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Jewish History Series (Part 6 of 68)Isaac and His Sons by Rabbi Ken Spiro
History repeats itself. Whatever groove Abraham or Isaac or Jacob are going to carve, their descendants are going to get stuck in it.
We are continuing the story of the Jewish people, which at this point in our chronology is the story of a family, taking place in the 18th century BCE or 3,700 years ago.
We have so far covered the story of Abraham, the first Jew, who took upon himself the mission of spreading monotheism throughout the world. And his family is going to carry on this mission -- to bring the idea of God into the world and re-elevate humanity back to its ideal state.
Abraham had two sons by two different wives. Ishmael with Hagar, the Egyptian, and Isaac with Sarah, his wife who was supposed to be barren. It is Isaac who elects to follow his father's mission.
We will not take the time here to go through stories of Isaac's life as this is not a Bible series per se. What we want to focus on is the patterns that a set for the rest of Jewish history, because as we noted earlier, "the actions of the fathers are assigned to the children."
The wheels of a wagon traveling on a dirt path -- or even on a stone road after a long-enough period of time -- make a groove or rut. And the problem with a rut is that once you get in it's hard to get out; we all know the expression "stuck in a rut." If you establish a good pattern, you stay in it. You establish a bad pattern, the same thing, it's hard to break.
Whatever groove Abraham or Isaac or Jacob are going to carve, for better or for worse, their descendants are going to get stuck in it.
Unless they take the trouble to fill in the grooves, put some asphalt down there, dig up the paving stones, put new ones in, which is a lot of work, they're going to be haunted by the early patterns throughout history.
RE-RUNS
One of the great patterns we see with Isaac is a re-run of a situation that Abraham also confronted. The Book of Genesis (chapters 20 and 21) relates that Abraham went to the land of the Philistines and he lived among them for a while. But he had some problems -- for example, they tried to take his wife, Sarah.
A few years later, (Genesis, chapter 26) Isaac faces the same situation. He's living amongst the Philistines somewhere on the coastal area of Israel and they try to take his wife, Rebecca. Also his servants start to have problems with the servants of Abimelech, the King of the Philistines.
And what happens eventually? The Philistines throw Isaac out, even though he's done nothing to deserve it as far as the Bible tells us. In addition, they plug up all the wells that Isaac has dug -- an illogical act given the value of water in the arid climate of the Middle East and the difficulty of digging wells. (This demonstrates an oft-repeated pattern of the anti-Semite who hurts himself in an effort to obliterate Jewish presence.)
But then something interesting happens -- Abimelech comes after Isaac and he says, "I see that we prospered because of you." Because once Isaac leaves, things go downhill for the Philistines. Their economy collapses. Nothing's going well, and the Philistines come to realize it's because of the Jews. So the king offers a treaty and asks Isaac to return.
This is the great pattern of Jewish interaction with non-Jews in history. The Jews are often invited in. The country does incredibly well because of their contribution. Then for no reason -- I'm aware of virtually no example in history of Jews ever doing anything that caused them to be hated the way we've been hated -- the country decides to throw the Jews out, undermining its own economy in the process. So the Jews are thrown out, the country suffers. This is what's going to happen over and over again. It's schizophrenia -- a love/hate relationship.
THE TWINS
Isaac is married to Rebecca. Rebecca is pregnant with twins, and the twins are fighting in the womb already -- it's a difficult pregnancy for Rebecca. When they're born there is a rivalry between them. And what are the twins' names? Jacob and Esau.
Although they are twins, Jacob and Esau have totally different personalities and they are also physically very different. The Bible describes Esau as hairy and Jacob as smooth-skinned. Esau is a hunter, a man of action. Jacob is a scholar; he's not a man of action.
It's also clear from the narrative that Isaac is favoring Esau who is the first-born of the twins. He's a couple of minutes older but that's significant when it comes to who will be the one to inherit the family mantle.
Rebecca is clearly favoring Jacob. The Bible says that women have binah yeserah, an added intuitive intelligence. Over and over again in the stories of the Bible, the men make the stupid mistakes, and the women do the right thing.
When Isaac is old, he decides to give each of his sons a blessing, and, of course, he wants to give an extra-special blessing to the first-born, Esau.
When a great man like an Isaac makes a blessing, that blessing affects spiritual forces and becomes a reality.
Although Esau doesn't really want the blessing of the first-born with all the responsibility to carry on his father's mission, he does want the blessing of wealth and power which goes along with it. But Rebecca realizes that the blessing has to go to Jacob as he is the one who is willing and able to change the world in the manner of Abraham.
So while Esau is off hunting to catch something for his father's dinner so he'll bless him, what does Rebecca do? She covers Jacob's arms with a goat skin so they will feel hairy like Esau's. And Isaac, who is blind, is fooled.
THE SYMBOLS
It's a mistake to read the Bible stories on a simplistic, first-grade Sunday school level. This is not the story of some old, blind man who's confused by his wife and son. There are very profound things going on here.
When Isaac encounters Jacob pretending to be Esau, he remarks:
"The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." (Genesis 27:22)
This is because the voice symbolizes the power of the intellect, and the hands symbolize the power of action, of might and of sword.
