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April 25, 2026 - Dennis Prager Show
01:37:00
Mistakes, Morality, and Consequences: The Jacob and Esau Story - Genesis 27:1-27:46
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, MahmoudAshraf/mms-300m-1130-forced-aligner, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.00, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Honest Mistakes vs Sinful Errors 00:06:44
On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
Every one of us makes mistakes in life.
There are two forms of mistakes.
There's a simple, honest mistake that almost you couldn't help making.
And there's a mistake you could have helped making, but you willed to do because you erred or you sinned.
Okay, so let's call it sinful mistake and non-sinful mistake.
Okay?
That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
Go to Dennis Prager.com.
All right.
Since so many of you are new, let me give you a very brief introduction.
First, when I teach Torah, it is not to me a purely academic thing.
I am a religious Jew, and it is my holy work, so I wear a kippah.
So I just want you to understand why it's on.
And I am teaching the God willing, because it's going to take a long time at the rate.
We're going.
I'm going to teach the whole Torah.
And if we finish the Torah, I'd like to do the whole Tanakh, all the Hebrew scriptures.
Then, when I turn 300, who knows?
I'll tell you the truth, though.
It is so important to me that no matter how much else is going on in my life, I continue to do this.
It was really nip and tuck in my own personal life whether I would do it this summer because I have to write a book.
I have to finish a book that I've been contracted to write and promising would be out in a year for the last five years.
And of course, daily radio takes a great deal.
I have a bigger family than last year.
It takes a great deal of time since I'm a serious daddy and a serious husband.
And they take time, all these things.
But this is something I will not forego.
It, among other things, forces me.
To study Torah.
And before I get into today's portion, I'll tell you an interesting thing from the Talmud.
The Talmud is second only to the Torah in holiness in Judaism.
And it's huge.
It's about the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
It has everything in it Jewish law, Jewish ideas, Jewish legends.
It's just everything.
Anyway, in different places in the Talmud, the rabbis who wrote it, offer their belief as to what God will ask a Jew when he or she dies.
What will be the first question God asks you?
And in different parts, it's got different questions.
One of them is, did you do your business affairs honestly?
Another one is, why did you not partake of every permitted pleasure?
It's a sin to deny yourself permitted pleasures in Judaism.
A third one is, did you raise children, if you could have?
A fourth one is, did you look forward to redemption?
And a fifth one is, did you set regular times for Torah study?
And I was pretty good.
On the first four.
Raising kids, I hope others will have to judge.
I believe I conduct my business affairs honestly.
I'm pretty scrupulous about that.
I look forward to the redemption, I probably could do a little more of.
What was the other one?
Oh, definitely partake in all permitted pleasures.
I mean, it's not even a question.
He won't even bother asking, actually.
He will ask, how come you partook in some non permitted pleasures?
That would be my problem.
But I was not honestly able to answer the fifth one.
And that is that I set regular times to study Torah.
And I realized I had to force myself.
You know, I mean, I'm sure you all have that.
We are, nearly all of us, are naturally lazy.
In fact, I'm just curious, is there anyone in this room who does not have to battle laziness?
Would you raise your hand?
I'm serious.
Some of you may naturally not be.
One, two.
There are three liars in the room, and the rest of you.
No, I really, I believe that there are people who don't have that battle, but.
Out of the hundred whatever in this room, three is about the right percentage.
The rest of us are naturally stay in bed all day type human beings, and you have to force yourself.
Yes?
Could you ask, what is the thing about looking forward to the death of God?
In other words, well, specifically, in Hebrew it's tzipita li yeshua.
The question was, what did that one mean?
You have to look forward, you have to anticipate.
The actual Hebrew word is salvation, but I didn't use salvation because it's so.
Christologically understood today as salvation for the next world, and it's this world's salvation that it's talking about.
Basically, did you look forward to the Messiah coming?
Is my best understanding of it.
Did you hope and look forward to the Messiah?
Well, I said I'm not good at that one.
I said that one, and it's not something that preoccupies me daily.
I didn't know what I did.
I more look forward to my show each day, frankly, between the two.
Thank you.
Anyway, So I forced myself this way, and it's also a great way, a great vehicle for me to learn, and hopefully for you.
Particular and Universal Tension 00:04:46
I began, obviously, with Genesis 1.
And those of you coming in anew are in no way penalized.
It doesn't matter.
It's truly like, and I must say, I must separate the two dramatically, like a soap opera, where you can tune in at any time and get the hang of it.
But even more so here, you can come in at any time.
But just in case you are not at all familiar, which is probably unlikely, with anything in Genesis, we begin with God's creating the world.
In fact, I discussed Genesis 1.1 for hours.
Genesis chapter 1.
Even Genesis 1.1, I believe, took a while.
If today and other days interest you, you probably want to get the back tapes of the other times, and they are all available.
It's very important to me that they be so.
Then, as I noted, God did not begin with Jews, whereas the New Testament begins with Jesus.
And the Quran begins with Muhammad.
The Bhagavad Gita is with great Hindu heroes and gods.
The Jewish Bible does not begin with Jews.
And it is a very powerful point.
The reason is really beyond the course right now.
I wrote an article on that, if you're interested, in the previous issue of my Ultimate Issues, which is outside.
The article is Why Are There Jews?
And I develop the point, why doesn't the Bible begin with Jews?
It doesn't.
It begins with Adam and Eve, who were not Jews.
It goes to Noah, who was not a Jew.
The first Jew, as it were, is Abraham.
And why does God choose Abraham?
The Torah is totally silent on that issue.
We learn nothing about Abraham prior to God's choosing of Abraham.
And it is the seed of Abraham who will be responsible for carrying on the covenant.
with God.
This unique thing in human history of a divine human covenant through which all of humanity will be blessed.
As I pointed out at the time, the blessing to Abraham and the Hebrew or Jewish blessing is a universalist one with particular means.
This is, by the way, critical to understanding Judaism.
Judaism is a tension between the particular and the universal.
And most Jews do not negotiate it well because it is such a tightrope to walk.
Many Jews fall off the tightrope and become either too provincial, only caring about Jews and Judaism, or too universal and only care about humanity and couldn't care less about being Jewish.
Judaism is truly a tightrope in this way, where you are to be Jewish, but you are to be Jewish for a universal end, not for a particularist end.
The purpose of Judaism is universal.
But what a lot of Jews have done is taken the universal and made it everything.
And so that's.
It's important enough to get on tape.
That's what it is.
That is really what has happened in much of Jewish history, wherein the.
The imbalance has taken place in many Jews' lives.
The purpose of the covenant with God is to have the world blessed, to have the world come to the realization that there is one universal God who is the source of life, who is the source of good and evil, who is a demander of goodness, and who is a judge of all the earth.
That is why Judaism never cared to see the world Jewish, but it does care deeply to see the world monotheist, to come to recognize the God of Abraham, Isaac, and the world.
and Jacob.
And indeed, that is why the Torah is of very great relevance to Christians and to Muslims, even though many Muslims don't study it.
Christians are more aware of the Jewish roots of Christianity today than Muslims are aware of the Jewish roots of Islam.
The reasons for that are sociological much more than theological, but they are partially theological.
After all, Muhammad was not a Jew and Jesus was.
So there is a very important distinction in that regard.
Family Life Is Not Always Wonderful 00:08:28
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
So God, God tells Abraham to leave and to move, to go and found this, this new society, as it were, through monotheism, through God's, the oneness of this one God and it, and he is tested a number of times.
