Toldot (Genesis 25:19–28:9) Discussion by Barry Blum at KBS Shabbat, Nov. 22, 2025
Toldot means “generations” or “descendants.”
I asked to present today’s discussion because yesterday was my birthday. I am now 85 years old! I’m more amazed than you. I presented a d’rash on this parsha in 2022 and recently reread it. It’s actually pretty good!
My method of composing a d’rash is to read the portion, then look up the commentaries on that parsha, usually starting with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who was the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, and then other rabbinic resources. Even in the commentaries of learned rabbis there is a lot of plapl, פּלאַפּל, and even more quotations from obscure medieval rabbinic sources. Ultimately, each commentator emphasizes what is either relevant to them, or what supports their perspective. I have done the same.
My d’rash today will focus on greed and chosenness; two of the most destructive concepts ever conceived. A corollary of greed is rivalry, and a prerequisite of chosenness is otherness.
We’ll start with greed. The key events described in Toldot have to do with the relationship between twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac and Rebecca. There was definitely rivalry, and I see that there was also greed.
I have an older brother. His name is Robert and his Hebrew name is Shammai. Hillel and Shammai are two of the Talmud’s greatest intellectual antagonists and Shammai is generally considered to be more strict – but both are respected. My brother is in no way an antagonist nor is he strict. He is a retired neurosurgeon. I love him beyond words. And yet there was a time when we were not getting along and it was pretty horrible for both of us and our families. Even then, I knew and I know that he knew that we still loved each other. So this fraternal disagreement story is of personal interest to me. And before I go any further, I am not the Jacob or the Esau of the story, and neither is my brother Robert.
A major theme throughout Genesis is sibling rivalry. Jacob and Esau were said to have started their rivalry even before they were born.
We read in Bereshit (Genesis) Chapter 25 about Rebecca:
22. The children struggled within her. She said, “If the pain of pregnancy is so great, why did I pray for it?” So she went to the academy of Shem and Ever to inquire of God.
23. God told Shem to say to her, “The progenitors of two nations are in your womb. Two powers will diverge the moment they emerge from within you. Thus, the upper hand will pass from one power to the other and back again. Nonetheless, even when the elder has the upper hand, the elder and his descendants will always serve the younger and his descendants.”
24. Her pregnancy reached full term; there were twins in her womb.
25. The first one emerged ruddy and full of hair all over like a woolen cloak that is covered with hair, so everyone present at his birth called him Esau [Eisav, from asui—“completed”].
26. His brother then emerged, and his hand was grasping Esau’s heel. God named this second son Jacob [Ya’akov, from akev—“heel”]. Isaac was in his 60th year when Rebecca gave birth to them.
Typical of Bereshit’s stories, the mother (Rebecca) loved one son (Isaac) more, and the father (Isaac) loved the other son (Esau) more. This was not happenstance. This story is presented to us as one way of explaining to us what we humans experience in our own lives, one way or another. Sibling rivalry, parental favoritism. In Biblical times the family treasure, the family birthright, goes automatically to the firstborn. But the rabbis tell us that Jacob somehow understood that HaShem had intended that the Abrahamic lineage was meant to go through him and not through Esau. Jacob “bought” that birthright from his brother in exchange for some “red stuff.” Esau agreed to this and Jacob gave him “bread and red lentil stew” in exchange for the birthright.
Years later when Isaac was growing old and dying, he asked Esau, still his favorite son, to go out and hunt some wild game to feed him his favorite food so that he might bless Esau with the birthright. Esau went out to hunt. Rebecca, overhearing the conversation, convinced Jacob to serve his father his favorite dish (goat stew) which Rebecca prepared. Rebecca knew that Isaac would lay his hands on his favorite son to perform the blessing, so she dressed her favorite son in some coarse, hairy goatskin to fool Isaac, who was by then blind.
The trick worked and Jacob received the blessing. But within minutes, Esau returned home and confronted his father.
In Genesis Chapter 27 we learn that Isaac was at first confused and then disappointed. He thought that he had just blessed Esau. Esau was at first confused but quickly became angry. He begged his father for a blessing and Isaac eventually complied.
“The fat places of earth can still be your dwelling. [You can still have] the dew of heaven. But you shall live by your sword. You may have to serve your brother, But when your complaints mount up, You will throw his yoke off your neck.”
Esau remained angry with Jacob and muttered threats against him.
That’s when Rebecca counseled Jacob to leave town.
