Jacob or Esau: Who is the Villain? - Genesis 25:28-27:46

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 2 weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food. That's a $1,500 value, absolutely free. Call 864-644-1900.

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 DennisPrager.com.

On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, how many of you see Jacob as unqualifiedly wrong in the story. As well, let's put it this way, wrong is not the word I'm looking for, is unqualifiedly the bad guy in the story.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, and it starts right now.

Okay, any questions from last time? Yes, sir. You mean which translation? The Torah is a fairly standardized, the standard one, you know, that one, the one from Sinai. I'm sorry, I just had it. I actually, the truth is, I use a lot. Uh, I, uh, I, for if I had my desert island, if you will, my desert island one is the one that Sarna uses. So I assume that's the New Jewish Publication Society, 19, uh, was it 9th? The translation, Sarna, is that— oh, let me explain what Sarna is. Yeah, the translation is the, uh, the 1985-89 translation of the Torah by the Jewish Publication Society of America. I'm not happy, I'm not very happy with any translation. I'm not sure I'd ever be happy with any translation because I would love you to be able to see the literal Hebrew translated. That's what I try to do when I translate it. But there are three Right now there are 3 standard modern commentaries on the Torah: an Orthodox, a Conservative, and a Reform. And I think anybody at all serious about it should get all 3. It's not that expensive, and it's really, really worth having. It's also interesting to find out when they disagree with each other. I mean, I don't mean on the obvious Reform versus Conservative versus Orthodox, but for example, as I will get into today, about the trickery, how wrong was it, and who tricked whom, and one even larger issue, which reminds me, let me just get this. It's relevant to have notes. Okay, any other questions? Is that your computer going? I mean, your recording going? It's up there. Is Mark around? Okay, I guess I'm being recorded, God willing. All right, let's move on here. We were in Genesis 25, right? I think so. Yes, that's where we're on. Huh? I'm sorry, we, we finished it. Well, not really. We didn't discuss the final, the final sentences, which were critical. Genesis 25, let's start at about, uh, let's see, at about verse You sure you're not like 27 to 28 and 27? No, no, not at all. Okay, let's start at, uh, let's start where the, the problem is here with the 28. From 28, Isaac loved Esau, right? Because game, if you will, was in his mouth. Rebecca loves Jacob. Remember now, are you with me? And we have ensuing problems there. And 29, and Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau came in from the field and he was tired. Remember, we noted wasn't starving to death. It's a very relevant thing here. He was tired. Okay. And 30, let's see, and Esau, or Esau, said to Jacob 'Please give me some of that red stuff because I'm tired,' or 'I'm weary,' and therefore his name was called Red. I mean, it doesn't make sense if it says, 'And therefore his name was called Edom.' The stuff, 'adom,' is red. Edom is the name of the rival to Israel later. There was a lot of— really, what we have here is explaining the rivalry of the Edomites and the Israelites. if you will, as part of what is going on here. Okay, so Esau comes in from the field. He's weary. He asks for some of the red stuff. And here comes the problem. What is, what is Jacob's answer? Instead of, oh, Esau, it's really a joy to see you. I see you're weary, and wouldn't you love some of this red stuff that I've been making here? Rather, sell me your 'Your birthright today.' All right, sell it to me now. And Esau says, 'Ah, listen, I'm gonna die. I'm, I'm just about to die, so who needs— why would I need the birthright?' 33. And Jacob says, 'Swear to me as of now, as of today.' And he swore to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave, uh, Esau, he gave him bread and lentil stew, and he, and he ate and he drank, and he got up and he went, and he despised, Asaph did, the birthright. Okay, now that's what we got up to, and the question was, what, what does this tell us? And In other words, it's a real problem. Jacob is a patriarch of the Jewish people. The story that is told here seems to be one of a particularly disgusting sort of act. His brother is weary, he comes back, asks for lentil soup, and he gives it to him on the condition that he gives him his birthright. How many of you see Jacob as unqualifiedly wrong in the story? As— well, let's put it this way, wrong is not the word I'm looking for— is unqualifiedly the bad guy in the story? Okay, raise your hand. There's no right or wrong here. I'm very curious to see how many see it as a mixed bag between both of them. Neither is particularly noble here. How many see— how many see a defense for Jacob? That's interesting. As many of you see a defense for Jacob as for those who see him entirely negatively. I find that interesting. Let's hear a defense. I'm very curious. What's your defense?

