The Depth Behind The Deception
On this week’s parsha, Rav Schorr gives us some fascinating insights into the meaning behind Yaacov’s use of trickery and cunning to obtain the brachot from Yitzchak. He begins with the idea that each of the Avot and Imahot had the avodah of repairing the sin of eating from the Eitz Hada’at, but they each accomplished this in their own way, based on their particular avodah in this world. For example, Avraham worked through his middah of chesed, and Yitzchak through his middah of din.
Eisav and Yaacov, each through their own unique avodah, had the opportunity to follow in their father and grandfather’s path by working together. They were twins, formed from the same source, and in this, the Shelah Hakodesh tells us, they spiritually reflected the two trees in Gan Eden which were also formed from one root: the Etz HaDa’at and the Etz HaChayim. Yaacov, the “Ish Tam,” had within him aspects of the Etz HaChayim. Like Adam HaRishon, his Yetzer Hara was external. He lived with complete and total devotion in his tent of Torah. Eisav, on the other hand, had within him aspects of the Eitz Hada’at, the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. His fight with the Yetzer Hara was personal and internal. His challenge was using the good within him to to overcome his yetzer hara.
Ideally, the two brothers were meant to work together in the form of “sur me’ra v’oseh tov, distance yourself from bad, and do good.” Eisav would focus on the sur me’ra aspect, and Yaacov would focus on oseh tov. Together, they would have the twelve shevatim, six each, and continue Avraham’s mission, creating Am Yisrael.
Looked at from this perspective, we understand that there was no need for rivalry between the brothers. And yet, we see that only one was meant to receive the brachot. Why? This is because the bracha was not a prize to be won, it was the giving over of the physical tools that were needed for Eisav’s mission. Yaacov say in his tent, attached to the Torah. Physical keilim were not vital for the success of his mission. Eisav, however, had the avodah of going out into the world, and battling evil. Yitzchak wanted to give Eisav the bracha because he understood clearly Eisav’s mission and wanted to give him the help he needed to succeed.
It is for this reason that Yitzchak turns to Eisav, before he gives him the bracha, with a request (Bereisheit 27:3), “And now, sharpen your vessels, your sword and bow and go out into the field.” Yitzchak begins with the words “and now” which Rav Shorr tells us refers to teshuva. He was telling Eisav, the time has come to do teshuva, to earn your bracha, and to fully accept your spiritual mission as part of Avraham’s lineage. Yitzchak knew that Eisav’s ability to hunt and trap was given to him for spiritual purposes. He was given cunning in order to use it to fight the Yetzer Hara. The Midrash (Bereisheit Rabbah 65) gives these words cosmic meaning: “your vessels, is Bavel, your sword is Persia, your arrow is Greece, and the field is Edom.” These four galiyot represent the four aspects of evil in the world. Yitzchak was giving Eisav insight into his own abilities. He is telling Eisav that he has the potential ability to fight all four types of evil in the world. All he needs to do is make the choice to accept his spiritual mission.
However, that was not the choice that Eisav made. And this is where Rivka steps into the picture. Rivka, who grew up in the house of the master deceiver Betuel, had her a perspective born from her years of experience with hypocrisy. The Torah tells us (Bereisheit 25:28) that Yitzchak loved Eisav “for tazyid, the ability to hunt, was in his mouth.” Yitzchak recognized Eisav’s tremendous potential for fighting the yetzer hara with cunning. But what Rivka understood was that all that potential was only “b’piv,” in his mouth. Eisav had not internalized his mission or his tools. He had in fact, sold the birthright. He was only interested in Yitzchak’s mission when he was near Yitzchak, and it suited him. But he was not interested in dedicating his life to fighting evil.
And so, Rivka stepped up to do her part in repairing the damage done by the sin of Adam and Chava in Gan Eden. It was Chava, after all, who gave the fruit of the Etz HaDaat to Adam, and thereby caused good and evil to be mixed up within us. The task fell to Chava’s great-great granddaughters to separate out the evil from the good. It was Sara who had the determining role in removing Yishmael from her home. Likewise, it now fell to Rivka to remove Eisav and his hypocrisy from her home.
