Two important people are introduced to us in this morning’s Bible Reading, two people who were destined to become the ancestors of two great nations, whose histories were to be intertwined as a result of conflicts and struggles. The biographies of these two people fill a good part of the Bible’s narrative; and the histories of these two nations are the stuff of which Jewish history – and, in fact, world history – is made. The stories of these two are something which can be found in the Bible and in the history books. What we must attempt, within the limits of a sermon, is to study not their histories, but their personalities. For only by studying their contrasting personalities can we gain an insight into the nature and psychology of these people. Once we understand the basic differences of personality of these two men – namely, Jacob and Esau – we can hope to understand the reasons and drives and motives which molded their lives and the lives of their children after them, even until this day.Furthermore, it will be profitable to each of us personally to understand these differences. For the personalities of Jacob and Esau are not things of the past – they are universal types which we recognize about us in everyday life.Jacob and Esau were born twins; as it were, very opposite sides of one coin. Let us trace their development in three fields – their birth, their professions, and their intellectual attitudes.Their Birth Esau was in a hurry to be born, and came into this world before Jacob. He is described as “admoni,” red-headed. Our Rabbis thought the color significant, and they said: “siman la’zeh she’hu shofech damim,” it is a sign that he will be a murderer, a spiller of blood. That is, hot-headed, temperamental, seething. Finally, unlike other infants, Esau is “kulo aderess sei’ar”, all covered with hair. He was prematurely developed, as if he had no patience with the normal process of physical growth, and he was already hairy at birth. Our Rabbis even saw a hi…

The life of Isaac, inspiring and pathetic in its tragic beauty, stands out as History’s sermon to Americans, and especially American Jews, in this Thanksgiving season. Tragedy seems to have followed this Patriarch to the end. His early life was a glorious episode. As a young man, he accomplished the most glorious feat in Jewish history – his consent to be sacrificed for G-d when his father Abraham informed him that that was G-d’s will. Here was a young man of 30 willing to be cut off at such a young age because it was the Divine will that it be so. The fact that G-d intervened at the last moment and rescinded His command to Abraham makes no difference. The fact is that Abraham finally surrendered his most beloved son, the fact is that Isaac made his decision to give his life, and the fact is that his beloved mother Sarah died when she heard the news that Abraham was preparing to offer up her only son. This great episode – known as the Akedah – is the theme we constantly recall in our prayers when we want to advocate the cause of Israel before G-d and plead for Divine Mercy. The early part of his life was, therefore, gallant, glorious, and lofty.Our Rabbis, however, with their customary bent for just and unprejudiced appraisals of the heroes of our people, were severely critical of Isaac. And they expressed this criticism in the form of an imaginary debate between Isaac and Moses. And in this debate, the Midrash quotes Isaac as saying to Moses, ani gadol mimcha, I am greater than you, because I was willing to sacrifice my life by being bound on the altar, and thus ra’isi pnei shechinah, I saw the Divine Presence, that is, I attained great religious insight. And to this, Moses answers, ani nisaleisi mimcha, true, but I am still greater than you, because while you may have seen the shechinah, you became blind soon afterwards, as we read in today’s Sidra “vayehi ki zaken Yitzchak vatich’hena einav me’reos,” when Isaac became old, his eyes failed him, whereas I spoke to…

In a recent book by Norman Cousins, In Place of Folly, there appears a most improbable obituary which is purely imaginary – and frighteningly real. It reads, RACE, HUMAN. Beloved father of science and technology, adored mother of the arts and culture. Departed this earth, suddenly, but not without warning. Survived by no one. What makes this obituary so very pertinent is the series of hair-raising events which, during the past month, took humanity to the very brink of annihilation. The Cuba crisis brought not only Americans but all human beings to the sharp edge of universal catastrophe, face to face with the ultimate terror. The question that we must ask ourselves is, what was or should be our reaction? We who have tottered on the rim of total horror, and we have won a reprieve, we who have stared into the dumbness of the atomic abyss – what view do we now take of life? Have we undergone any inner transformation as a result of this experience? Do we view things any differently now?For assuredly, the brink represents a unique psychological situation. The knowledge of impending disaster, for mankind as well as for individual men or women, evokes a reaction which reveals all our inner qualities: personality, principles, and purposes – or lack of them. The more intensely we are aware of the end of the limitation of life, the more we concentrate our essential character and aspirations into the time left to us.Our Sidra provides us with a clear contrast between two biblical characters in their reactions to the proximity of the end. They are for us an indication of what Death tells us about Life. Father and son, Isaac and Esau, were both concerned over the finiteness of life. Both based their lives on the fact that it ends. Both acted out of the knowledge that man is mortal and soon must pass on. Yet the same cause resulted in effects which were worlds apart. Listen to Isaac, the old father: “And he said, hinei na zakanti, lo yadati yom moti, Behold now I am old, I know …

In an almost casual, offhand way, our Sidra tells us of a series of incidents in the life of Isaac that are apparently of no special significance, but in which our Rabbis have seen the greatest importance. Isaac lived in the land of Canaan, which suffered from scarcity of water most of the year, and he therefore decided to dig a well. We are told of three wells which he and his entourage dug. The first two involved him in difficulties with the people of Gerar, a Philistine people. The first of these, Isaac called Esek, because it was the cause of much strife and contention. He was no more successful with the second well; after his servants dug the well, he incurred the hatred of the people about him. He therefore called the second well by the name Sitnah, meaning enmity. It is only when the third well was dug that happiness prevailed once again; and so he called the third well Rehovoth, meaning room, freedom, scope, peace, or joy.Of what importance can these apparently prosaic matters be to later generations, who search in the Torah for matters of timeless significance and are not particularly interested in economic clashes and riparian rivalry in ancient Canaan? Nachmanides, following the principle of the Rabbis that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים – that the deeds of the fathers anticipate the history of the children – has taught us that the three wells of Isaac recapitulate the stories of the three great Sanctuaries of the people of Israel. The first well is a symbol of the First Temple, which was destroyed because of Esek, because of the battles and wars waged on the Jewish people by the surrounding nations. The second well, that called Sitnah, represents the Second Temple, for this Temple was brought to ruins by the hatred and enmity that prevailed amongst the Children of Israel during that period. However, the third well, Rehovoth, is the symbol of the Sanctuary that has not yet been built – that of the great future. It represents the Beit Hamikdash which will one day b…