Esau, who embodies the power of might and sword, will, through his descendants, give rise to the Roman Empire or "Edom" as the Bible calls it. And, of course, it is the Romans (as in Roman Catholic Church) that converted the world to Christianity, the other great monotheistic faith. (Later there was a split between the Roman Christians and the Eastern Orthodox Christians, and later still the Protestant Christians split off.)
So, in Esau, we see yet another example of an offshoot of the children of Abraham, who, like Ishmael, does not carry on the mission, yet becomes a great power.
Very interesting pattern going on here. This is nothing less than a cosmic struggle. These two -- Jacob and Esau -- started fighting in utero, and they're going to be fighting throughout history. Later, these powers coalesce; Rome gives rise to the Western culture and it continues to fight the Jewish people.
It's not an even battle ever. Rome will always be stronger in the physical sense, but the Jews will be stronger in the intellectual, spiritual sense. So we see that this is where the struggle begins and it's going to carry on throughout all of history.
AMALEK
The descendants of Abraham can't help but be great; even if they don't become Jews they become people who have a huge impact on the world. Indeed, the greatest enemies of the Jews come from within the family.
Who is the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people in history? The nation of Amalek. This is the people that symbolize evil, and there is a commandment in the Bible to wipe them off the face of the earth, because their pathological hatred for Jews is so great, if they have a chance they will wipe the Jews off the face of the earth.
The nation of Amalek, the Bible tells us, comes into being when a son of Esau takes for a concubine a woman named Timna, who may have been his daughter. (See Genesis 36:10-12.) From this union came Amalek, the patriarch of a nation with a pathological hatred of the Jew.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who wrote the chief work of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, some 2,000 years, said that "Esau hates Jacob is the way of the world." These are the laws of physics, so to speak, that describe the interaction between the Jews and descendants of Esau. No matter what happens, the descendants of Esau are going to hate the Jews.
So we have a confrontation between Esau and Jacob. Jacob steals the blessing and then Esau shows up and finds out what happened. And patriarch Isaac realizes that he's been tricked. He's not angry, however, because he sees now that Jacob is capable of action and can carry on the mission.
Now Rebecca, realizing that Esau's resentment will only grow until he going to want to kill his brother, sends Jacob away. She tells him to go to Haran where she tells Jacob to take a wife.
MR. WHITE
In Haran lives Laban -- Lavan, in Hebrew, meaning "white" -- Rebecca's ne'er-do-well brother. His name points up God's sense of humor -- Mr. White turns out to be one of the biggest crooks in the Bible. Jacob turns up penniless on his uncle's doorstep and falls in love with his cousin Rachel. He wants to marry her but Laban insists he work seven years for her hand. At the end of the seven years, Laban substitutes Rachel's older sister Leah and demands Jacob work another seven years to get Rachel. In the end, Jacob winds up with four wives -- Leah, Rachel, and their handmaidens Zilpah and Bilhah and he has 12 sons and 1 daughter.
Unlike previous generations, all the sons are going to be totally dedicated to the mission. They are the core group -- an extended family that is going to make the nation that is going to change the world.
Despite Laban's attempts to keep him dependent and working for peanuts, Jacob manages to accumulate a big fortune, which becomes another great pattern in Jewish history. The Jew with his hands tied behind his back, when given the slightest opportunity will do remarkably well, even in a very hostile business environment.
Jacob then realizes that he has to go back to the Land of Israel because he has a mission. Just as Abraham knew that this was the only place where Jewish potential could be realized, so too Jacob realizes that this is the only place to be. So he gathers up all his belongings and he heads back.
REUNION
And this brings us to another scene which becomes a powerful pattern in Jewish history. The re-uniting of Jacob and Esau.
As he makes his way home, Jacob hears that Esau is coming out to meet him with an army of 400 men. In response, always using his brains, he sends gifts.
They meet. Esau doesn't try and kill Jacob although it's very clear that he still hates him. He says, "My brother, it's good to have you back. You come with me to Har Sa'ir, where I live and we'll go into business together. With your brains and my brawn we'll dominate the whole Middle East."
There's no question, if these two had united as a team, what a force they would have had in human history. Imagine the physical power of the Romans linked with the spiritual and intellectual power of the Jews.
But Jacob says, "You go ahead of me. I'll catch up later." Now we know from the narrative Jacob never goes to Har Sa'ir to live with Esau.
The great biblical commentator Rashi explains, quoting the Prophet Ovadiah, that they will meet again -- at the end of days. In effect, Jacob, representing the great intellectual, spiritual force in human history, is saying to Esau, the great physical force: "I give you permission to go on ahead and dominate human history physically. But at the end of days, when the 'lion lies down with the lamb,' then we'll get together. Then the Jews will be on top."
This doesn't mean in the end Jews are going to conquer the world and make a great empire. In the end, the whole world will come to recognize one God and live with one standard of morality in peace and brotherhood. The Jewish mission will be fulfilled then, but in the meantime, Esau is going to be on top.
Ultimately the struggle of history will be between Jewish ideas and the ideas of Esau and the culture that he's going to create in human history. That's the cosmic battle: good versus evil. This is a very powerful idea and the dominating pattern of Jewish history.
NEXT: JOSEPH

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