Born To Be Wild?
Parshas Toldos: Brothers in time, Partners in crime
He is that Biblical character we all love to hate.
Richard the 3rd, eat your heart out. Count Dracula, time to get a real job. Big, bad, scary and hairy, Eisav is the ultimate archetypal villain. The stereotypical mean guy whose primary purpose is to emphasise just how great Yaakov is.
Surely a cherished childhood bogeyman. But this version of Eisav is inherently problematic. Free will lies at the core of Jewish ideology; God does not want human automatons. As Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto maps out in multiple places, the prerequisite for God's system of reward and punishment is mankind possessing free will.
Furthermore, by disregarding Eisav as an unsalvageable all-out monster, we risk ignoring the 'banality of evil'. Hannah Arendt coined this term after witnessing Adolf Eichmann's trial. Eichmann came across more like an average accountant than a crazed Nazi killer, and Arendt was struck by the absence of the expressive evil that one would expect from a man responsible for murdering millions. In other words, by supposing all vice to sprout from something deviant or abnormal, we absolve ourselves from ever facing the uncomfortable truth. That we, too, could be capable of grave moral lapses. How, then, must we take precautions to learn the lessons of Eisav's failure? What worrying proclivities led to Eisav's wicked turn?
Let's concentrate on the tendencies that seem to have led to Eisav's spiral dive into depravity by noting how the Torah juxtaposes his qualities with Yaakov's:
The lads grew up. Eisov became a skilled trapper, a man of the field. Yaakov was a wholesome man, living in tents.
The Saforno and Ibn Ezra {both medieval era comentators} concur that the essential understanding of 'living in tents' is that Yaakov worked as a shepherd. Acknowledging Eisav and Yaakov's respective career choices opens up an intriguing parallel with another pair of brothers. Kayin and Hevel, sons of the first man Adam. The passuk in Bereishis notes that
Hevel became a shepherd, but Kayin was a worker of the soil. {Bereishis 4:2}
Kayin and Hevel, Eisav and Yaakov, the associations we can draw between these duelling brothers far exceed their job descriptions. Ten generations separated Kayin and Eisav, yet they share striking similarities. Both are senior siblings who are envious of their younger brothers. Both become murderers who deny Oilam Haboh. And if you don't find this resemblance convincing enough, the Arizal notes that Eisav and Yaakov were 'Gilgulim' {spiritual reincarnations} of Kayin and Hevel.
If anything casting Eisav as a Kayin reboot compounds our sense that he was pre-destined to join the dark side. And the truth is that these two Biblical menaces had inbuilt proclivities dragging them towards the physical world. The character of which we will now try to decipher.
Several Midrashim tackle the struggle between Eisav and Yaakov within the womb in their respective division of the world. In contrast to Yaakov, Eisav's soul was fixated upon the temporal world in which he lived without a vision of how to transcend it. So too, was Kayin keenly focused on cultivating material produce as a farmer at the expense of the world to come. It is fascinating that Kayin’s sacrificial offering rejected by God was of flax. The Talmud prohibits growing flax in a short-term rented field because it significantly weakens the land. The Bais Yaakov elucidates that the flax divulged Kayin's inner desire to 'make the most of' the physical world because one who reaps flax extracts the entirety of what he has planted in the here and now. His indifference, therefore, embodied a lack of regard for the future of the World to Come.
Following such a humiliating divine rejection, Kayin sunk into despondency. What could God have realistically expected of Kayin, or Eisav for that matter, when the cards were stacked so heavily against them? This time around, God already answered our question for us.
God said to Kayin, Why are you angry? Why are you depressed? If you improve, there is forgiveness, but sin rests at the opening if you do not improve. Its desire is yours, but you can dominate it. {Bereishis 5:6-7}
The fundamental guidance God offers Kayin over here is core to our understanding of what it means to be human. It also highlights Eisav's blunder. Eisav, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe states, was indeed prone to exist as part of the physical world. But these particular tendencies could have allowed him to cultivate course material existence into a heightened spirituality:
Torah is not solely a philosophy for an elite cadre. Its timeless relevance radiates through the lives of 'everyday' people.
The Chassidic masters teach us that God desires a 'dirah bitachton', a dwelling place below. If Eisav had taken his worldly 'desire' and dominated it in service of spirituality, he would have sanctified God's name.
We glimpse Eisav's latent potential in a midrash where he consults with his father, Yitzchak, over salt tithing laws. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro observes that salt functions in two opposing modes. When combined with another food, it provides flavour and preservative properties. It enhances what we have. However, if consumed in isolation, salt becomes bitter and destructive. Eisav's fatal flaw was not his flirtation with earthly living. Instead, his treatment of material requirements as an end to themselves rather than an enrichment of the spirit was his true undoing.
Eisav's story is a warning for all of us. The Jewish people confront the final exile of Edom, whose legacy perpetuates the philosophy of Eisav and Kayin. Contemporary society is confident that this world is the end and be all. And that mankind is no more than cultured animals. Academics routinely deny the existence of free will. It rings true because, in distinctive ways, we are animalistic in our physical composition.
The Baal Hatanya warns how a man can descend even lower than the level of a beast. People chase dreams of physical pleasure. They pursue the elusive promise of this-worldly happiness. They exhaust themselves on what psychologists call the Hedonic Treadmill. But we must still reach for a ‘firstborn’ life of spirituality instead of trading this in favour of a 21st-century version of Eisav's bowl of lentils. Moving past the cliche of a monster, the more sophisticated viewpoint of Eisav is as a tragic figure.
In the mystic tradition, the heel is a symbol for our generation. Precisely like a heel, we are numb and disconnected. There is, however, hope. We are the descendants of Yaakov, who famously grabbed Eisav's heel as he was born. In Rav Kook's view, this symbolises Yaakov's ability to direct his physical inclinations under a metaphysical vision. After receiving both of his father's blessings, Yaakov travelled into exile, employed by his uncle Lavan. From there on, he would also fulfil Eisav's former role as one who lifts the mundane world into the divine sphere. We, too, are ultimately free to step forward, lead our lives with a spiritual focus, and truly define ourselves as descendants of Yaakov.
Good Shabbos, and Keep Pondering!
Great stuff