The world Jewish community today faces two crises. The first is that of its continued existence, and the second concerns the purpose and the meaning of that existence. There is a large group for whom the simple continuity of the Jewish people has now been brought into question. Not only is this material survival in jeopardy because of external anti-Semitism, such as behind the Iron Curtain or in Arab countries, but because of voluntary “geno-suicide,” by such eroding and corroding forces as assimilation and intermarriage, in the Free World.But within the group that is determined that we shall survive, there is a further question: Why? Is there any meaning to our existence? Some, who identify themselves as nationalists and secularists, say: No, there is no higher meaning or purpose, and there doesn’t have to be any. The simple fact of our existence, without any meaning or direction from above or beyond, is sufficient justification for wanting to continue. Jews are an organic, collective national unit, that possesses its own instinct of self-preservation – and that is that. But there are those who are opposed to this philosophy. They believe that there is a transcendent purpose to Israel and a higher force directing its story. We are a people which has a significance beyond ourselves. There is a meaning that overarches the particularities of the present time and place. There is a spiritual destiny, a religious dimension, that far exceeds in importance the mere national – ethnic continuity of the Jewish people. As Orthodox Jews, we naturally belong in the second camp. Our whole faith, our whole historic experience, tells us that there is more to Israel than Israel. Yet, in this time of crisis – and in many ways the threat to American Jewry is as great as that to Soviet Jewry – we must fight on all fronts. We cannot afford the luxury of retreating into our shells and ignoring the rest of the community. We must join with all those who aspire to Jewish survival, even tho…

The Midrash, quoted by Rashi on the first verse of today’s portion, parts for us the veil that obscures antiquity, and allows us to catch an intimate glimpse into, and hear a personal echo of, the mean passions, the malicious gossip, and the petty rumors that agitated high society of long ago. One particular rumor is reported to us in the form of a comment on the first verse of today’s Sidra. The Torah tells us: ואלה תולדות יצחק, יצחק בן אברהם, אברהם הוליד את יצחק. “And these are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham, Abraham begot Isaac.” But, ask the Rabbis, is it not obvious that if Isaac was the son of Abraham, that Abraham was the one who begot him? What is the purpose of this repetition? They answer: שהיו ליצני הדור אומרים מאבימלך נתעברה שרה, the cynics and scoffers of the generation circulated a rumor that Sarah’s son Isaac was not begotten by Abraham but that she became pregnant by Abimelech, into whose harem she had been abducted earlier. Therefore, in order to give the lie to this rumor, יצר קלסתר פניו של יצחק דומה לאברהם והעידו הכל אברהם הוליד את יצחק the Almighty shaped Isaac’s face to be just like that of Abraham, so that everyone testified that indeed it was Abraham who begot Isaac.How that choice piece of gossip must have circulated from mouth to mouth in ancient Canaan! Not until the baby Isaac began to appear as the image of Abraham did the rumor die of itself. We may ask: but why did the Rabbis bother to resurrect this obscene, vicious rumor, even if only to lay it to rest? Had they no more profitable pursuit than frustrating the prurient interest of contemporary ליצנים in some scurrilous ancient scandal?I submit that if we understand this rumor symbolically, as מעשה אבות סימן לבנים (what happened to the Patriarchs is symbolic for the children), it will be seen to have much wider ramifications; indeed, it will prove to be more significant for today than it was in the days of the Midrash or Rashi – and also far more dangerous.Father and Mothe…

This morning I want to share a mood with you – not analysis, not criticism, only a feeling; more a perception than a conception. Perhaps, more truthfully, I wish to share my confusions with you or, more charitably, my movement from cynicism to something beyond that. Surely, the contemplation of the Jewish situation in the world today leads to cynicism, dejection, and even disgust. It is hard not to be a cynic.The history of this period is like something out of the theatre of the absurd. It is what our Rabbis called עולם הפוך, a topsy-turvy world, a crazy world. Consider this: Black countries, until recently ravished by Arab slave traders, become the zealous advocates of Yasir Arafat. Nations whose nationals are expelled from Uganda in a most merciless fashion offer a rising ovation for that psychopath, Idi Amin. New countries with little geography and less history, but recently liberated, are enthusiastic anti-Israel, denying the Jews the kind of national liberation movement which made them free. And the International Women’s Conference in Mexico City last June failed to report out a resolution against sexism, but managed easily to vote a resolution against Zionism!So it is easy to be a cynic, especially as a reaction to the cynicism in the world about us. Indeed, the choicest piece of contemporary cynicism has an ancient history indeed. We read ואלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם אברהם הוליד את יצחק, “These are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham: Abraham begat Isaac.” But if we know that Isaac is the son of Abraham, is it not superfluous to tell us that Abraham was the father of Isaac? Rashi here quotes a well-known but puzzling Midrash: The ליצוני הדור, the cynics of the generation, spread an obscene rumor that מאבימלך נתעברה שרה, that Isaac was not the son of Abraham, but rather the son of Abimelech, into whose harem Sara had briefly been taken. In order to counter this rumor, the Almighty fashioned קלסתר פניו, the form of Isaac’s face, to be identical with that …