Birthright is not necessarily inheritance of property, it's inheritance of responsibility.

Okay. And Jacob legitimately did not see Esau prepared to take on that responsibility. Okay, right. His argument, which I think is a powerful argument, is, after all, what did did he say? And this I really want to work with you. It would be very easy for me to stand up here and say, you know what, it is very clear that Jacob was deceptive, and that the Torah itself makes it clear that it, that it holds that he was deceptive. And we know this because Jacob himself is so deceived later and leads a particularly difficult life. Remember, Abraham died in old age and satisfied. Isaac, you'll see, dies in old age, but rather at the end of Jacob's life it says, things were very hard for me. He's paid back many times over for chicanery. Nevertheless, having said that, that's the easy way. The— and I battled over this because all the commentators basically, at least the modern commentators, speak of this as pretty clear. He did a negative thing. The Torah shows it's negative. And so, uh, and that's, that's basically the story. But now let me ask you a question. What if Esau— what if Jacob had said to Esau, you want some of this stuff? Sure, give me 100 gold pieces. Would you see that as worse? Raise your hand if you would see that as worse. As not worse, raise your hand. Okay, I'll tell you why I would see it as worse. Because what did he ask him for? And here is where I am piggybacking on the gentleman's statement. He asked him for the birthright, but the birthright gave no money. The birthright did not give material benefits. That's pretty important. I mean, what he is trading for— let's say, how about this? I'll make it, I'll make it a different way. Let's say that Esau had the complete works of Shakespeare. Obviously it's not possible, Shakespeare lived a while later. But how about, let's putting it more modern, okay? You have two brothers. One brother could not care less about Shakespeare. One brother loved reading, loved the arts, loved literature. Brother comes in and he says, and he listened, oh God, I want some of that food you made. I am absolutely, I am ravished, and, uh, I, I just really want it. So the brother says, I'll tell you what, let me have the, uh, the Shakespeare set you have. You would understand that the brother who wanted the food never used the Shakespeare. That's the— that's— I mean, we have to take the Torah at its word, right? You can't just take half of the Torah's text. The Torah says he— "Vayivez esav et tabachora"— and Esav couldn't care less. He actually— what's— what's— mocked the birthright. It was a point of pointlessness. If you had a guy who found Shakespeare pointless, but because sheer coincidence happened to have inherited it because he was the older twin, and the younger one says, "You know what? Let me have that Shakespeare." And he says, "I couldn't care less about Shakespeare. Give me the food." Would you feel all that negative toward the brother who wanted Shakespeare after all? Not money, not benefits, but Shakespeare. If you put it in those terms, it still doesn't make Jacob into a saint. All right, I— there is no way to do it, nor, by the way, do I have an agenda to do so. I have an agenda to read this as carefully as possible without, though, necessarily falling into the trap of, well, it's obvious that it's chicanery and that ends the issue. It's not as obvious as I think you would have it. And if I give you the Shakespeare example, I think it becomes clear. If he had asked for money, I think it would be an open and shut case. He did not. He asked to be the inheritor of the blessings that came from Abraham and Isaac. He wanted something spiritual that the text tells us Esau couldn't care less about. Okay, is that— is there any challenges to that defense?

Okay, I think the Shakespeare analogy is a bad one because it also represents some kind of thing of value, and I think that what, what Jacob was doing was he was testing him not for a thing of value but for a thing that carries—

oh, all right, all right. So you're saying that that at least Shakespeare is still a material thing. So in other words, it's even— so the analogy doesn't even do justice enough to the argument I'm making. Fair enough. Uh, hold on, you spoke. Yes.

If Esau didn't care about the birthright, you could assume then that, uh, Jacob knew that. Why, why are— I don't see where you're reading that, uh, that one question was predicated on fulfilling One, that Esau's— Jacob's question was predicated on Esau's answer. Why was he— he was putting the pottage in the bowl, he was getting ready to bring it to his brother, when he, in doing so, asked for the birthright knowing that he didn't care about it. Why— where is the connection?

Well, I understand. Where is the connection between what and what?

Between Jacob asks for the birthright.

Yeah. At a time of Esau's weakness.

But, but the two are not necessarily connected. He says, 'Lo, I'm going to die.' He doesn't—

he—

'I'm going to die when?' Right.