He has a fascinating story with his wife Sarah, Which we have gone over very, very in depth.
After all, I am teaching it verse by verse.
Then they have, to their amazement, indeed to their laughter, a child named Laughter.
Yitzchak, or Isaac, means to laugh in Hebrew.
So it's Abraham, laughter, and Jacob.
It would be a far better way of understanding what it is.
And even Jacob actually has a name, a meaning.
It comes from to follow or heal.
Because he grabbed the heel of Esau coming out, the twins.
One of the motifs of Genesis is family life is not always wonderful.
I have mastered British understatement in saying that, because family life in Genesis is not merely not wonderful, it stinks.
Which should give you, by the way, some degree of solace if your family life was not quite a Norman Rockwell painting.
Most people don't have a particularly wonderful family life.
Most people don't get abused either.
Most people fall in the middle of not wonderful and not terrible, but a real mixture of wonderful and terrible, if you will.
And I think that Genesis, the wisdom of Genesis, is very helpful.
I mean, if the patriarchs of the Jewish people had such difficult family lives, well then, if you're not quite an Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, don't feel all that bad if you didn't have the best relation with your brother or sister.
After all, you probably had it even better.
Very few of you have been thrown into a pit where hopefully you were either eaten by all sorts of snakes and insects and rodents.
Or you were sold into slavery, or in the case that we're going to come up to today, where your older brother actually wanted to kill you, and your mother had to figure out a way to have you flee.
Most of you had better relations with your siblings than they did, and very few of you felt that God told them that, very few of your fathers felt that God told them to kill you as a sacrifice, which is what happened to Isaac.
Isaac has a particularly sad life, clearly, as I showed, very powerfully attached to his mother Sarah.
And as we will see today, without question, the dominant person in his marriage was his wife, Rebecca, who also comes off by far as the most developed of the matriarchs.
One of the things that I have shown, and I have great credibility because I am not particularly enamored of feminism, and thank you.
That was a chuckle for the camera of agreement.
But what I am, I hope, is fair.
And a fair reading of the texts, of the text, not a feminist reading, just a fair reading, reveals the power of the matriarchs.
Sarah knew better how to have God's covenant carried on than Abraham did.
He was quite happy to have it go through Ishmael.
As, again, these are all things that I've pointed out in the text.
I'm just giving you a background here.
She was quite, she was the one adamant that it go through Isaac.
Again, Isaac was enamored of Esau.
I mean, what a pick!
It's really dramatic that the great patriarch Isaac favored Esau, who was not a terrible man by any means, but who's certainly not a sublime or exalted one.
It was Rebekah, through tricking her husband, who made certain that it would be, in fact, the one who should have gotten the blessings of birthright, and that is Jacob.
And by the way, as I pointed out in one of the most powerful.
Chapters of the Bible.
How Rebecca was chosen.
She was chosen solely on the basis of character.
I mean, everybody else seems to have been picked through family or arbitrarily, but not her.
Rebecca was picked solely because she met all the tests that the messenger, whom we don't exactly know the identity of, though it's usually considered Eliezer, of Abraham.
Was figured out or put forward as a test.
It's a chapter of extraordinary power, and the messenger is a genius.
As you recall, I showed you the different stories he was told and the story that he told then Laban, whom unfortunately we will meet again.
And so now we are at the point of Isaac, who is getting old, and you will recall that Jacob bought the birthright.
From Esau, his older twin brother.
By the way, so much for genes.
I think that a very powerful message of Genesis is that genes don't mean much.
That what matters is values.
I mean, if genes were determinative, then Esau and Jacob should have been similar.
They're unbelievably different.
Twins, no less.
Not only are they siblings, but they're twins.
What matters is the values that you give your children, not the genes that you give your children.
There are people with magnificent genes who do awful things and people with awful genes who channel those awful genes into beautiful work.
Okay, so now we come to chapter.
I reviewed 27 with you last time, those of you who were with me.
Now I want to do it verse by verse with new insights that I have in the meantime come up with to help you.
And we start with Genesis 27.
When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, My son, he said to him, My son.
Now you will notice that it says his older son or big son, he is not called the firstborn.
Because who is speaking here?
The narrator.
The narrator, whether it's God, whether it's Moses, the narrator, or whether it's someone else that we just don't know.
And I am leaving that issue quite aside through this whole course.
But what is interesting here, the Torah itself is taking a position on the birthright sale in this sentence.
You get it?
Because what if it had said, and this is what I mean, this is the way we're learning it for those of you who are new.
Acknowledged Cheating by the Brother 00:06:58
The only way to.
To learn text is to ask why it chooses this word and not another word?
Why does it say he called his big or older son and not his firstborn?
It's the Torah text way of saying to you, we, the Torah, recognize the sale as valid.
No, there's a Hebrew word for firstborn, Bechor, and it's not used.
And he asked that the Bechorah be sold to him.
So he is the Bechor.
He got that Bechor right.
Okay, that's very important.
He is chronologically the older.
That's what it says here.
That you can't deny.
You can't sell chronology, but you can sell status.
So the status is acknowledged.
So it's a very interesting question here.
What does the Torah think of what Jacob did by buying the birthright the way he did for soup from Esau?
Now, to the Torah's credit, it leads you truly to believe that it is not a very positive thing that he did, and the fooling of his father is not regarded positively, and you will see, of course, later.
He suffers for it for about 20 years.
But that doesn't mean suffering from something doesn't mean that you did something necessarily bad.
Let me give you an example.
I can't believe it.
I have somebody to thank for water.
Here is a very interesting issue in life of whether, of when we pay for something that we did wrong, it's because we are, it's because of justice or because of life.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
It's not your fault.
You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864 644 1900.
Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
Call 864 644 1900.
Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Every one of us makes mistakes in life.
There are two forms of mistakes.
There's a simple, honest mistake that almost you couldn't help making.
And there's a mistake you could have helped making, but you willed to do because you erred or you sinned.
Okay, so let's call it sinful mistake and non-sinful mistake.
Okay?
You pay in life.
For either one is what the Torah is saying.
When it is acknowledged that Jacob will spend a long time paying for what he did, the general assumption is that he's getting back a punishment for a bad deed.
He's getting back a consequence for a deed.
That I'm willing to acknowledge.
In other words, he gets cheated by Laban, right?
Those of you who have read further know that he gets cheated by his uncle.
Now, the general assumption.
The general reading historically is always, well, you see, he cheated his brother, his uncle cheats him.
And that's, it's partially true, but not fully true.
What is true is that the way you live has consequences, even if you didn't sin.
Cheat is a sinful term, clearly.
But I don't know if he cheated his brother.
I have been, and I am totally, totally open to criticizing biblical figures.
I mean, if the Torah is, I certainly am.
And the tradition certainly is negative on what he did.
But I don't see it quite that way, and I don't want to go over what I said last time, but very basically, if your brother were a ne'er-do-well, not a bad human being, but basically a ruffian, okay, and you had the values that you knew were important to carry on the values of your parents, and by sheer factor of birth,
he came out first by a matter of minutes, because they're twins, or not even minutes, since one was holding on, maybe a minute.
And you knew that he couldn't care less about that particular thing, that he would prefer lentil soup to it.
Why would it be so wrong, morally wrong, for you to say, how about the thing you don't value at all?
I'd like it.
Here's soup.
If you valued it, would you trade that for soup?
Remember, I pointed out the guy was not dying.
It wasn't either the soup or death.
You'll starve to death if you don't give me the birthright.
It wasn't like that.
