This Shabbat we study the Parshah Toldot, meaning “Generations” (Genesis 25:19). Isaac and Rebecca endure twenty childless years, until their prayers are answered and Rebecca conceives. She experiences a difficult pregnancy as the “children struggle inside her”. G-d tells her that “there are two nations in your womb,” and that the younger will prevail over the elder. Esau emerges first; Jacob is born clutching Esau’s heel. Esau grows up to be “a cunning hunter, a man of the field”; Jacob is “a wholesome man,” a dweller in the tents of learning. Isaac favors Esau; Rebecca loves Jacob. Returning exhausted and hungry from the hunt one day, Esau sells his birthright (his rights as the firstborn) to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew. Also in this Parsha: Isaac’s and Rebecca’s experiences in Gerar, the land of the Philistines – and the story about how Jacob obtained Isaac’s Blessing.

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Chabad.org

It’s a strange name to give a child. The child of Abraham and Sarah, the first child to be born to a Jewish family, was named Yitzchok, or Isaac, which means “laughter.” Why would Abraham and Sarah choose the name “laughter” for their child, who was destined to be a deeply spiritual person and a patriarch of the Jewish people? 

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The name Isaac is even more ironic when we consider that the nature and character of Isaac seems to be the polar opposite of laughter and joy. While Abraham was an outgoing extrovert, Isaac kept to himself; while Abraham is characterized in the Torah as the lover of Gd, Isaac is characterized as being in awe of G-d. While Abraham represents the attribute of kindness and giving, Isaac embodies strength and discipline. The name Isaac seems out of character with his identity and spiritual path.

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 But where does laughter stem from? A person may feel happy due to some goodness in his life, yet for the happiness to overflow from his heart and express itself in laughter, he must experience more than the expected measure of joy. Happiness becomes laughter when the joyous event surpasses all expectations, when one is confronted with the unpredictable.

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As the children of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, we are heirs to the qualities and characteristics they embodied. From Isaac we inherit the ability to be joyous in the face of great challenge. From Isaac we learn to expect the unexpected, to believe in ourselves and in the people around us. From Isaac we inherit the power to create laughter, to discover the deeper truth of reality that is not always noticeable to the naked eye. From Isaac we learn to dig beneath the surface and find the holiness in every person and the good in every experience.

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From an article by Rabbi Menachem Feldman

There is nothing—no thing or event—that must be, that forces itself upon Gd. All is deliberate, all has intent and purpose. And the ultimate good is hidden in that purpose.

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Nevertheless, our G-d is a Gd that creates things He does not desire. Things about which we scream, sometimes in horror, sometimes in indignant outrage, “Why did You do this? How could You” And all we receive is a silent tear from heaven. Yet even the things He does not desire, they too have purpose.

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Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

Our sages state, “Any generation in whose days the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) is not rebuilt, it is reckoned against that generation as if it was destroyed in its time!” (Yerushalmi, Yoma 1:1) The churban (destruction of the Holy Temple) thus is not simply an event that happened in the past. Its consequences extend to this very day, and the event, therefore, must be seen as something happening even now-as if the Beit Hamikdash is being destroyed this very moment. It follows, then, that it is our duty-and we do have the ability-to rid ourselves of the cause of the churban and to prevent its present recurrence. The study of Torah has this effect and will bring about the restoration of Jerusalem and the Beit Hamikdash by the speedy coming of Moshiach!

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From an article by Rabbi J. Immanuel Schochet

Three Jewish mothers were sitting on a bench discussing how much their sons love them. “You know the Chagall painting hanging in my living room?” asked Betty. “My son Arnold bought that for my 75th birthday. What a good boy, he really loves his mother.”

“You call that love?” scoffed Dorothy. “You know the BMW I just got for Mother’s Day? That’s from my son Bernie. What a doll!” Whereupon Shirley countered, “That’s nothing! You know my son Stanley? He pays tons of money for a session with a psychologist every week. And what does he talk about? Me!”

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I was reminded of this old Jewish joke when reading this week’s Torah portion. Rebecca overhears her blind and elderly husband, Isaac, telling their son Esau to bring him some food so that he may bless him before he dies. Rebecca instructs Jacob to impersonate his twin brother Esau, and gives him food that Isaac enjoys, so that he, rather than the wicked Esau, will receive the blessings.

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But Jacob protests. “My brother Esau is a hairy person, and I am smooth-skinned. If my father feels me and realizes that I am an imposter, I will bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.” “Let your curse be upon me, my son…” his mother offers.

And indeed, Rebecca gave Jacob the food and Esau’s clothing to wear, and the rest is history. Isaac felt the hairy skins Jacob had placed on his arms and was confused, uttering the now-famous line, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

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In the end, Jacob received the blessings, Esau was incensed and threatened to kill his brother, and Jacob was compelled to leave town.

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But my question is: Didn’t Jacob love his mother? He was afraid of incurring his father’s wrath, but no sooner does his mother say, “Your curse be upon me, my son,” and Jacob agrees to go along with the ruse! You don’t want to be cursed, but you’re happy for your mother to be? Is this behavior becoming of Jacob, one of the founding fathers of our faith?

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One straightforward approach I have gathered from the commentaries is this: When Jacob saw that his mother was prepared to take the fall, to risk the potentially lethal curse of Isaac, he realized that these were no ordinary blessings. It wasn’t a case of Fiddler on the Roof’s “A blessing on your head, mazel tov, mazel tov.” 

These blessings would effectively designate the recipient as the next link in the chain of Jewish leadership and peoplehood. Whichever son received them would determine the very fate and destiny of the Jewish People. 

Can you just imagine if in our prayers every day we intoned “the Gd of Abraham, Isaac and … Esau”? Would our nation ever have become who we are if Esau, rather than Jacob, was the spiritual successor to Isaac?

 If his mother was prepared to risk being cursed by the holy Isaac, this was proof enough to Jacob how absolutely critical it was for these blessings to be conferred upon him and not Esau. And so, then and there, Jacob agreed to his mother’s request. This also explains how the holy patriarch Jacob could engage in deception, impersonating his brother before his blind father. Every year in shul someone asks me the obvious question: How could Yaakov Avinu, Jacob our forefather, lie?! How could he tell his father he was Esau?

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But to save a life, deception is justified. And to save the life and legacy of an entire nation it is certainly justified. Indeed, when Isaac realizes what transpired, what does he say? He doesn’t berate Jacob at all. Instead, he states “Indeed, [Jacob] shall remain blessed.”

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Jacob, like all Jewish boys, loved his mother. But he and his mother loved G-d and were fully aware of the sacred responsibility on their shoulders to be guardians of our faith and our people. This was not a game. This was no charade. Isaac, in his blindness, or for whatever reason, felt that Esau should receive the blessings. Rebecca, with her woman’s intuition, knew better. Both Jacob and Rebecca were fully cognizant of their mission to perpetuate Judaism and our glorious nation. And thanks to their courage, commitment, and preparedness for sacrifice, Jewish continuity was safe and assured for eternity.

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Rabbi Yossy Goldman