No, I think— okay, no, the connection, the connection is this. The connection is the implication is that for a miserable bowl of soup, the guy's willing to give it up. Listen, if you valued it, unless it was a matter of life and death and there was no There's absolutely no implication of that. Remember that. He came in tired from hunting. That's the extent of it, okay? And the guy says, "Hey, listen, for all we know, my friends, Jacob was shocked." Can you imagine the guy says, "Eh, you know what, I'll give you a bowl of soup, but you give me your birthright." "Okay." Really? Holy mackerel, what a deal. I can't believe it. The guy really couldn't care less about it. See, why am I doing this? Not because I'm anti-Esau, though I admit I'm not one of his defense attorneys, that's clear. I'm doing it because of verse 34. Those who, I think, glibly say that the Torah is clearly anti-Jacob in the story because Jacob gets paid back later so many times over for having engaged in some deal-making I think are missing a very critical point here. Read 34. Jacob then gave Esau bread and lentil stew. He ate and drank, and he rose and went away and spurned the birthright. I mean, that's the, that's the point here. And you could imagine, couldn't you imagine, if he even cared at all, that he would have said after he got his strength back, hey, wait a minute, Jacob, in a moment of weakness I made this deal, but give me a break, you weren't serious about this, were you? But not at all, that's the whole point. Hey, I ate. It's a grubby man portrayed here. You give me food, I get full, that's what I care about. I hunt, I eat, I drink, I'm happy. I mean, that's the figure that's being depicted here. So I have to say that I think when all is said and done, a defense has to be made. The man It's not like Esau had earned the birthright. He had not worked for it. It was simply a matter of fate. If you got something by sheer luck that you don't care about and I do care about, why can't I, through fate, through my own luck, get it from you? I, I, I— believe me, it irks me to stand here defending Jacob. Because I'm a big believer in honesty. But I am not naive. I don't want to sit back and say, well, he was dishonest. What was the dishonesty? There's nothing dishonest here. He said, I'll give you soup, you give me birthright, and it's exactly what he gave him.

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 2 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.

Who had a choice? Esau did have a choice, that's clear. That's why, remember, my friends, you, in order to understand any story, you must try to substitute other things. If it said Esau was about to die and Jacob said this, I would have zero to say. Jacob was a fiend would have been clear. It says he was tired. Big deal. The guy was a hunter himself. He obviously had a chance. He simply didn't want to make the food that day. Jacob the cook did. All right, or as I said earlier, if Jacob had said, give me money, then too we would have Jacob the fiend. Give me spirituality, I'll give you lunch. Okay, that's the trade he made. It's a trade, not a trick. The trick happens later. The trick happens with regard to Isaac the father. Then there's a trick, and we'll come to that. But there's no trick here. Is that clear? There's no trick. There is no ultimatum, "I'll let you die unless you give me your birthright." There is no threat, "I will shoot you, I will kill you for your birthright." I have to tell you, I think he's defensible here. Even though it doesn't sound all that noble. But how could he have done it nobly? What should he have done? Say, 'Esau, listen, I've been meaning to talk to you for the last 28 years. I gotta tell you that the spiritual in life doesn't mean that much to you, and frankly, it means a great deal to me. So why don't you give it to me?' To which Esau would have said, 'And what will you give me?' Now, what if he'd have then said, 'I'll tell you what, I'll make you lunch for the next 3 years'? "Okay, the best lentil soup this side of the Jordan River I will give you for the next 3 years." Would any of you have said anything was wrong then? Again, did Esau earn the birthright? Yes?

[SPEAKING GERMAN] So?

So he is the firstborn, right? It's not a mistake. It's really a very serious challenge to God, maybe even. Well, okay, to be a nepho in those days was a very important thing. Important. Well, it was prestige, certainly, if not power. All right, so wait, so you're pulling So your point is God wanted Esau to be the bechor, the, the firstborn? Well, it doesn't say it. Uh, no, that's important. It doesn't say that that was God's will. The only God's will we do know, or we infer from the text, is that God wants Jacob to be the inheritor of the, the tradition from Abraham and Isaac. That we do know from the text. It's clear that the text prefers that this go to Jacob, okay? And we certainly know it. Even we even know it now. If you never read the rest of Bereshit, of Genesis, you would know. You would even know it. So I don't think you could say that. What, what I'll tell you what might be being said though, now that you raise that issue. Maybe there is a revolution taking place here against enabling nature to determine our lives. That's— that frankly is a bigger factor where, wait a minute, we're not going to let coincidences of birth determine something so important like the, the, the, the monotheist tradition, the, the God-based ideas coming through Abraham. We're just not going to let that happen. Any more than he let it happen with Yishmael, because Isaac was the younger one there too. Sarah had no greater status legally. Well, I guess she did— she was a wife and, and Hagar was a concubine. But he had— that's true, that legally there was a greater status for him, but he was certainly not the firstborn of Abraham. The firstborn there was Yishmael. There too it was inverted. And it's inverted again with the children of Jacob, where Joseph is the incredibly important one, not Reuven. The Torah is here saying, "Wait a minute, don't let birth determine fate." That's a very powerful thing, and Jacob is taking into his hands this idea, "Wait a minute, you're not the one who deserves this." Anyway, look, I normally don't take questions in the middle, so please reserve them. Unless— all right, you're— it's okay. Yes, I must take issue with you in one statement you made. Uh, you said something about the birthright being the blessing of Abraham, and I think there were two separate distinct items.