It was, what do you think of it?
You think it's worth a bowl of soup?
Sure, take it.
And it even says he despised it.
Got a note down.
I'm sorry, because if I break in the middle, I'm dead.
But please note it, because I don't want to let it go.
And so you have here with Jacob, I think, a possible defense of what he did without, however, denying that it was, if not cheating, tricky.
Okay?
Or not the act of a saintly character.
It was a devious sort of thing, but maybe deviousness was what is called for.
Maybe he acted appropriately.
But I do want to make the point for your own lives, because if the Torah doesn't speak to our lives, I don't want to give the course.
I obviously believe it does.
The difference is this, about consequences.
Even when you err in life without any ill intent or even without free choice, you will pay the consequences.
It's, I mean, there are just innumerable, if you raise your kid wrong, even though you meant truly to raise your kid right, it has consequences.
If you choose the wrong spouse, not through any deliberate foolishness on your part, but just because how did you know who to pick at 22 or 32 or 42?
And you picked wrong, when life then becomes very difficult for you with that spouse or with that kid, you're not being punished.
But you are having consequences as a result of your act.
Okay?
That's what I think the Torah is speaking of more than just moral consequences.
That there are consequences to the way we behave in life, and to a certain extent, that which comes around goes around.
Or is it that which goes around comes around?
Consequences Beyond Moral Judgment 00:13:38
That's the way it goes.
That's what it goes.
So anyway, I wanted you to realize that consequences is not the same thing as punishment.
Okay.
Now.
This is the Torah's way by calling Esau the older son of saying, we, the Torah, acknowledge the birthright is now Jacob's.
So he calls his older son to him, my son, and he answered, here I am.
By the way, here I am.
Himene is what Abraham answered to God.
It's what Isaac answered to Abraham.
It's as if it's almost like, yes, sir, in our parlance.
And he said, I'm old now and I don't know how soon I may die.
Take your gear, your quiver, and bone, go out into the open and hunt me some game.
Then prepare a dish for me such as I like and bring it to me to eat so that I may give you my innermost blessing before I die.
As Sarna points out, in the Hebrew is, my soul will bless you.
This is a blessing from the religious essence of my life that I will be giving to you.
It's a divine blessing.
And that we know it's a divine blessing, you will see when Rebekah recounts what Isaac said to Esau.
To Jacob.
You with me?
The words she used will make it clear it is a divine blessing that will be given.
So this is a very big deal.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
It's not your fault.
You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864 644 1900.
Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
Call 864 644 1900.
Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
By the way, it also is interesting.
Again, I must say, I defended Isaac in a very passionate way, you may recall, that we all can't be Abrahams or Jacobs in life.
That some of us, our role in life is to be an Isaac.
So I don't have an anti-Isaac bias.
Having said that, however, you have to acknowledge that.
Isaac does not come across here as the most elevated of people.
He is going to give the most important blessing of his life to his eldest son, and what does he ask for?
A good hunt.
I mean, doesn't it seem to be a rather dramatic juxtaposition?
Go out with your quiver and bow, get me some really good game, make a nice dinner that I really love, and then I'm going to give you the innermost blessing of my life.
Do you understand?
It's really a very dramatic juxtaposition here.
You would think, go get washed, say a prayer, and then come into my room so that I may bless you.
No, go out, kill some good game for me, and my favorite dish, and then I'll be prepared to have my soul bless you.
This is not, with all respect, and I really do respect him, say that much for Isaac.
Okay, 27-5.
Rifka, Rebecca have been listening.
I'll tell you, it's a good thing these wives are listening in on these things.
You recall with Sarah listening in, and it's a very powerful thing, as I told you earlier about the matriarchs.
Rebecca had been listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau.
When Esau had gone out into the open to hunt game to bring home, Rebecca said to her son Jacob, I overheard your father speaking to your brother Esau, saying, Bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat, that I may bless you, with the Lord's approval.
You see, she adds that.
That means this is how we know this is the divine blessing with the Lord's approval before I die.
Now, let me just note for a moment before I continue what Rebecca says to Jacob.
It's a very difficult issue here.
What if Rebecca didn't do anything?
Are you clear with what I'm asking?
God's plan is clear.
God's plan is that the tradition go Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
Right?
Well, what if Rebekah didn't interfere and Esau would have gotten the blessing that ultimately Jacob got?
What would have happened?
I can't answer that question, but I can tell you that it certainly argues, and I did make this point last time, for human intervention to help God's plans work themselves out.
You can't sit back and say, well, God wills it, so I don't have to do anything.
I just wanted to make one more defense here for what Rebecca did.
Or you might say that he would have given the blessing and God simply wouldn't have honored it.
But that raises its own other problems about what blessings are in their minds.
Anyway, just think about it because she really does seem to have to get involved.
So now, my son, verse 8, listen carefully as I instruct you.
Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for your father, such as he likes.
Then take it to your father to eat in order that he may bless you before he dies.
Jacob answered his mother, Rebekah, But my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am smooth-skinned.
If my father touches me, I will appear to him as a trickster, and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.
Now, I have a comment for you here.
What does Jacob say?
I'll appear before my father as a trickster.
Now, it strikes me that this implies that Jacob did not see himself as a trickster.
If he did, he would have said something like this.
My father will realize that I am a trickster.
Isn't there a difference?
I will seem to you as a, or you will realize that I am a, is very different.
I appear before you as a doctor, or you will realize I am a doctor, is totally different.
In the first case, I'm really not a doctor.
I just appear that way.
That is another argument that I have for he doesn't think he's tricking his brother Esau.
My brother's tricking me.
See, people forget this when they talk about who's tricking who.
They made a deal.
You don't like the way it was done?
That's a separate issue.
But the fact is he couldn't care less about the birthright and sold it for lentil soup.
And he did sell it, and it was a valid contract, which the Torah honors as a valid contract.
We already saw that in verse 1.
So who's tricking whom?
The fact that Esau is going to show up as the Bacor after making the deal, he's the trickster.
At least, at the very least, that is the way Jacob sees himself.
I am not a trickster.
He is.
And how do you undo a trickster if not with a trick?
Right?
Wrong.
Ah, here is the issue with the wrong.
What could he have done?
He could have gone to his father and told the truth.
Should I read you correctly?
Right.
He could have gone and said, Dad, there's something I need to tell you.
Esau sold me the Bachor.
He sold me the firstborn.
Status.
And you can't give him the blessing.
Right, and give the explanation, exactly.
And give it, it was a valid deal, he couldn't care less about this, and so on.
However, all it would have done is made his father miserable.
His father liked Esau.
It wasn't like, it looked like he was looking for an excuse, although there are those who argue that he really knew, and it's a very complex thing.
I think the risk.
Rebecca knew her husband.
If Rebecca thought he should do this, remember, this is not Jacob's idea.
Okay?
That's very important.
It is entirely Rebecca's idea that he do this.
Okay, all right.
I don't like to have a dialogue like this, but she says he went along with it.
Yes, he did go along with it.
As my son said tonight, he was torn.
He's either going to disobey his mother or fool his father.
That was what his dilemma was.
Plus, he had the realization that he was right.
So I'm defending Jacob on this, and I defend Rebekah too.
Even though it's not a happy situation, we would all love life to be much nicer.
Where Esau would say, you know, Hey, me carry on monotheism?
Give me a break.
I like women and hunting.
Here, darling Jacob, you take the birthright.
Why should chronology determine something so significant as values?
That would have been a great monologue on Esau's part.
