Which Side Are You On?

By Rabbi Joshua (combinately known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

Rivkah, during her pregnancy with Ya’akov and Eisav, has a particularly difficult time. The Torah says, “And the children crushed within her” (Bereishis 25:22). The word for crushed, “vayisrotzatzu,” according to Rashi, comes from the word “ratzah,” to run. He cites a midrash which explains that when she passed by a study hall, Yaakov tried to get out, and when she passed by a house of idol worship Eisav tried to get out. Not understanding what this meant to indicate, she went to inquire from God via a prophet, to explain. The prophet told her that she was carrying two children, who would develop into two nations in conflict with each other. Apparently, this explanation mollified her. This midrash is obviously symbolic. How are we to understand its message?

Rav Eliyahu Bloch, in his Peninei Da’as, explains that women, when pregnant, undergo psychological changes in accordance with the inclination of the child they are carrying. That is why we find, for example, women craving certain food during their pregnancy, which they don’t usually crave for. The matriarchs were very sensitive to these changes, and understood these changes as indicating the nature of the child they were carrying. When Rivkah passed by a study hall, she would feel an intensified desire to achieve holiness, and when she passed by a place of idol worship, she felt a strong inclination in that direction. Thinking that she was carrying only one child, she thought that by nature its personality would be ambivalent and undetermined, and ultimately not seriously funneled in any direction. When she was told that she was carrying two children, her mind was set at ease. At least one of the children would be inclined to holiness, and even in regard to the other one, who was inclined to idolatry, she felt it would be possible to influence him to change. A child with no definite focus, however, would pose a much greater challenge and be much harder to change.

This explanation of the midrash helps us understand what Yitzchok meant to do when he sent for Eisav, to bless him before he died. As many commentators point out, Yitzchok was aware that Eisav was not a righteous person, and we find, immediately before the section recounting the giving of the blessings, that Eisav’s taking of wives from the daughters of Cana’an – who were idolaters – caused a bitterness of spirit to Yitzchok and Rivkah.

When the Torah begins its account of the blessings by saying that when Yitzchok became old, his eyes dimmed from seeing, it is, as Rav Chaim Drukman explains, not merely telling us that he was becoming blind. A person who is blind often sees things in a deeper way than someone who sees objective reality. He develops an inner vision, through which he sees deeper than people with actual physical vision. Rav Kook, zt”l, in Igros Reiyah (vol. 2, no. 555) says that Rav Yosef, a Talmudic sage who became blind, would look at the inner nature of things. He demonstrates this by bringing a number of examples from the Talmud. In Yeshiva University there was a very big talmid chacham, Rav Yosef Wanefsky, zt”l, who was legally blind from birth. I remember that at his funeral in the yeshivah, both Rav Aharon Soloveichik zt”l, and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l, said that Rav Wanefsky, although physically blind, saw deeper than most people. Yitzchok, with his penetrating vision, saw the good aspect of Eisav, and, through giving him a blessing, sought to develop it, and bring him to repentance. Rav Kook says that the righteous combat evil by increasing the good, and this is what Yitzchok sought to do with Eisav. By focusing on the inner spark of good that Eisav had, as brought out by the way he administered to his father, he sought to effect an overall change in him. This is, in fact, what Rivkah, after receiving explanation of the tension she felt during pregnancy, hoped to accomplish with the child inside her who had an inclination to idolatry. This approach to people with an errant character, says Rav Drukman, is a message for generations, to always look for the inner spark of goodness that each person has, having been created in the image of God, and seek to develop it.