Shabbat Shalom!
My Torah portion is Toldot…… the story of Esau and Jacob. When their mother Rebekah was pregnant she felt a lot of pain. So she went to talk to G-d and G-d said that she was having twins. G-d also said that the older would bow down to the younger. And that the twins represented two nations at war. This information affected how Rebekah was a parent because she was told that Jacob would be the leader even though he was the younger child. Esau, the eldest, was a hunter. Jacob the younger, took care of chores around the house. He made sure everything was good and clean. Later in the story after Esau went hunting and had come home he sold his birthright to Jacob for red stew. We are not sure if his birthright was that important to him. He was never in the house and really didn’t seem to care about his family or being the leader of his family. Near the end of the story Isaac called Esau to bring him some MEAT so that he could bless him. While Esau was out Rebekah made Jacob dress in Goat fur to trick his father Isaac who was blind into thinking Jacob was Esau. Notice it was his mother who made him do this. Maybe because she knew that Jacob was the son who was to be the leader. Jacob had the birthright and now he had the blessing. This would allow him to be the leader of the nation. My big question is why did Rebekah make her son lie to his father Isaac and steal the blessing from his brother Esau? I learned from Rabbi Barbra that in the Torah there is always more than one answer to a question. Many Rabbis gave their opinion. Here are a few. Don Isaac Abravanel taught that Isaac loved Esau so much he could not see his son’s faults. He said “Affection ruins judgment” this means that when you love someone you don’t always believe they can do anything wrong. According to Abravanel, because each parent loved a different twin they were not held accountable and were in fact…… almost incentivised to do bad things. If a child does something wrong, it’s important that parents not assume that their child is guiltless. Parents should ask for more information and hold the child accountable. Isaac did not hold Esau accountable for anything. And Rebekah did not hold Jacob accountable. Abravanel thinks that Isaac’s blindness was both physical and metaphorical. For if he could see he would have seen…. Esau’s faults Because of this Rebekah had to make Jacob trick Isaac to fulfill G-d’s plan. Rabbi Harvey Fields tells us “Others suggest that Isaac was aloof, Withdrawn and out of touch with his sons. He spent no time with them. Therefore he was not aware of their strengths or weaknesses.” this might explain why he was fooled and why he favored a son that was not looking out for his family in the way an older son is supposed to. Rabbi David KIM-HEE says that Rebekah forced Jacob to deceive his father. Jacob tricked Isaac because he was forced to. Another commentator said that Jacob pleaded with his mother not to force him to do it. Rabbi KIM HEE also notes that Rebekah was trusting her intuition that made her encourage Jacob to become the leader he was destined to be. This same commentator thinks Isaac favored Esau because he saw Esau was wild and irresponsible and needed more love and gifts to help Esau become more mature. The last commentary was by Israeli psychologist HAYIM Ginott, who said “some parents are so angered by sibling rivalry that they punish any overt sign of it. Other parents bend backward almost acrobatically to avoid giving cause for jealousy. Children do not yearn for equal shares of love: they need to be loved uniquely, not uniformly. The emphasis is on quality, not equality. I think this means that children should be treated the way they need to be treated, which is not always the same as their siblings. They need to be loved the way they need to be loved. One of the problems is that Isaac and Rebekah were not on the same page. They had different favorites and that caused conflict. As a result each parent gave one son special treatment. Here’s what I think. Oracles are complicated. Some of the times humans trying to change the prophecy is the reason the prophecy happens. I don’t believe in oracles or prophecies but how parents treat their kids affects them. If kids are super spoiled they won’t know how to survive on their own. If kids are made to do things they will have an easier time in life. I think most siblings are jealous of each other for some reason or another. They are jealous when one receives something the other doesn’t, or one gets something bigger than the other. But that doesn’t mean that their parents don’t love them as much.
My Mitzvah Project: In April, with my mom’s help, I created a facebook group and called it Clean Your Block! I explained the concept of Tikun Olam and asked for everyone to clean their neighborhood on the first Sunday of each month by picking up trash. It was safe and simple and made a big difference!!! With Covid there were a lot of things we couldn’t do but we could take care of our neighborhoods! Our family has done this each month And will continue after my Bar Mitzvah is over! I chose this because I want to preserve nature. Trash can be dangerous because animals eat it and they could die. I found lots of nips in Sherrin Woods in Hyde Park. When people get drunk they do things they aren’t thinking about. They put themselves and others in harm’s way. Drinking alcohol is dangerous for your body and it is very addictive! Rabbi Barbara helped me make connections between my mitzvah project and my torah portion. One lesson is that if people are not held accountable they will not know that what they did was bad. Esau made a bad decision. He was impulsive and sold his birthright. How does one learn to keep from following your impulses? Think about what’s happening at that moment. Like throwing trash in nature.People need skills and tools to change. We called 311 to ask to get a trash can at the entrances to Sherrin Woods. We’re still waiting for results. Maybe if Esau had skills and tools, he might not have sold his birthright.
There are some people I would like to thank. I want to thank my parents.I want to thank my mom who helped me write my d’var Torah. And I want to thank my dad who helped me decide that I wanted a Bar Mitzvah even though it was a lot of work. I also want to thank my sister Ava because I love her.Thanks to Rabbi Barbara for helping me with my D’var Torah.Thank you to my Hebrew school class for being my friends.Thanks to my best friend Elijah for listening to me practice my torah portion even when we were on vacation.Thank you to my grandfather for being such a Pee-pop.Thanks to Morah Tracy for helping me learn my portion & prayers twice a week for months and months, and of course for all the good snacks! I want to thank Ashley Adams for helping me with public speaking and I want to thank all of my Chaverim teachers. I’d like to end with a special thanks to Benita and Moreno who keep everything going!
Shabbat shalom!!!