probably why Yaakov did not seem overly excited to seize the blessings.  Why then was Rivka willing to have her son use such extreme levels of trickery and deceit, and risk his very life for something so materialistic?  And finally, perhaps the strongest difficulty, where are Yitzchak’s blessings today?  For the past 3000 years, does Yaakov seem to be at the top of the world or Eisav?

The Beis Halevi explains beautifully that indeed, Yaakov was not very enthusiastic about the blessings because as opposed to a non-Jew, a Jew functions much better under poverty then he does when he is wealthy.  The verse says, “When Jeshurun (the Jewish people) become fat, they begin to kick”, and as the Gemorah in Chagiga (9a) says, scarcity is far better for the children of Yaakov then plenty, because when they have surplus, they forget about their God, but when times are tough, they turn to Him.  Rivka, who certainly was well aware of this concern, had a slightly more refined approach.  Although she knew that ultimately, the blessings of this world would detract the Jewish peoples’ service of Hashem rather then enhance it, and therefore could not remain with Yaakov, she reasoned that there were two factors which made it imperative that the Jewish people have full custody of the blessings before they ended up in Eisav’s lap.  There were two rationales for her insistence on this point.  Firstly, so that the Jews would be able to skim a little bit of the blessings off the top before they turned them over to Eisav so that they may use the benefits of this world in the service of Hashem.  We all know that it cost a lot of money to be a religious Jew.  And the second reason Rivka felt it was important for the descendants of Yaakov to be in charge of the blessings before the non-Jews received them was because she knew that throughout the generations, Eisav would try to take this blessing by force, and she wanted the Jews to receive the merit in God’s accounts for having been stolen from, instead of having these blessings rightfully belong to the nations.  In other words, both Rivka and Yaakov agreed that ultimately, the blessings would be Eisav’s because its just better for us in the long run, but Rivka understood that they couldn’t come to Eisav directly, only through the Jewish people for the above mentioned two reasons.

With this understanding, we can now understand the Midrash which drew a parallel between Yaakov’s two goats, and the two goats which were offered during the Yom Kippur Services in the Beis Hamikdash.  The goat which went to Hashem was symbolized by the blessings which we use to serve Hashem via our money.  For example the expenses we incur to pay for our children’s educations, and the costs of raising a family.  And the goat which went to Azazel represented the “offering” in which we give most of the benefits from our blessings to the non-Jews, thereby earning the extra merit of having our blessings to be “willingly” confiscated.

One principle that emerges clearly from this whole episode as presented by the Beis Halevi is a fresh outlook on how to view money.  Many people equate money with power or authority, but the Torah views it quite differently.  In the Torah’s eyes, money is not an easy way to get what a person wants, or the means to purchase useless gadgets, but rather it is merely a tool to facilitate us to better keep the word of God.  When a person views money incorrectly, he is bound to use all sorts of illicit means to try to obtain it, and there is no telling how much corruption he will use in spending it as well.  But when a person fosters a view of finances that the Torah encourages, he will certainly do his best to do business honestly and be straight as an arrow when it comes to all monetary matters, utilizing his gift solely for the service of Hashem.  R’ Hanoch Leibowitz, the late Rosh Yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim Yeshiva, offers a very effective barometer to determine where a person is holding in this arena.  He says that if a person has to spend a large sum of money for a Mitzvah, does this gladden him or does it depress him.  If he understood that the sole purpose for his money is to better serve Hashem, then what better way to “invest” his money then in a Mitzvah?  But if an unfortunate person does not view money this way, he will view such an expenditure as a heartrending burden which may turn out to be quite a painful experience for him.

I would like to share with you a story which I heard recently from a very reliable source which I believe demonstrates this point very nicely.  There was a couple living in France who had a son.  They sent the boy for a moderately Jewish education, and they did what they could to raise the boy to keep the Torah as much as they knew how. But living in such a distant shore where there was not much going on in terms of Judaism took its toll on the boy’s upbringing and to make a long story short, the boy went away to university, and came back with a fiancé who happened to be of the Goyish persuasion.  The parents did everything they could to dissuade the boy, but he would not be dissuaded.  They pleaded, they threatened, they bribed, but the boy was insistent that he loved this girl, and she loved him, and nothing would stand in “love’s” way.  The desperate parents spread the word that they were willing to offer money to any Jew who was willing to be instrumental in helping their son come to his wits, and even if somebody would just pray for him, they would be remunerated financially.  The parents were not wealthy, but they were financially comfortable, and collectors came from far and wide to pray for the wayward boy, and to collect the funds which were desperately needed for their Torah institutions, but none of these means met with any measurable success.  After a few months, as the wedding was getting closer, a very well known Torah personality showed up at their door and offered them a proposition.  They started off by writing him a very sizeable check, but he pushed it back to them and he demanded they give him not a penny less then one million dollars.  They turned to each other and made a quick accounting of their total savings, and they realized that if they cashed in their entire portfolio, they could muster up one million dollars.  They then turned to the Rabbi and asked him, “If we agree to your proposal, can you guarantee that our son will not wed the shiksah”?  He responded that he could offer no guarantees.  They deliberated over this proposition, and after a while, they agreed and began to right him a check in the sum of one million dollars.  But once again he stopped them and said that he would only accept a direct bank transfer, which would be irreversible.  They once again agreed and drove this Rabbi down to the bank.  As they were about to press the button to wire the transfer through, he stopped them and said lets go back home.  The Rabbi told them that their “test” was now over.  He explained that before he gave them his blessing, he had to make sure that this was something that they really wanted and something that they were truly willing to sacrifice for.  When he saw their pure faith, and their willingness to give everything they had for a spiritual pursuit, he blessed them from the bottom of his heart that their son would now come back to Judaism.  Sure enough, a week later, the boy came home exclaiming, “I have no idea what got into me.  Not only was that girl not appropriate for me, she wasn’t even faithful to me”.

May we all merit to use all of our resources in the service of Hashem!