How brilliant and prescient! In the middle of a discussion of sibling rivalry, the Torah predicts that the descendants of Esau will possess the “fat of the land” (is this the vast oil reserves of the Middle East?). Furthermore Esau is told “when you see Jacob or his descendants sinning and are therefore rightly aggrieved that they were the primary recipients of the blessings, you will be permitted to throw his yoke off your neck.” Hmm? I wonder what that might refer to.
In my 2022 d’rash I explored this recurrent theme of enmity between brothers. The most vicious battles and wars always seem to be between members of the same or related families. There must have been cheating, lying and deception going on [in our ancient neighborhood] as well as warfare, and therefore our sages must have felt it necessary to describe or even create some rationale to explain what led to the circumstances that the Hebrew people found themselves in at the time of the writing of these stories. Again, the rivalry was, from my perspective, a form of greediness for power, maybe greediness for historical fame, or greediness for familial importance/predominance.
I posit that Torah (at least Toldot) teaches that deception and warfare may be inevitable but they are useless. I maintain that no one wins wars. Maybe individuals or communities or even nations win battles, but there has never been and maybe there will never be any winning of an all out war.
Examples of both the craziness and futility of war:
Let’s look at Toldot:
Jacob and Esau begin their fight while still in the womb! How nuts is that?! Later, Jacob, who failed to get born first, cheats his brother of his birthright with a pot of lentil stew! A clear demonstration of how petty the beginning of any war is.
Let’s look at the first mention of murder in the Torah, Cain and Abel:
They disagreed about what kind of offering God really wants. So one murders the other! We still do that today – one religion claims that they know what God wants and they are willing to kill anyone who has a different belief about what God wants. Or even what God’s name is.
Let’s look at Abraham’s sons, Ishmael and Isaac:
At Sarah’s insistence, Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, were sent away (to one of the wells that Esau went to later). Did Isaac “win” and Ishmael “lose?” Did Isaac ever learn anything about sibling rivalry? Their descendants are still at war.
Let’s look at the American Civil War:
Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, but the Confederate flag has flown all over the south since then. Slavery was abolished but Jim Crow took its place and there are many who still are blocking American children from learning about this. Is that war really over?
Let’s look at World War I, “The War to End All Wars:”
The Allies vs. the Central Powers. The end of the war saw Germany humiliated which led directly to the rise of Hitler. Europe and the Middle East were divided by the victors into many unnatural nations that created even more animosities. Just over 20 years after the “end” of WWI, WWII began.
Let’s look at World War II:
A “good” war? Maybe. It may have saved Judaism from total annihilation even though an estimated 70–85 million people perished. The good guys won but since then, former allies have been fighting with each other and former enemies have been allied with each other. And now even Nazism, Fascism and anti-Semitism are arising again in Europe and in the United States, despite our belief that we won.
Let’s look at the last national election:
Need I say more? It’s not over either.
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels written in the early 1700s as a political satire. The war of the Lilliputians was fought over which end of a soft-boiled egg should be broken!
I believe that a key purpose of stories like those of Toldot are to help us understand the causes of strife in the world (and maybe do something about that). And I derive that greed is a principal cause of strife. Jacob is one of Judaism’s patriarchs. It would not be fitting for a Patriarch to be greedy. But is this an example of elevating bad behavior into good behavior, to justify in this case greedy behavior?
Was it greed that caused the twins to fight, to compete? Jacob was said to have understood that HaShem intended him to have the birthright – equivalent to priestlyness. That’s a high-minded perspective. Or was it greed that caused Jacob to want to be the first born? That’s low-minded.
Toldot reminds us that:
• Mothers and fathers can have favorites.
• Human beings do deceive, cheat and lie to one another.
• Excuses for bad behavior are made in the name of a Higher Purpose.
And in our own nation today, greed is popularized and even celebrated:
• “American Greed” is one of the more popular TV shows in America.
• The never-ending greedy behavior of the Trump family is another of the most popular shows in America.
In regard to greed, Leah Itman, Gloria’s mother, used to say: “I don’t mind if you make a profit from me, but you shouldn’t make a living off of me.”
CHOSENNESS
Besides greed as a cause of strife there is “otherness” and its corollary “chosenness.” It’s easiest to start a war if there is “another” with whom we can disagree or fight. Even if the war is within the same family, one side of the family needs to become the “other.”