However, Eisav could not just be simply removed. His mission still needed to be accomplished. Someone else needed to do his job. Rivka understood what needed to be done with such spiritual clarity that when she told Yaacov to get the brachot from his father, there was the force of nevuah behind her words. Her request of Yaacov was not just that he get the brachot, but that he expand himself, change his very nature, and accept Eisav’s mission as his own. When Yaacov agreed to listen to her, he was taking the first step in being worthy of accepting that mission and gaining the brachot. Eisav was a master at honoring his father. Yaacov’s willingness to listen to his mother’s nevuah against all his own instincts put him on equal footing with Eisav in this arena.
However, Yaacov still needed to undergo a phenomenal change. He needed to adopt the tools of cunning and trickery which Eisav was given in order to fight the Yetzer Hara. And this is not at all what Yaacov wanted to do. It was against his nature, a challenge to his essential middah of emet. The midrash tells us that Yaacov went to get the brachot with a broken heart, davening the whole time to be saved from falsehood. When he says to his mother, “Maybe my father will feel me and I will be like a deceiver in his eyes (Bereisheit 27:12),” the Gra points out that that maybe is the maybe of ‘halavai’, I wish it would happen. Yaacov was forced into this deception by his mother’s nevuah, but until the last second he was praying that something would go wrong, and he wouldn’t have to go through with it.
He did not get his wish. He was able to ‘trick’ his father, but the trickery comes not through the goat skin on his arms, but through the new spiritual truth he is creating. Just before Yitzchak gives Yaacov the bracha, there is a fascinating pasuk in the Torah (Bereisheit 27:27). “And he (Yaacov) drew close, and he kissed him, and he (Yitzchak) smelled the smell of his clothes, and he blessed him, and he said, ‘See, the fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of the field which G-d blessed.”
What was this fragrance on Yaacov’s clothes, that affected Yitzchak so much? The Midrash says (Bereisheit Rabbah 65), based on a play on words in the Hebrew, that Yitzchak smelled not Yaacov’s clothes, but his treachery, and even the treachery and teshuva of distant progeny of his in the future. And that was what earned him the bracha. Yitzchak “ra’ah,” he saw and he understood, that the continuation of his avodah would be through the son that was standing before him. This was the son who was committed to the mission, and who would battle his Yetzer Hara with cunning and trickery. This was the son who could plant in the field, as Yitzchak had planted (Bereisheit 26:12), the good deeds that could become the vessels for Hashem’s influence to fill the world.
Yaacov, through his actions, had expanded himself. He was ready and able to take over the role that Eisav scorned when he sold his birthright to Yaacov. This was the spiritual truth behind his words, “I am Eisav, your firstborn.” This was the reason that Yitzchak gave him the brachot, and agreed that they were binding. Since Yaacov had now taken on Eisav’s spiritual mission, including the role of fathering all 12 tribes, as well as the necessity of going into galut, he would need the brachot that were originally intended to help Eisav fulfill this role.
R’ Leibele Eiger adds a final point. We know that each of the Avot had a different way of describing the Beit Hamikdash. Yitzchak described the Beit Hamikdah as a field. The sweet smell of the field which Yitzchak smelled on Yaacov was therefore the fragrance of the ketoret. One of the aspects of the ketoret is that it includes chelbana, a spice that smells bad. The ketoret produces the sweetest smell by mixing good and bad together in service of Hashem. And R’ Leibele points out that this sublime fragrance is only possible after the spices have been crushed.
Yaacov was forced to act deceptively, and it broke his heart. But he was acting to the best of his ability to serve Hashem. And in that act of breaking, he created a new self. Rashi says the fragrance that accompanied Yaacov into the Yitzchak’s room was the fragrance of Gan Eden. Sometimes, from our most broken places, we are able expand into the most exalted spaces.