Parshas Toldos
You Threw it Out?!
How many times has it occurred that a piece of paper or another type of
item that you may have believed to be unimportant at the time and thus
carelessly misplaced or thrown out, turns out to be the one important item
necessary for your records or accomplishments? What is unimportant and of
little consequence at one moment in life may assume great value at a later
stage of life. This is pretty much the obvious lesson that Eisav’s sale of
his birthright to Yaakov, as recorded in this week’s parsha, imparts to us.
The Torah tells us that when Eisav sold the birthright to Yaakov he had no
regrets and no hesitation in so doing. The birthright was then of no value
to him. The pot of lentils, the good time, the night out with the boys,
his sexual conquests, these were the important things in his life. So he
throws away the item that in later life he will most crave and long to
find – his birthright, his soul, his very being. He later implores his
father for the blessing that has already been given away to Yaakov, the
blessing that is the right of the birthright to obtain. “Have you only one
blessing, father?” he roars and entreats. And Yitzchak answers him that
the blessing of Yaakov is part of the birthright. There are other
blessings that Eisav will receive but the one blessing that he wishes to
have, now later in his life when the passions have cooled and the millions
have been banked and he searches for eternity and serenity, that blessing
he cannot obtain. He threw it away with his birthright when he felt that
the latter was worthless to him.
In Jewish national life and in the personal lives of countless individual
Jews, the birthright of Israel – the Torah and all of holy traditions,
customs and ways – has often been discarded in favor of seemingly certain
gain and progress. Every time that this has happened it has turned out
badly for individual Jew and for the Jewish people as a whole. The pot of
lentils, of all of the “isms” of the Jewish world over the past century
and a half, turned out to be of little value in comparison to the
squandered birthright.
Eisav’s cry of: “Have you no other blessing for me?” is heard from the
depths of the souls of countless Jews today. All of the alternate forms of
Judaism, the phony kabbalists and the guitar-playing, kitsch prayer
services are a symptom of this deep longing for spirituality, meaning and
self-worth in life. But having sold out and discarded the birthright, many
times without even realizing that there was once a birthright that was
abandoned by their grandparents for a pot of lentils, all of the new
blessings somehow turn out to unsatisfying and non-propagating. Even
though those who created and support Operation Birthright to bring
American youth to visit Israel were unaware of this profound article of
mine, I nevertheless find it heartening that they chose to name the
program Birthright. Only by treating our Torah birthright seriously and
respectfully can we hope to achieve the blessings of our father Yitzchak
in our personal and national lives.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
Text Copyright © 2005 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org
Visit www.rabbiwein.com for a complete selection of Rabbi Wein's books and tapes.
