Parshas Toldot: Israel's Survival Depends on a Return to Holiness

This week’s Torah portion, Toldot: Bereishit (Genesis) 25:19 - 28:9. challenges us to look beneath the surface of dramatic events to fully understand why righteous people lie and deceive so that God’s will prevails.

Toldot means generations. The portion opens as Isaac and Rebecca pray to God to give them children. She conceives twins. Rebecca suffers great discomfort while her pre-born sons, Esau and Jacob, begin a lifetime struggle for dominance over each other. Esau arrives first, followed by Jacob. Their sibling rivalry intensifies as they mature. One fateful day, Esau discards the moral rectitude necessary to assume his first born rights and responsibilities. Jacob realizes the danger to the family posed by his elder brother’s depraved personality. He convinces Esau to exchange his birthright for a hearty meal. 

Famine comes. Isaac heeds the word of God. Instead of riding out the famine in Egypt he moves his family to Gerar in the land of the Philistines. He reopens his father’s water wells and digs his own to accommodate his growing herds of livestock. The natives claim the wells as their own and demand Isaac relocate. After a series of moves to avoid rising tensions with his neighbors, Isaac settles in Beersheba and thrives. Avimelech, the king of the Philistines, seeing a benefit in being friends instead of enemies, makes peace with Isaac.

Time passes. An elderly, sightless Isaac intends to confer Esau with blessings before he dies. Just as Jacob earlier understood the serious need to obtain his brother’s birthright to avoid family disaster, now Rebecca perceives the importance of Jacob receiving these blessings to avoid generational disaster. She convinces Jacob to impersonate Esau. Because he acquired Esau’s birthright years ago, Jacob goes along with the deception. He receives Isaac’s blessings for a prosperous future, power, influence, and the reverence and honor of his brothers. When Esau arrives after the fact, he begs his father for blessings. As Esau now has a subordinate role in the family, Isaac blesses him with material prosperity, too, but stops short of blessing him any further. Acknowledging his son’s martial nature, he promises Esau a lifetime of armed conflict while serving Jacob and his descendants. To soften the blow, Isaac gives Esau permission to temporarily cast off his service if and when Jacob or his descendants reject holiness.

Jacob feels his brothers resentment. Rebecca insists he flee for safety to her brother Laban’s house. Isaac agrees. Before he sends Jacob off to escape Esau’s wrath and find a wife among Rebecca’s family, he passes Abraham’s blessings to Jacob, the next generation. He promises that his family line will establish a great and holy nation that will bless the world with peace.

We encounter another essential figure in Jewish history fleeing for his life in our Haftarah portion, 1 Schmuel (Samuel I) 20:18-42. David’s reputation as a warrior threatens Saul’s authority. Saul orders his soldiers to find David and murder him. Saul’s son, Jonathan, helps David escape to live another day. He eventually becomes a great political and spiritual leader of Israel. 

Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and David are gifted with deep faith in Almighty God. They intuitively discern truth from lies, holiness from evil. They see the correct path forward and they act, despite outward appearances. They get mixed results in the short run and positive outcomes in the long run. They operate through a personal relationship with their Creator upon whom they rely absolutely for guidance. Esau, on the other hand, succumbs to earthly temptations. He has a difficult road ahead as he hides his hedonistic lifestyle from his family and tries to please his father at the same time.

Looking through the prism of biblical prophecy and promise, it’s uncanny how current events in the Middle East reflect events in our Torah portion. The modern state of Israel must continue to exist to ensure safe haven for Jews and so that the promise of messiah occurs. This happy day depends on a sincere repentance of lapses in policies that enable unholiness followed by a return to godliness in the Jewish state. 

Perhaps our Arab brothers are now fulfilling their role as they contend with us, reminding us that our birthright is contingent upon maintaining holiness. Holiness can be restored to Jerusalem in several ways. Israel can become self sufficient and God dependent again by manufacturing her own military hardware and instituting a Torah based government. She can cease to enable abortion and other lifestyle practices that violate moral guidelines in Torah. When Israelis tire of war, when they tire of being manipulated by global power brokers and profiteers, when they tire of losing so many precious lives in never ending wars with proxy states, when they tire of propaganda wars that demonize them for trying to survive, then perhaps Israelis will seek a biblical answer. All they have to do is believe in it, act on it, and experience it. It’s their destiny to do so.

Please share this blog on your social media to amplify our message in this troubled world. Thank you.

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.