Jacob and Esau and the emergence of the Jewish people

LIFE IS FULL OF HARD CHOICES BETWEEN LESS THAN perfect alternatives. According to the Bible, even God is faced with such choices. It is part of the greatness of the Bible that it poses the problem that God, as well as humans, faces in choosing between less than perfect alternatives, even in connection with those whom it presents unequivocally as God's special people. The Bible does so even at the risk of exposing the ancient Israelites and hence the Jewish people to unjust criticism, based upon showing them, as Oliver Cromwell once said to his portrait painter, "warts and all." That may be a situation less than pleasant for Jews to face, and indeed in previous generations as well as the present there were those Jews who either ignored those critical parts or reinterpreted them to show that the Jewish forefathers were always God-fearing models of what the Almighty expected. In this respect the Bible is far more honest than some of its interpreters.

Frequently, the Bible presents characters whose personalities and roles confront those of other characters in order to make its point. This part of the biblical message reaches its apogee in the parallel cases of Joseph and Moses, who are presented as binary opposites. Joseph, because of his assimilation into Egypt and his unrestrained service to the pharaoh in subordinating the Egyptians and bringing his brother Israelites down to Egypt, is not counted among the patriarchs and indeed represents the end of the patriarchal line; while Moses, who represents the new leadership that inherits the mantle of the patriarchs, liberates his people not only from Egypt but, insofar as possible, from Egyptian culture, after starting at the very heart of that culture in the pharaoh's palace and family.

Here we examine a different confrontation, not so stark as that between Joseph and Moses but more direct, between Jacob and Esau, two brothers, the sons of Isaac and the grandsons of Abraham, at least one of whom is destined to carry on the patriarchal tradition. They ultimately give birth to the Jewish people as a covenanted people, invested with the task of doing God's will through their polity and society.

The story of the two brothers, Jacob and Esau, is a classic example of that dilemma and how God faces it in determining who shall carry on the Abrahamic line that will serve His purposes in the development of a societal model for the world. Jacob and Esau share both good and bad traits upon which to try to build leadership for the future. God is faced with having to choose between two combinations of traits and to select what would be better for leadership of his people. The Bible leaves us with the problem of trying to understand the choice between two flawed individuals and what that means for us, the readers and students of the Bible in every generation.

Neither portrait is all that flattering and it is too easy to move quickly from them to negative assessments of the individuals portrayed without fully understanding their complexities as individuals. We must remember that the Bible starts from the assumption that all human beings are flawed in one way or another by the very nature of things, and that its purpose is not to demonstrate the flawed character of individuals but to suggest some lessons about the problems by choosing among human weaknesses by focusing on human strengths, to be prudent in our choices yet to maintain our moral vision.

Natural versus Federal Man

Esau and Jacob are introduced as struggling (vayitrotzetzu) with each other from the womb (Gen. 25:22). The homiletic treatment of this has been extensive, considering the way each has come to symbolize conflicting dimensions of power and authority. The common element uniting both is their tremendous energy which must be directed and harnessed. Jacob is to become Israel (literally: one who struggles with God), whose energy is to be directed by the covenant with God, while Esau will struggle with men and animals (nature) to become, in the eyes of the Midrash, the exemplar of a non-Jewish imperial ruler.

The future of the two struggling fetuses is foretold by God and is stated in ethno-political terms. The fathers of the two nations--goyim and le'umim are the terms used--are struggling. Jacob emerges as he is to live the first half of his life, struggling for personal advantage, as Ya'akov, one who grasps at the heel of his brother, trying to get out first.

The twins grow up as very different people. The description of Esau as a hunter and man of the field fits with the description of his appearance at birth, but that of Jacob as a quiet man, dwelling in tents, contradicts the first description of him. Given what follows immediately, one senses an irony in this description, although it may indicate the other dimension of Jacob's personality, which also stays with him, namely, the desire for a calm existence that remains his strong arm through all his struggles.

In the second recorded confrontation between the two, Jacob takes advantage of Esau's weakness, namely, an unthinking impulsiveness, to press his advantage in a most unbrotherly way, first acquiring Esau's bekhorah (birthright) for a bowl of lentils and then his father's blessing. The birthright has to do with inheritance of goods and position both. The tale is typically biblical. The "bottom line" is that by his actions, Esau demonstrates that he does not deserve to be the one who continues Abraham's responsibilities and rewards under God's covenant, since he does not have the steady, thoughtful qualities which are required. Rather than getting his own food--after all, he was not really starving to death and Jacob was not the only kitchen in the encampment--he responds impulsively to a good smell and, in the words of Gen. 25:34, "despises his birthright."