When I asked AI about “chosen people” it described a religious concept referring to a group of people believed to have been selected by God for a special purpose. In Judaism our core belief is that we have a special covenant with God, established through figures like Abraham. It is our mission to worship God, uphold His laws, and be a “light unto the nations” by exemplifying a moral code to the world. The concept is not seen as one of superiority, but as a charge of responsibility to live up to a divine standard.
Now take the next step. If one is to be chosen, does that require that there be a non-chosen?
Focusing on Toldot, Esau was born first, thus he was “chosen.” Jacob had to steal that birthright of the first-born to get “chosen” himself. Later on in life, Esau asked to be blessed/chosen. He was, but for a different role.
Rabbi Sacks points this out and then goes on to a deep and meaningful discussion of chosenness. What is remarkable to Rabbi Sacks about Esau’s request to also be chosen is not what happens but how the Torah describes it. In this presentation of the encounter between Isaac and Esau I have taken some liberties with the text to better demonstrate Rabbi Sacks’ view of the Torah’s perspective:
• Esau comes in to Isaac’s tent right after Jacob leaves. He is happy to be bringing a dish of game that he knows his beloved father will truly enjoy.
• Hearing Esau speak, Isaac, who is blind, realizes that he had been fooled and had given the birthright blessing to Jacob – not to his favorite Esau.
• Esau, whom we understand is a hunter and warrior and in general a really tough guy is devastated. He breaks into tears and literally pleads to his father for some kind of blessing. Esau pitifully asks his father, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”
• Isaac doesn’t seem to have anything left. “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with corn and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”
• Esau weeps aloud and unabashedly begs: “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father.”
• Finally, Isaac does bless Esau (as I mentioned before):
“The fat places of earth can still be your dwelling. [You can still have] the dew of heaven. But you shall live by your sword. You may have to serve your brother, But when your complaints mount up, You will throw his yoke off your neck.”
This is a blessing both sons can enjoy without the one diminishing the other. Jacob’s supremacy will last only as long as he does not misuse it. If he acts with unwarranted high-handedness, Esau will simply “throw his yoke off” his neck. There is a basis here for coexistence. Something of the deepest possible consequence is being intimated in the story of Esau. The choice of one does not mean the rejection of the other. Esau is not chosen, but he is also not rejected. He too will have his blessing, his heritage, his land (… and his oil).
Rabbi Sacks continues:
Once asked, “Am I loved more than my brothers or sisters? Less?”, the question cannot but lead to sibling rivalry. The question is an invalid question. It should not be asked. Love is not quantifiable. It rejects comparisons. Jacob is Jacob, heir to the covenant. Esau is Esau, doing what he does, being what he is, enjoying his own heritage and blessing. What a simple truth and how beautifully, subtly, it is conveyed. It is one of the Torah’s most profound messages to humanity – and how deeply the world needs to hear it today.
It is not that we feel that Esau was the rightful heir of the covenant; that history has taken a wrong turn; that things should have been otherwise. Manifestly this is not so. Rebecca favours Jacob, and in Bereshit, mothers know their children better than do their fathers. Esau – the hunter, the man who “despised his birthright” once he had sold it – was clearly not destined to be the faithful follower of an invisible, transcendent God. The Abrahamic covenant must surely pass through Jacob, the child described as “a quiet man, staying among the tents.” Why then does the Torah go out of its way, using unusual devices of style, to enlist our sympathies with Esau, to enter his world and see things from his perspective?
Torah teaches a message, albeit one that demands a certain maturity to appreciate, namely that even heroes have their faults and non-heroes their virtues, and that those virtues are important to God. “The Holy One, blessed be He, does not withhold the reward of any creature” said the Sages. The Esau who emerges from the Torah has none of Abraham’s faith, Isaac’s steadfastness or Jacob’s persistence. He is carved of an altogether coarser grain. But he is not without his humanity, his filial loyalty and a decent if quick-tempered disposition. To be chosen means – as Jacob discovers – a life of high demands and great hardship. Love chooses. But choice creates estrangement.
Something of the deepest possible consequence is being intimated in the story of Esau. The choice of one does not mean the rejection of the other. Not accidentally are our sympathies drawn to Esau, as if to say for all time to all humanity – not all are chosen for the rigours of the Abrahamic covenant, but all are precious to God, each has his or her place in the scheme of things, each has his or her virtues, talents, gifts, and each is worthy in the eyes of God.
As Psalm 145:9 states: “The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.”
So I still ask, if HaShem has compassion for all, what purpose is there for war?
Shabbat Shalom