As Parashat Toldot opens, Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, conceives, and two children struggle in her womb. In great distress, Rebekah calls upon God to explain her frightening symptoms and is told, “Two nations are in your womb; two separate peoples shall come from your body. One people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.”

When Rebekah gives birth, the first twin to emerge is red and hairy; his parents name him Esau. When Esau’s brother emerges, he is holding on to Esau’s heel, so Isaac and Rebekah name him Jacob.

As the boys grow up, their differing personalities and interests emerge. Esau becomes a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors, with few spiritual interests. Jacob, on the other hand, ventures out very little, preferring to stay in the tents, close to his mother, and study. Because Isaac has a taste for game (and perhaps because Esau is the firstborn), Isaac favors Esau over Jacob. Rebekah, continually aware of God’s pronouncement that the younger twin will have authority over the older, she favors Jacob.

One day, Esau returns tired and hungry from a day of hunting in the field and, in an amazing disregard for his rights of inheritance and privilege, trades his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew.

Years later, Isaac — not able to see very well and fearing he does not have long to live — summons Esau and says, “Go out into the field and hunt game for me. Then prepare delicacies for me that I love and bring them to me and I will eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”

When Rebekah overhears Isaac’s conversation with Esau, she schemes with Jacob to deceive Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob. While Esau is out hunting, Rebekah prepares one of Isaac’s favorite meals and disguises Jacob as Esau. Jacob brings the meal to his father and receives the blessing that was intended for Esau.

As soon as Jacob left his father’s presence, Esau returns from the hunt, prepares the game, and takes it to his father. When Isaac realizes what has happened, he trembles and tells Esau that Jacob, now blessed, must remain blessed.

Esau is enraged, sobs bitterly, and exclaims, “First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!”  And Isaac does gather  together a blessing for Esau.

Having now been tricked out of his birthright and his blessing, Esau vows to kill Jacob. Rebekah hears of the plot and arranges for Jacob to flee to Haran, to the home of her brother Laban. Before Jacob leaves, however, Isaac gives him one more blessing.

Let’s now take a look at the dynamics of blessings and explore the views of some noted Torah commentators.

One midrash asserts that Jacob was actually conceived first and, therefore, as the spiritual firstborn, entitled to his father’s blessing. In the strictly legal sense, however, the privileges of the firstborn are determined by birth, not conception.

On hearing of Jacob's betrayal, Esau does what we all would do: he breaks into tears. “Bless me too, Father,” he pleads; and then again, “Do you have no blessing left for me?” And one more time, “Do you have but one blessing? Bless me too, Father.”

Reaching deep inside himself, Isaac finds a second blessing he did not know was there. He blesses Esau, at which point we wonder what plea of  Esau's prompted the surprising discovery of the second blessing. The rabbis imagine Esau arguing, “Surely an important man like you must have more than one blessing.” But arguments fail because, the truth is, Isaac believes sincerely that he has no blessing left. He discovers otherwise, not because Esau argues, or threatens, but because Esau cries.

What force did Isaac's blessing have for Jacob, if he was thinking of Esau? It seems on the face of it that Rebekah and her sons indeed thought that the power to convey blessing lay with Isaac, according to the rabbinic saying, “the righteous decree and the Holy One, blessed be God, brings it to pass.” All he had to do was to lay his hands upon the recipient of the blessing, and that son would become blessed almost automatically, even if Isaac had meant to bless the other, and even if he had not intended the actual outcome. This explains Isaac's fearful trembling after discovering that he had been deceived: “Now he must remain blessed” – for I cannot take back the blessing.

One of the questions often asked about the story of Jacob and Esau is why, once Isaac has given Jacob a blessing, he cannot give the same blessing to Esau. Esau asks, “Do you have but one blessing?” Isaac's first blessing, to Jacob, is that he will gain material wealth and rule over his brethren. The second blessing, to Esau, is a much weaker one: That even though he will be oppressed, at some point he will throw off that yoke. The rules of blessing, though, are clear. A blessing, whether given properly or improperly, cannot be undone, only mitigated.

Choosing the correct blessing is quite an art. We may not have an Esau and a Jacob but we do have it in our power to confer twin blessings, one material and the other spiritual. Both blessings are perfectly in order but we bestow too readily the material blessings of life.

Isaac’s first blessing to Jacob is certainly a beautiful one. It speaks of wealth and power. What it neglects to mention is a spiritual mission or message. When Esau stands before his father and understands that his brother Jacob has taken the blessing intended for him, it would seem that Isaac has “run out” of blessings

However, when Jacob is about to leave for Haran, Isaac summons Jacob and blesses him: “May God bless you, may you multiply and become a great nation. May God grant you the blessing of Abraham for you and your descendants to inherit the land which God had given to Abraham.” Evidently, Isaac did have another blessing to give. This “blessing of Abraham” and the Land of Israel was always intended for Jacob. Isaac had always intended to give the blessing of power to Esau and the blessing of spirit to Jacob. However, because of Rebekah's intervention, Jacob received both blessings. Isaac apparently felt that his spiritual son needed only spiritual blessings, while his physical son needed the physical blessing. Rebekah's understanding was quite different; she felt that the spiritual could not exist  without the physical. Divine fate sided with Rebekah.

Now the questions any detective would ask are: “Why are there three blessings in the story?” “How do they differ?” “Which one of the three blessings is the real blessing?”

To determine which blessing is the real one, stop and compare these other blessings now: God's blessing to Abraham, and God's blessing to Isaac.Note that central to both of these blessings is the promise of the Land of Israel and many offspring. So which one of the blessings given to Jacob and Esau is the real one? Which one promises land and seed? Only the third blessing is real!

The answer to the mystery is that Isaac always intended to give Jacob the real blessing. He did not know which son stood before him when Jacob dressed up like Esau; Isaac was confused. Afterward, when Isaac called Jacob to him — when he was sure it was Jacob to whom he was speaking he gave Jacob the real blessing.

As I started thinking about the torah portion this week, I realized that life is full of  choices. Sometimes our choices will affect the rest of our lives, while others have no meaning whatsoever after the choice is made. Regardless, it is clear that choices should be made with care. Judaism teaches us to live in moderation and to think carefully before making an extreme choice.
This week’s torah portion, Toldot, deals with the idea of making choices. Rebecca was blessed with the birth of twins, Jacob and Esau. The twins are very different, and the midrash says that even before they were born they were fighting.  The climax of the parsha comes with Jacob, the second born, when he steals Esau’s birthright given by their father Isaac to the first born son. Early in the portion Esau is very hungry and “trades” the birthright for some soup Jacob had been preparing. This instance brings up an important lesson about choices.
We live in a society full of instant gratification. Everything in our society is meant to be as fast as possible. Highways offer EZ pass at toll booths, restaurants offer fast food, and cell phones with the internet allow us access whatever we want whenever we want at very fast speeds. Sometimes we do not have time to slow down and make the right choices. As Jews we learn from Esau’s mistake. Esau expected the instant gratification of eating the soup over the long-term gratification of the birthright. We learn not only that choices are important, but also how easy it can be to make the right choice if one is conscious about it.
As members of a congregation and society we make important decisions every day.  We are  all responsible for our own actions. How will you behave? Will you go for the instant gratification, or will you wait for the right choice? How will you choose?

Rick Kodner, father pf twins

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