Dear Friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parasha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;

” Parasha in a Nutshell ”

Isaac marries Rebecca. After twenty childless years their prayers are answered and Rebecca conceives. She experiences a difficult pregnancy; G-d tells her that “there are two nations in your womb,” and that the younger will prevail over the elder. Eisav emerges first; Jacob is born clutching Eisav’s heel. Eisav grows up to be “a hunter, a man of the field”; Jacob is “a wholesome man,” a dweller in the tents. Isaac favors Eisav; Rebecca loves Jacob.

Returning exhausted and hungry from the hunt one day, Eisav sells his birthright to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew.

Eisav marries two Hittite women. Isaac grows old and blind, and expresses his desire to bless Eisav before he dies. While Eisav goes off to hunt for his father’s favorite food, Rebecca dresses Jacob in Eisav’s clothes, prepares a similar dish, and sends Jacob to his father. Jacob receives his fathers’ blessings for “the dew of the heaven and the fat of the land” and mastery over his brother. When Esau returns and the deception is revealed, all Isaac can bless his weeping son with is to predict that he will live by his sword, and that only when Jacob falters, his supremacy over the him will vanish.

Jacob leaves home to flee Eisav’s wrath and to find a wife in the family of his mother’s brother, Laban. Eisav marries a third wife — Machlat, the daughter of Ishmael.

” Dvar Torah ”

“Love”, is such an ambiguous word, yet, everyone seems to know how to use it. Lovers use it, couples use it, parents use it, children use it, friends use it, writers use it and poets abuse it! And believe it or not, our Torah is not shy in using it either! In last week’s parsha, the Torah talked about the love between Isaac and Rebecca. The Torah says, “Isaac married Rebecca and then he loved her.” In next week’s parsha, however, the Torah talks about the love before marriage. It says, “Jacob loved Rachel. So he worked seven years for her and they seemed to him like a few days because of his love for her.” So we see that the Torah acknowledges that there has to be love in a healthy relationship.

In this week’s parsha, the Torah also talks about love. But this time, it talks about the love between parents and their children. The story goes as follows: Isaac married Rebecca. After 20 years of marriage, Hashem gave them twin sons, Eisav and Jacob. And it says that Eisav grew up to be a man of field, a hunter, and Jacob grew up to be a wholesome man, residing in tents. And then the Torah says: “Isaac loved Eisav for game [food] was in his mouth; but Rebecca loves Jacob.” It’s praiseworthy to see how fast the Chachamim pick up an inconsistency in Torah’s text. Accordingly, they quickly noticed a grammar mistake in this verse: The love of Isaac for Eisav is described in the past tense “Isaac loved Eisav…” The love of Rebecca for Jacob, however, is portrayed in the present: “Rebecca loves Jacob.” So, the question is, why should there be a grammar mistake in the Torah? If this is a heavenly book given by Almighty himself, shouldn’t it perfect in every sense, including grammar?!

I read an interesting insight from Rabbi Sinclair from Ohr Somayach Yeshiva based on the Ramban. He says that the grammar mistake was done intentionally. The Torah wants to show us the difference between the two loves. The love that Isaac had towards Eisav was a love that depended on an outside factor: He loved Eisav because “game was in his mouth.” He loved hunted fresh meat and Eisav used to bring it to him. But when the hunting stopped, the love ceased too. Rebecca’s love, on the other hand, was a love that was unconditional, it needed no reason, and thus the Torah describes it in the present tense, for it never came to an end. Any love that depends on a reason will evaporate when the reason is no longer there. If you love someone because they are young, their old age will not appeal to you; if you love someone because they’re beautiful – they better watch out their figure and the escalating battle with their weight. Love that depends on any condition isn’t true love. But, the love which has no conditions attached to it, has no reason to end. That love will last forever!!

Yes my friends, a true love is an unconditional love! You love someone for what they are, and not for what they can do! This is specially true in regards to our children. Yes, we all want the best for our kids. We want them to get the best grades, we want them to be the best at sports, we want them to have the best friends, we want them to go to the best colleges, we want them to have the best jobs and above all, we want them to marry the best girl or boy in our community. But what if they can’t achieve all of the above?? Should that make us love them less?! The answer is, Of course NOT!!! We should love our children unconditionally, regardless of their achievements and what they do for us! We have to remember that each child is different and each one has different abilities. We should love them for what they are, and not for what we want them to be. Always try to remember how Rebecca loved Jacob, unconditionally. Jacob was a simple man. He wasn’t much of an outgoing person, he wasn’t among the most popular and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t among the best athletes either. But Rebecca loved him anyway, and that’s why their love lasted forever, and eventually, Jacob became a great person and one of our forefathers.

No wonder the Chachamim say that we can find the answer to any problem in our holy Torah. It even tells us the correct way to “love”!

Shabbat Shalom, Rosh Chodesh Tov & Regards;

Martin