Toldot – Short term vs long term
“And Esau said to Jacob, “Pour into [me] some of this red, red [pottage], for I am faint”; he was therefore named Edom.
And Jacob said, “Sell me as of this day your birthright.”
Esau replied, “Behold, I am going to die; so why do I need this birthright?”
Esav represents the rejection of the soul and the afterlife which are so crucial a belief in Judaism as without a soul, without consequences to our actions – life is rendered meaningless.
According to Rashi the birthright was the priesthood with all its spiritual responsibilities.
To Esav this was a burden that took away from his hedonistic pursuit of pleasure and power.
Esav would be seen today as a materialistic nihilist. His modus operandi was in the great phrase of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche “the will to power”.
Whilst the Torah narrative does reserve some sympathy even empathy for Esav’s plight – we read of his bitter tears to his father when he realises his blessing has been stolen, the Midrash seemingly reserves no such warmth for Esav’s character. For example the Midrash fills us in that on the day he sold his birthright he committed heinous crimes including murder, rape and idolatry. These very sins a Jew must give his life up for rather than commit.
It is very easy for us to disassociate ourselves from the Character of Esav but if we were honest in our self appraisal we would ask and challenge ourselves with the following questions:
“How often do I find myself selling out my true self for counterfeit pleasures, desires and ideas?”
“Which areas of life do I find myself acting a little too impulsively (however subtle) for the immediate gain at the expense of longer term pleasure or to do the right thing?”
Esav in the Midrashic narrative is an extreme but we all have to some extent the propensity to sabotage our soul’s deeper needs by settling for short term pleasure. We each have certain religious or spiritual responsibilities
In a world that offers instant gratification and is constantly expanding our horizons for consumerism, entertainment and pleasure through technology – it requires steely determination to carve out space for spiritual growth.
Of course we must also be realistic with ourselves as after all we are not just souls we have bodies too!
Maybe the mistake of Esav was thinking that the legacy of his father Yitzchak was too other worldly and would entail sacrificing this world that contains so much physical pleasure for a place in the next world.
The contrary is true. The beauty of Judaism is that whilst it does place many restrictions on this world, ultimately it provides a balanced life so that we can actually enjoy not only the next world but this one too!
There is a famous saying in Chassidic literature ” A constant pleasure is not a pleasure”
Just as light can not be appreciated without dark so too physical pleasures can only be enjoyed when we also hold ourselves back.
This idea is supported by the interesting verb used by Esav. He tells his brother “Pour into me”. In Hebrew this verb Hal’iteini appears only once in the whole Torah. We would have expected a simpler verb like “Give me now some of that stew!”
Pouring food down ones throat implies bypasses the taste buds which prevents a person truly savouring the food to its fullest.
Perhaps the Torah is teaching us the great irony for those who focus their lives on only material pleasures- that they in fact diminish their experience of pleasure in this world.
Shabbat Shalom