And we would have all been very happy, and it would have been the end of the story.
But life doesn't work out that way.
Not your life, not my life, and not their life.
So that's the beauty of it.
It's very complex.
What do you do when things are complex?
Very rarely does the pure, nicest-sounding approach work.
And Rebecca felt it certainly wouldn't here.
And again, it is his idea.
But remember my point here, that he says I will appear in his eyes as a trickster, not he will realize I'm a trickster, gives you an idea of Jacob's own self-portrait.
Now, Sarna and most of the others don't agree with my reading.
Everybody has a negative view of what Jacob did.
Just to tell you that, here is what Sarna in the Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Torah says.
At the present stage of his character development, Jacob seems to be more concerned with the consequences of detection than with the morality of the act.
Okay?
That is what he reads in this sentence.
In other words, he, going with you, he should have said, that's not moral.
That's what Sarna says.
That's what you say.
That's what most people say.
He should have said, hey, mom, that's just not right.
I can't fool dad, good old dad.
And instead, all he says is, hey, he'll curse me instead.
And that's what he says.
At this stage of his moral development, he just cares about the consequence.
Listen, I would have been very happy to go along with the tradition and dump on Jacob for doing this.
I read it differently.
I read it as defensible, even if not admirable.
And by the way, this is very important.
Remember I told you about actions have consequences even when not ill meant?
If you trick, even if you're right, you pay for it.
When you do a devious thing, even if you had to do a devious thing, it affects you.
That's the point.
Let me give a line in this regard.
And the point is not to get into Middle Eastern politics, and even if you don't agree with her, it doesn't matter.
What matters is that this is the type of point I'm making.
Golda Meir once said, the late former prime minister of Israel, we can forgive the Arabs for killing our boys, but we can never forgive them for making our boys kill their boys.
That's the point.
Even when you have to do something terrible, and truly have to, it still has an effect on you.
That's what I meant earlier.
Maybe this helps you more, about the consequences of acts even when not evilly intended or chosen freely.
It does have an effect.
Sometimes you even may have to lie.
Very rarely, but sometimes you might have to in life.
But it affects you if you do.
I will give you another example.
I am for capital punishment for murderers, but I don't deny for a moment that killing has an effect on the society that kills.
I would merely act that it has an effect to keep murderers alive all the time, too.
But I don't deny the argument against capital punishment that it affects, and it has a corrosive effect.
It does.
I acknowledge it.
It does have a bad effect.
But we don't live in a redeemed world.
That's why we should.
The Ugly Truth About Lying 00:14:48
Look forward to redemption.
We live in an unredeemed world where often the choices are not between beautiful and ugly, but between ugly and miserable.
It's very, very important to know that.
That's what I think Jacob was up against.
The ugly choice of this guy who doesn't care about this thing and this ends all the things that we value.
Remember something.
His blessing was not, you'll have all the gold in my treasury.
Remember that too when you judge Jacob.
It's not like he was dying for the birthright so he gets a whole load of money.
That wasn't the blessing.
The blessing's a spiritual one.
So the one who couldn't care less about spirituality, let's put it in terms you might prefer.
Your father is a great musician.
Your brother dumps on classical music, thinks it is noise.
He's into ACDC or God knows what.
thinks this stuff is absolute noise, laughs at it, and mocks it.
But because your father deeply believes that the firstborn gets all of my treasures, he gets my Stradivarius violin, he gets all my Beethoven original manuscripts, and all my own compositions.
And you're the other brother and go, this is ridiculous.
He doesn't give a damn about that.
I love music.
I want to transmit it to the next generation, and I'm stuck.
Just because he came out one minute before I did out of my mother's womb.
Okay?
Now think of it that way.
Remember, it's not for money.
It's for spiritual blessing.
So the choice was ugly and miserable.
Ugly, I see the blessing go down the tubes.
Miserable, I have to trick my father in order to do it.
Okay.
Let's continue.
All right.
What are we up to?
27, what?
13.
13, thank you.
Now.
Oh yes, so this is Jacob's response.
Look at what will happen.
He'll think I'm a trickster.
But his mother said to him, and this is a great woman.
This is Harry Truman, Rebecca.
The buck stops here, was on her tent.
Exactly.
Your curse, my son, be upon me.
If there's a curse that you get, I get it.
You didn't do this, I did this.
Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.
That's something, isn't it?
He got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked.
Rebekah then took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were there in the house, and had her younger son Jacob put them on, and she covered his hands and the hairless part of his neck with the skins of the kids.
Sorry.
Then she put in the hands of her son Jacob the dish and the bread that she had prepared.
He went to his father, this is of course Jacob, and said, Father.
He didn't want to speak much.
You get it?
I mean, it's very touching when you will contrast this with what Esau says later.
He has this whole statement before his father.
Because it's Esau.
But he doesn't want his voice, this soft voice coming out.
So he just comes in and goes, Father.
And that's why you get the next thing.
And he said at his Isaac, Yes, which one of my sons are you?
I mean, if all he says is father, it's clear that he doesn't know.
So Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn.
Hold on, I want to see what word.
One second, 19.
Yes, he uses here, Bechor.
See, here, interestingly, he really engages in a trick.
He should have really said the firstborn, but not the oldest.
You understand what I'm saying?
Like the Torah did.
But he really came, and I guess because this is what the father thinks.
But this shows deliberate use of the Torah, not of this word.
The Hebrew word is Bechor.
That's the status, not the chronology term, right?
The status term of Bechor, and he says, I am your Bechor.
And I have done as you told me.
Pray, sit up, and eat of my game, that you may give me your innermost blessing.
Isaac said to his son, How did you succeed so quickly, my son?
And he said, that is Jacob, because the Lord your God granted me good fortune.
Now, I find that very interesting.
Sarna, who was really down on Jacob, says here on verse 19, Jacob actually invokes God's name in an outright lie.
Exclamation point.
Sarna does not use exclamation points much.
No professors do.
And it's a very, very interesting thing how negative he finds it.
I find it fascinating.
I'll tell you why I find it so fascinating.
Esau never would have spoken that way.
Why would Jacob mention God?
He doesn't mention God later when Esau comes himself.
It's almost as if it were a subconscious giveaway.
Of who it really is.
Think about that.
Or it might have been another possibility.
Listen to this.
He said.
Your God.
Maybe he thinks this is the way Esau would speak.
Maybe he's trying to imitate how his brother would speak if his brother ever invoked God.
Because if he would have said, our God or my God, the game would have been up.
Interesting?
So it's not absolutely certain what's going on here, why he used it, but it may very well be, listen, I, Esau, know it's your God.
or for almost in a way of saying, almost like a last-ditch effort of Isaac subconsciously to say, don't you realize Esau thinks it's your God and not his?
Think about that.
It might have truly been because there's a lot of evidence here that Isaac isn't absolutely certain that this is Esau at all, as you will see and as I showed last time.
But I think the use of these words here, your God, is either consciously or subconsciously a very important statement on the part of Jacob.
Anyway, who knows?
We can't know for certain.
Again, though, when Esau comes in, he does not cite God.
All right, this might have aroused the suspicions, though, of Isaac, right?
The fact that he did speak like this.
And now we're up to 21.
So Jacob drew close.
Oh, excuse me, 21.
Isaac said to Jacob, Come closer that I may feel you.
Immediately it is clear. that he is suspicious.
Right?
I mean, the father who knows that a child is a child doesn't say, let me feel you to check out who you are.
Something tipped him off.
The presumption is it's the voice.
