Poor Isaac

Nov 7, 2007 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Toledot

Poor Isaac; wedged between “exemplary” Abraham and “vivid” Jacob, he exhibits very little personality of his own.

A Strong Woman in the Bible

Nov 29, 2008 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. When as a girl she sees a stranger at the well, she rushes to water his caravan of thirsty camels, and then invites him to stay at her house. When offered the chance to travel with this man back to a distant land and a mysterious husband, she volunteers without hesitation. When her pregnancy becomes difficult, she seeks out God and challenges Him with the bold question, “Why do I need this?” When her husband seems ready to bless the wrong son, she quickly conspires to rearrange the action so that Jacob will receive the primary blessing. In all of these actions, Rebecca is seen as a woman of strength and decisiveness.

Reconciliation of Faiths

Nov 29, 2003 By Rachel Ain | Commentary | Toledot

Sibling conflict is not a new story in the Torah. Isaac knows well his own history of sibling rivalry with Ishmael. They spent years apart, yet reconciled over the burial of their father Abraham. So too in this week’s parashah we see a rift between two siblings. Jacob stands before his father Isaac in disguise and takes a blessing that rightfully belongs to Esau. Upon hearing this, Esau cries out to Isaac, “Have you only one blessing, father?” (Genesis 27:37) How could Isaac, the father of both sons, in fact choose only one son to bless? How could there in fact, be only one blessing?

Words Create Worlds

Nov 9, 2002 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Toledot

This week’s Torah portion gives us a powerful, albeit troubling, reminder of the power of words. Jacob tricks his blind father Isaac into giving him the blessing reserved for the first-born son. Once the deception is unveiled, and Esau stands before Isaac with great expectation, the Torah paints a poignant picture of the devastating consequences of Isaac’s words.

Searching for Signs

Oct 5, 2010 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Toledot

This week’s Torah portion contains an ambiguity that is rarely noted, and yet it is crucial to how we understand the contest between Rebecca and Isaac. When Rebecca experiences the as yet unborn children struggling, indeed almost crushing each other, she goes “to seek God”—whatever that may mean. She is told that two nations will emerge from her womb, two nations that will contend with each other and, the divine response concludes, “ve-rav ya’avod za’ir.“

Angel Tears

Oct 6, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Toledot

Many centuries before the advent of modern medicine in general and care for mental health in particular, our Sages developed the symbolic language of angels’ tears to explain the hidden wounds impressed upon Isaac’s psyche in the aftermath of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Today, one finds myriad psychological interpretations of his near-death experience at the hands of his father, Abraham. In fact, a trend has emerged in Israeli poetry over the last few decades: reexamining the Akedah as a paradigm for understanding the role of trauma and fear in contemporary Jewish life.

Our Lying Patriarch

Oct 21, 2009 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Toledot

The evidence stared at us: a hot pink eye embedded in dark skin. “Which one of you did this?” my mother demanded. I, of course, knew the secret, having mashed the Bubbilicious bubble gum into a crack in the dark-stained paneling of our family room some hours earlier. My little sister, trying to be helpful, asked with what I knew to be complete innocence: “Well, what kind of gum is it?” Which was all our mother needed to hear to jump to a conclusion that brought her investigation to its end and my sister to her inevitable reprimand.