But voice means more than the wavelengths coming out of your voice box.
Voice means also how you speak.
I think it's a combination of how he spoke And his voice that tips him off.
I think, though, content was a factor.
Anyway, he says, Come over, so come that I may feel you, my son, whether you're really my son Esau or not.
Right?
Right?
Okay.
You will note, by the way, as we come to them, Isaac has how many of his five senses?
It's very dramatic.
You can't do more than that.
He will use taste, smell, hearing, and touching to check who it is.
This is a very suspicious blind man.
So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him.
And wondered, and this is about as famous a statement, again, as I mentioned last time, as exists in all of Jewish liturgy, the voice is the voice of Jacob, and the hands or the arms are the arms of Esau.
It is a statement you will always make, by the way, when someone talks gently but acts ferociously.
The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the arms are the arms of Esau, or the hands.
In Hebrew, hand and arm.
Generally, they are the same, although Zeroah is used for arms sometimes.
Anyway, 23.
He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy, like those of his brother Esau.
So, and so he blessed him.
He asked again, again.
I mean, I'll bet you those of you who know the story don't recall just how suspicious.
Isaac was.
Are you really my son Esau?
Can you imagine poor Jacob going through all of this?
He goes, what did my mother get me into?
And when he said, I am, Isaac said, serve me and let me eat of my son's game that I may give you my innermost blessing.
Right?
So how's he going to test now whether it's Esau?
With taste.
All right?
You felt like Esau.
I'm not convinced.
Now I want to taste.
Whether or not, because only Esau can make like this.
Apparently, Rebekah had not been making him his favorite meals.
That's the only inference I can draw from this, which is unfortunate, but I have nothing else to say about it.
So he served him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank.
Then his father Isaac said to him, around 26, Come close and kiss me, my son.
And he went up and kissed him, and he smelled his clothes.
Then another test.
Okay, it tasted like Esau.
It felt like Esau.
Now it's, will it smell like Esau?
And he smelled his clothes, and then finally he blessed him.
So he touched him.
smelled him, tasted it, and heard him when he asked him in 24, are you my son?
He had to hear it again.
All the senses are used.
Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that the Lord has blessed.
Okay, the final sense is confirmed, and he's going to give the blessing.
Okay, may God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, abundance of new grain and wine.
This admittedly is a material one, not just spiritual.
Let people serve you and nations bow to you.
Be master over your brothers.
By the way, he did not know what the content would be, we assume.
I mean, he just knew that it would be very important for the tradition, that he would be the one carrying it on.
It is pretty powerful stuff, though, you have to admit.
And it is frightening to think if Esau had been given this blessing, what it would have meant in it couldn't have happened.
We know the end of the story.
But what it would have meant in Jewish history in terms of of which nation would be chosen and so on, which one would carry the covenant and so on.
Be master over your brothers and let your mothers' sons bow to you.
Cursed be they who curse you, blessed be they who bless you.
And by the way, this has stood the test of time because I know Jerry Falwell cited this verse when he came out for Israel during the Arab oil embargo in 1973 after the Yom Kippur War.
And he said, That he knows his Bible, and the Bible says that those who curse Israel will be cursed, and those who bless Israel will be blessed.
And it has a, for those who are inclined to believe these things, that has a powerful effect.
By the way, historically, that has turned out to be true, which I'll come in on in a moment.
Historically, and this I will not repeat, but it has turned out to be true in terms of nations, that nations that have treated Jews well have prospered.
Nations that have persecuted Jews have declined.
Just look at what happened to Spain after the Spanish Inquisition.
Look at what happened to Germany after the Holocaust, being divided for 50 years and its own great problems.
Admittedly, it has prospered materially, at least West Germany has.
It is not what it was.
Germany was the avant-garde of culture and of science, and today it is the avant-garde of BMWs.
And this is not an anti-German statement.
Germany is not what it was in the world's culture, in the world's thought, as it was before the Holocaust.
Nations That Persecute Jews Decline 00:08:09
Verse 30.
No sooner had Jacob left the presence of his father Isaac, After Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, that his brother Esau came back from his hunt.
I mean, you have to admit this is dramatic storytelling at its greatest.
It's really, by the way, it is amazing to me that this stuff is not acted out.
That they have Shakespearean plays.
I mean, biblical plays would make so much sense.
I mean, you have what you have going on here.
Just imagine out one door going Isaac and Jacob, and the other door coming Esau.
He too prepared a dish and brought it to his father.
And he said to his father, let my father sit up.
Now you notice here the difference?
Look at what the statements were earlier.
First of all, the first statement, remember Jacob tried to get away with father.
Remember?
And now look, let my father sit up and eat of his son's game so that you may give me your innermost blessing.
And then also contrast it with what Jacob said once he couldn't get away with just father.
And that is, excuse me, it was.
Actually, in the very beginning, wow, I just realized this myself.
Look at this.
It's dramatic.
Look at verse 19.
Jacob said to his father, I am Esau your firstborn.
Because he's answering the question, who are you, which was not asked here.
Okay, but now look.
Pray, sit up, and eat of my game that you may give me your innermost blessing.
And now look.
What Esau actually says.
Let my father sit up and eat of his son's game so that you may give me your innermost blessing.
Virtually identical.
Isn't that interesting how he knew what his brother would say?
But when asked further is when he brought in the God issue and so on.
But it is very interesting that he anticipated the exact wording.
His father Isaac said to him, Who are you?
And he said, I am your son Esau, your firstborn.
Now, by the way, now just for those of you who are out there knocking Jacob, it is Esau who's lying.
If you want Jacob to have been fully honest, then at least you want Esau to be fully honest too.
He should have said, I am Esau who was your Bechor, but sold that to Jacob.
Doesn't.
He announces as if nothing ever happened, even though it said, and he despised the Bechorah, he despised the birthright.
But now it's all of a sudden very important to him.
Isaac was seized with very violent trembling.
I'm sure he was.
Who was it then, he demanded, that hunted game and brought it to me?
Moreover, I ate of it before you came and I blessed him.
And now he must remain blessed.
Now, the reason for that.
His blessings were believed to be irrevocable.
You couldn't say, uh uh, I take it back.
That was the way it worked.
Just wanted you to know because you would think the most logical thing would be, oh, I gave it to the wrong one.
I take it back.
I'll give it to you.
Which is interesting.
That would be a very logical thing, especially given that it's words.
But I guess the words and the invoking of God's name in it are just like a written contract today.
If I sign a written contract to you, then that's really it.
You'd have to go through a great deal to undo it.
Not if you get a what?
That's right.
If a contract is entered into with fraud, it is an interesting point, and I was thinking of that myself, which is part of the thing that has led me to believe that Isaac was ambivalent.
That Isaac was ambivalent.
That he was not entirely unhappy with what in fact happened.
I spoke about this more last time, again, not to repeat.
You will just note. that his reaction was he shuddered.
It was more a reaction of fear than of unhappiness.
Later in the same chapter, Esau cries.
Why didn't Isaac cry?
There's a difference between shuddering and crying.
Crying is sadness.
Esau was really sad.
Isaac shuddered.
And the shudder there is more of a fear thing.
Oh God, what happened?
Rather than, oh, I'm so unhappy this happened.
I may be reading into it.
I don't think so since the Torah chooses its words so carefully.
Anyway, verse 34.
By the way, don't get me wrong.
It's not like I don't feel for Esau at all.
And if you don't feel for Esau at all, you're not taking the Torah's own story seriously.
Esau has not done anything bad.
He just had contempt.
It's like that child who couldn't care less about Beethoven.
He's not evil.
He's just not the right one for the job.
Okay, are you with me?
And certainly no evil has been yet shown, except that the Torah is not a big fan of people who hunt versus people who sit in tents.
I mean, you may not agree with the assessment, and I'm not telling you what's absolutely correct, but I am telling you that that is the assessment, and it certainly has transpired through Jewish history, which has a very strong ambivalence, if not outright hostility to hunting.
Actually, more hostility even than ambivalence.
Thirty four.
When Esau heard his father's words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing, which his father didn't do.
You see, that's the point that I'm contrasting.
And said to his father, Bless me too, father.
But he answered, Your brother came with guile and took away your blessing.
Esau said, Was he then named Jacob that he might supplant me these two times?
First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing.
I'll read to you Sarna because of the word Jacob here.
In his misery, Esau resorts to bitter sarcasm that expresses itself in word plays.
He reinterprets the name Jacob, Ya'akov, as deriving from the stem akav, meaning to supplant.
And he puns on bi'chorah, birthright, and bi'racha, blessing.
So it's a play on words, and he also notes Sarna, in his anguish, Esau blurts out the fact of his foolish sale of his birthright, something apparently unknown to Isaac.
You see, that's very interesting.
This, I'm sure that this was a very interesting little revelation to Isaac.
What do you mean twice?
When was the first time?
And he added, Have you not reserved the blessing for me?
Isaac answered, saying to Esau, But I have made him master over you.
I have given him all his brothers for servants and has sustained him with grain and wine.
What then can I still do for you, my son?
And Esau said to his father, Have you but one blessing, father?
Bless me too, father.
And Esau wept aloud.
And his father Isaac answered, saying to him, See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth and the dew of the heaven above, which is very similar to what Jacob got.
Dew and fat.
Yet by your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother, but when you grow restive, you shall break his yoke from your neck.
Why Parents Favor One Child 00:15:13
Why these blessings are the way they are is too long an issue for here, because there are those who hold that if you date the Torah being written later, it was to explain subsequent Jewish history, and it's not the way I want to read the text with you.
But anyway, that is the blessing that he gives him.
There is no question. that one of the things the Torah is doing in Genesis is trying to undo a lot of traditional life, believe it or not.
Traditional life which held that firstborn meant everything.
The fact is that it doesn't mean everything because the great ones are usually not the firstborns.
The most passionate or powerful example is Joseph.
who is without question the great hero of the second part of the whole book of Genesis and is hardly first born.
And so the Torah is trying to say, don't let these set ideas be the determining factors of society.
It's more, not fully, not in modern terms, but it's more a meritocracy than it is anything else.
The best one should get the job, not the one who would normally get it just because of birth.
The best male.
That is correct.
There's no question about that.
The best male.
But what is also no question is that while it is written male-centered, which any document prior to 10 years ago in human history, more or less, can be stated as, certainly something 3,000 years old, what is remarkable to me about the Torah is not that the males are the center.
The story would be a lie if it told it any other way because males were the center.
What is remarkable is how equal as humans the women are presented.
The advice of Sarah, the advice of Rachel and her character, it is not possible for a fair-minded reader to read about Isaac and Rachel and say that she is not more impressive.
It is not.
The only thing Isaac has going for him is that he's male.
But she has everything going for her.
Beauty, brains, character, strength, and courage.
Other than that, she's in nothing.
Right?
Is she not described that way?
I have not read into it whatsoever.
So I think that is a powerful lesson.
In fact, I would say that in subsequent Jewish history, in some ways, women's role went beneath that of the Torah.
I think the Torah had a more elevated view of women than medieval Jewish history often did.
Which is a fascinating thing because you always assume that people progress.
Which is not true.
Sometimes there's progression, sometimes there's regression.
But the woman in the Torah, in the way depicted, is a very powerful figure, especially in Genesis.
There's just no way around it.
Nobody reading this would go away saying, hey, they're not men's equal.
You'd say men have built-in rights because they're men, which is patriarchal, etc., etc.
But it's not about the individual.
Verse 41.
Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob.
Which is somewhat understandable.
I will say that.
Because of the blessing which his father had given him.
And Esau said to himself, Let but the mourning period of my father come and I'll kill my brother Jacob.
Which, by the way, is a very, very interesting thing.
He won't do it while his father is alive.
Right?
As soon as we finish mourning my father's death, then I'll kill my brother.
By the way, brothers don't do well.
The first two brothers in history, one killed the other two, Cain and Abel, as you recall.
Right?
It's just an important thing to remember again, too, when we romanticize family.
And I'm a very big believer in family.
I just don't believe in romanticizing.
It's a very difficult institution.
I don't see the choice.
But it is not just because you're family doesn't mean that there will be love.
That's the point.
Family also needs values to be.
Family alone doesn't assure any decency.
When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.
I mentioned last time what that was like.
A person who consoles himself by planning revenge is a certain type.
He did not believe that the best revenge is success.
He believed that the best revenge was shooting somebody dead.
And Rebecca said, Come on, Esau.
No, she said, My son, listen to me.
It's how, by the way, word got to her, since after all, He said it to himself is a very interesting question, which we cannot know the answer to.
Maybe he speaks aloud when he speaks to himself, Esau.
Maybe a mother knows what a son thinks.
That's correct.
Stated by the woman in the front row.
Now, my son, listen to me.
This is to Jacob.
Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban.
Uh-oh.
If there were musical background to Genesis, you would get very ominous music here.
Or you'd get a theme of a jerk.
Laban is not our favorite character.
So he's back in the picture, unfortunately.
Stay with him a while.
Now, by the way, this is a very important point.
It doesn't say a while in the Hebrew.
It says stay with him a few days.
I made this point rather forcefully in the beginning of Genesis, that days. in the creation cannot mean 24 hour periods.
So those who are creationists, who hold that you must read the Bible as 26 24 hour day periods of creation, are misreading the Bible.
The word yom in Hebrew doesn't mean day only as a 24 hour period.
It's a period of time.
Here's a perfect example.
Go to my brother Laban, right?
Stay with him a few days.
That's what it says in Hebrew.
Now, is that what she is saying?
Go all the way, leave this country, go to my brother for a couple of days?
Right?
That's not possible.
It means a real long while.
Because day is a bigger term than just exactly.
When we use day, most of the time in English, in modern life, we mean a 24-hour period.
Right?
Okay.
But that is not the case in the Torah.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Here it cannot.
She wants him to stay with Laban for a while, for a serious period of time, until your brother stops being angry, which is probably never.
I mean, when is he going to stop being angry, Esau?
Maybe she thought he might be.
It's unlikely.
Until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you've done for him, right?
That'll be in a few days?
Right.
Then I will fetch you from there.
Let me not lose you both in one day.
Now, who is the both?
Probably Isaac, who'll die.
And then as soon as he dies, you'll be killed by Esau.
I don't want to lose you and my husband the same day.
Couldn't she have been referring to Esau?
Could have been.
That's why I said who.
She could have been referring to Esau.
That's correct.
Because she would lose Esau if he killed Jacob.
I mean, if one child shoots another or kills another, you've lost that child too in many ways.
So it is an interesting, it's probably Isaac and Jacob, but it could be Esau and Jacob.
What does Sarna say?
Sarna says nothing.
Doesn't comment on that particular thing.
Oh, he does, excuse me.
Let me not lose you both, sorry.
If Esau carries out his threat, Jacob would be killed when Isaac dies.
Alternately, both may refer to the two sons, for Esau would either be judicially condemned to death for murder or struck down in an act of private revenge.
So she would lose him, according to him, not just as a mother would lose a child who kills another child.
that that bond would be perhaps severed, but literally, yeah, so it could be either.
But it would strike me as it probably meant Isaac.
Rebekah said to Isaac, I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women.
If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these from among the native women, what good will life be to me?
That ends chapter 27.
It actually should have been attached to 28, but what's the difference?
What is this?
This is Rebekah arguing to Isaac.
On his terms, why Jacob should be sent away.
Get it?
She doesn't want to tell him Esau wants to kill Jacob.
She is a very sharp woman.
She carries all the burdens and tries to remove it from others.
First, the burden from Jacob with the hairy arms, and then the burden from her husband.
with sending out Jacob, not because one of our children wants to kill the other, which would be rather upsetting to the father.
Okay.
By the way, Sarna does note that this is also a rebuke of Isaac for favoring Esau, who intermarried with the Hittite women.
Are you with me?
Remember that last time?
That was the end of a previous chapter?
Yeah, look, please, at the end of chapter 26.
26, 34, and 35.
When Esau was 40 years old, he took to wife Judith, daughter of Be'eri the Hittite, and Bosmat, daughter of Elon the Hittite.
And they were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.
The daughters-in-law, the Hittite daughters-in-law, were a source of bitterness.
They shared none of what they wanted.
These were not the people they wanted to marry with.
And yet, His favorite was Esau.
So Sarna is very sharp here.
He says, This statement of Rebekah to Isaac is not just a way to get Isaac to send Jacob to her brother outside of where they're living.
You with me?
But also, how could you favor Esau?
You're disgusted with whom he married.
But he liked him.
By the way, why I very rarely will conjecture in psychotherapy or psychoanalysis.
Certainly, I can't do it in psychotherapy.
Esau is dead.
But.
Isaac is dead, actually.
It's him I'm putting on the couch.
But sometimes it becomes almost impossible not to.
Why would you think that Isaac would have preferred Esau?
Because that's what he wanted to do, not to.
Yeah, right.
I think you all got more or less the gist as I read it.
He was so different from him.
He saw too much of himself in Jacob.
He wanted a macho man.
Esau's macho.
Poor Isaac, almost slaughtered by his father, who's a dominant male.
And mother he's deeply attached to.
Finally, I have a male from my own seed who is macho and strong and virile and kills on his own.
Doesn't get killed, but kills.
That's my son.
It's very interesting, isn't it?
Why parents will favor a certain child over another.
It doesn't always at all have to do with their worthwhileness.
If any of you have ever had that with a sibling, for parental affection, please know that if you felt the other one was favored, it may have nothing to do with your worth.
Zero.
It may have everything to do with their own psychoanalytic makeup, psychological makeup.
It's very important for people to know that.
I mean, when you get older, you know intellectually that your parents are people, but it's very difficult to remember that because you're always a parent's child.
But when you do come to realize that, that is a very helpful thing.
Issa's not a better person.
Esau simply has the characteristics that Isaac longed for in himself.
And that may very well be the case with you and a sibling that you can't understand.
I'm nicer, I'm kinder, I'm more responsible, and my parents like the jackass.
It does not happen.
It's common.
And that is what you're learning here, and that is why I treasure this book as much as I do.
It tells you about real life.
If it wanted to give you a beautiful fairy tale, Genesis, he would have loved the right guy, and the right guy would have been perfect and never had to have chicanery and never had to trick anybody, and everybody would have been happy.
And the hunter would have gone and hunted and said, oh, father, I rather hunt.
You can give the blessing to him.
But that's a fairy tale.
In real life, the wrong kid may get love.
Thank God there was a Rebecca in this case because a weak mother, Would have just given in.
Well, that's who your father loves, and that's the way it is.
And by the way, for those who think it was so patriarchal, if it was so patriarchal, how could she be so strong?
Genesis Rejects Beautiful Fairy Tales 00:14:36
How could she subvert it?
Why didn't Jacob just say, hey, what are you kidding?
I can't do that.
Dad runs the show.
No, not at all.
Mommy made sense.
And that's what worked.
He loved the wrong son is what the Torah says.
Now you may disagree with the Torah, but it's irrelevant.
The Torah is telling you the story, so what the Torah thinks is pretty important.
It thinks that he loved the wrong son, who married the wrong women.
And so this served as a double vehicle when she said, hey, I don't want Jacob to also marry these women.
One, you see Jacob?
Is it, this is the one you love?
That's the one who's going to carry on Abraham's tradition with these Hittite pagan women.
And the other is, it gives a great excuse to send Jacob far away.
Any questions on chapter 28?
I mean 27.
Just checking.
Either way, yes.
Then I'll go to Andrea.
Yeah.
I don't know if Talmudic scholars speculated on it.
Okay, he says it strikes him as possible that Isaac actually knew what was going on, on the grounds that what?
Let me ask you this.
If Isaac didn't know, if Isaac did know, why would he have four tests?
If he wanted to fool himself, why would he keep giving himself the opportunity to find out the truth?
It's not a topic that I think I'm saying maybe Isaac and this are not apostles.
I think it's a hypostrophe.
Yeah.
No, I said last time I think it's possible Isaac knew or didn't want to know what the whole truth was.
I think that, though, when you ever speculate, you have to speculate on what the text says.
You can't stop putting figures in rooms that they didn't appear in.
You can't say, well, I think Isaac overheard Rebecca.
putting up the plan with Jacob.
Then you're making up stuff.
Or maybe he knew Rebecca well enough.
Maybe he knew Rebecca well enough.
And he was really proud of her in the tremendous way she fooled him.
Listen, my gut instinct is this that deep down he knew that he favored the wrong son and wasn't particularly troubled by what had happened.
He was emotionally troubled, but not but not intellectually troubled by having been the victim of that ruse.
That's my gut instinct.
But to say that he knew all along while giving the blessing is a little tough.
I think last time I showed some things which I don't recall right now as to why that might be so, but it's tough.
Yeah.
Well, what you're saying is the next line in 28 is going to be the thought of the Elijah's way to give him the blessing.
Exactly.
That's right.
I think once it happened, he, especially after Rebecca, I'm sure, spoke to him and said, listen, you just be happy that this happened.
Because, first of all, you don't know this, but Esau sold the birthright.
Okay?
Let me just tell you some very unhappy news, darling.
So I would argue that you're right, ex post facto.
But he was arguing during it.
He knew it.
And that's a tougher argument.
Yes, sir?
Is this just another example?
Yeah, that's what I said earlier, that the way you choose I'm sorry?
That's correct.
Right, and if you don't choose, it also leads somewhere.
So you're never off the hook.
Yes?
I'm just repeating it for the mic, that you also think that Isaac knew.
Because there were four tests.
How did Jacob pass these four tests?
I can see if Isaac tested him using one sentence and thought, okay, just but to do it with all four senses, and somehow he passed all the tests, I think that maybe Isaac knew it was Jacob, but had to, I couldn't just say, I know you're Jacob and I'm going to bless you, but we have to outwardly show that he tried his best to find out exactly who it was.
Right, okay, the argument here is that Isaac had to try his best to look as if he was trying his best to ascertain who it was.
I will say this in somewhat defense of that.
I am sure that he was scared of Esau.
And remember his reaction when Esau comes in?
It is not crying.
I've made this point a few times already.
It's fear.
It's trembling.
He's scared of his son.
This is a wild guy.
And he might have wanted the best alibi he could have.
Because Esau could have said, How on God's earth could he have fooled you?
He doesn't talk like me, smell like me.
Bake like me, or hunt like me, and what was the other?
Feel like me.
So he could have said, Well, he did bake like you, he did feel like you, and he did smell like you, and he did sound like you in some way.
I admit that that was a tough part, but I asked him three times, Who is he?
So he had here tremendous excuses for this wild other son.
So that's a possibility.
Yeah.
What is the difference between the Burnbright and and the blessing because it's really one piece of hard work and nothing.
Oh no, he harbors the grudge against Jacob for getting the blessing, for the birthright blessing.
Oh, but there's no question Esau didn't think that there was any consequence to selling it.
That's why he shows up and said, hello, I'm your Bacor.
When he shows up, he was an impetuous man.
Oh, you want my birthright for the soup?
Give me the soup.
I'm hungry.
That's the way he thinks.
Who, and there are people like that.
Yeah.
You mentioned earlier that the speech patterns of both Esau and Jacob were the same.
Yet, as I read these, both in Hebrew and in English, Jacob's is more polite.
Esau's is somewhat more abrupt.
For example, yeah, give me the two sentences.
In verse 19, it's really as simple as this.
Jacob says, Kumna, which means, please arrive.
Right.
And in verse 30, whatever it is, Jacob just says, okay, dad, get up.
Hold on.
Let's see where that is because that's a very, that's important.
Let's just find, where does Esau, what verse does Esau tell his father to get up?
31.
Let me just see the Hebrew because that's what he's comparing because this is absolutely correct.
Man gets a cigar on this age of secondary smoke.
Gum.
He is there.
It's very good.
Let's go again.
Again, which was the first I want to show everybody here?
Yes.
Verse 19.
Here is the way God, and this really, doesn't it show you, isn't that interesting, even more so, how could he have loved Esau more?
He wasn't even treated as nicely by Esau.
They use the exact words except, Jacob says, please.
Esau was his fantasy.
Esau was his fantasy.
That's right.
And if you fall in love with your fantasies, you are in bad shape.
That is exactly, oh, that is, I thank you, that is so important.
Because he said, please.
Right.
Very good.
That's why I said voice meant both.
Voice meant.
The actual tone and the actual words.
So if he didn't say click, he wouldn't have mentioned it.
That's his, that's his thing.
He might have, but then only on voice, whereas this time, this, please?
It's very important.
And it's dramatic, as you point out, because everything else is so identical.
Good, thank you.
I will incorporate that, needless to say, and I appreciate it.
Yes.
Asked to confirm his feeling that it was in fact Jacob and not his son.
But it doesn't seriously speak to which direction he was in.
If he had suspicion, he might have said he answered that he was Jacob, but it didn't seem like Jacob.
Maybe I'll take another test and see.
He found it, he found it was, and Jacob was in.
Wait, so you're making the case that he really might have suspected it's Jacob?
On what grounds?
But he is.
Oh, it does.
I mean, it doesn't use the word test, but it does.
He says, wait a minute, let me feel you, let me eat.
Oh, I see.
Is it a test to confirm that it's Esau, or is it a test to confirm to him that it's Jacob?
I think that might be going a little too far.
That he.
Listen.
Well.
You're right, but given that all of the things are passed as if he were Esau, you have to assume the tester to find out if it was Esau.
Now, you may argue he was relieved to find out in his mind, he was relieved that the ruse was that good.
Okay, but I don't want to read too much into the text.
That's a possible one, but I think your reading is reading too much into it.
Yeah.
Is this line mentioned earlier?
Just in the very, very first verse.
And his eyes were too dim to see.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's definitely a general thing.
Why didn't Esau know the implications of what he was giving away?
His question is, if it's a generally valued thing in society, birthright, why didn't Esau know what he was giving away for soup?
My argument is that in order to get soup then, he would have sold his mother and assumed that he could just always get it back.
This is an impetuous person who will do anything at the moment, This is clearly not a future-oriented planner, Esau.
This is a man of the moment, like a lot of people are, who will sell anything for what they want at that moment.
I think if you would have sat him down and said, listen, Esau, I want you to understand something.
If you do take this soup, you are out of this blessing, period, end of issue, for the rest of your life.
Now, he may not have.
We don't know, but your question is a good one.
Let me take these last three so that you don't leave before I do.
It's always a humbling experience when the audience leaves before the speaker.
Yes.
There could be an implication that Jacob's main motive of getting his birthright was to actually show his father that he still had souls and souls.
And therefore, his father will get his favor at that point.
I didn't follow the first part.
The first part is that he gets the birthright.
Who does?
Jacob.
Yeah.
Gets the birth blessing or the birthright from Esau.
Which one?
From Esau.
Okay.
Jacob gets the birthright from Esau.
Right.
Okay.
Now he wants his father to know that Esau had given it up.
But how do you know that?
How do you know that he wanted his father to know that?
He never tells him, and he implies he's Esau.
See?
Okay, good.
Thank you.
Just wait.
I said three, and all of a sudden there were five hands.
These were the two.
Okay, so let me take these two, please.
And maybe privately.
Yeah.
I don't think you guys agree because the Torah says, remember, he trembled violently.
Right.
And he said, shut her.
Same thing.
You're right.
He would have been acting at that point if he knew.
But he actually oh, no.
I think he trembled.
I think he trembled.
Listen, even if you know, you're going to tremble if this Esau shows up and feels that you have victimized him.
I would tremble.
He might have thought he'd kill him.
Deception Still Demands Heavy Payment 00:02:38
To be very honest.
He's close to death anyway.
Close to what?
Close to death.
It's okay.
You still don't want to be killed by your son.
It's a general pattern among parents.
Where was the yes?
Final question.
I still have a problem with the light and the sheeting that went on.
Oh really?
Tell me what lie, what lies here?
One lie was he said he's Esau.
Correct?
But Esau, the choice would have been, yes, Isaac is deceived and Jacob lies.
However, if there was no deception and no lie, then there would have been a deception and a lie if Esau showed up.
Because Esau then would have deceived and lied, he would have deceived and lied by saying, I am the Bechor.
But as an individual, it still doesn't just because two people lie, it still doesn't make it okay for one person to lie.
Right.
But, well, I can no, no, no.
I didn't make the point because two wrongs make a right.
That's nonsense.
Two wrongs make a right.
I am saying that if he didn't do the wrong, a greater wrong would have taken place.
We only know that in the afterthought because we know a history of it.
But if you want to apply it to today's life no.
Well, yes, even apply it to today's life.
Winston Churchill allowed the Germans to believe that he did not have their codes and allowed a British city to be bombed lest they believe the Germans, lest they know that he had their code.
So he not only lied to the Germans by omission, if you will, but allowed people to get killed who were English civilians in order for the greater good later of using their code against them.
That's why I say, and I think that that's the Torah's point here, Yes, he did lie.
Yes, he did deceive, and there's no denial of it, and he pays heavily for it later, as we'll see.
But for us to sit and say it's all wrong and always wrong is not the case.
Life is too messy.
Life is too complex.
No, it's only messy because that's the way life is.
No, that's the problem.
Where is life that pure?
Tomorrow, on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
I worked through a lot of issues when I was young.
Life Is Too Messy to Simplify 00:00:56
That's a big advantage that I have, and I don't take credit for it.
That's my nature.
Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
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