I don't think the blessing of Abraham was even an issue at that point.

It was, uh, simply— no, the, the bless— yeah, the blessing of Isaac is the issue, but the inheritor of the tradition through Abraham is the issue. From the Torah standpoint? Yeah, well, I don't know. I, having read ahead, I cheated. Uh, it's more than, it's more than that's just that, uh, the birthright in this issue. I, anyway, I have given it my best shot. If I have convinced you, I've convinced you. If not, not. And please hold your stuff and write it down because I have to keep moving on here. But that is my argument on behalf of what Jacob did here. It becomes tougher with Rebecca fooling Isaac through Jacob later, which we're going to get to today come hell or high water. And high water is definitely coming, so, uh, just hell I have to overcome to get to it. But I, I, it's a very, it's a very important thing you realize that, because I think that the popular, even the scholarly popular opinion is very negative to Jacob in this story, and I don't think a reading of the text, an honest reading, makes it quite nearly as negative as he's portrayed. Okay, so that ends chapter 25. All righty, let's go Let's read what others have to say about this for one moment. Let's go to Gunther Plaut, the, the, uh, the Reform commentator on the Torah, writes as follows: As Roger Williams wrote 300 years ago, what are all the contentions and wars of this world about generally but for greater dishes and bowls of porridge, of which, if we believe God's Spirit in Scripture, Esau and Jacob were types. Esau will part with the heavenly birthright for his supping after his hunting for God belly, and Jacob will part with porridge for an eternal inheritance. End of quote. But although such explanations established that Jacob was in fact more capable than his brother to carry the divine responsibility responsibility, they do not answer the question: are the means Jacob employs to gain his ends morally justifiable? I did? Left my lights on. I was so preoccupied with defending Jacob, I forgot to turn my lights off. So this The question remains: are the means Jacob employs to gain his ends morally justifiable? This is Gunther Plaut asking. The answer must be no. On closer examination, the Bible itself makes this judgment on Jacob, but the judgment is implicit, not explicit. It must be seen in the full context of Jacob's life, which develops into a tragedy. I made that point earlier. When you look at it, it is clear the Torah has a negative view of what he did. However, well, let me continue. Where Abraham's life was struggle and triumph, and Isaac's essentially one of quiescence and persistence, Jacob's is a long succession of trials and tragedies. What he touches often turns to ashes. From the moment he grasps his brother's heel at birth, he desperately tries to fashion his fortune. Yet even as he succeeds, he fails. The doubtful exchange of food for birthright brings him a brother's enmity and still does not ensure him his father's blessing. He deceives his father and will be deceived in turn by Laban. He will lose his beloved wife and his favorite son, and he will end his days in a strange land, a pensioner of his child. It is no wonder he will say in retrospect that his years were, quote, few and evil, unquote. There is then a judgment. It lies in the tragic biography of a God-seeker who comprehends neither how to seek nor how to find. Much will happen before he becomes Israel. His failures and successes, his sufferings and joys, as well as his moral debilities and strengths, will foreshadow what will happen to the people who bear his name. Okay, that's Plaut's argument, that the Torah makes clear it didn't like his means. I, I would like to know what means would have been better with an Esau if indeed the ends were good. And I would ask the Torah a question. If the Torah's judgment is that, I have a simple question to ask the Torah. Let's say Esau— let's say Jacob had said, you know what, it's God's will, I won't do anything, I'll just let life play itself out. This, my friends, is going to be the issue I raise with you when Rebecca decides to trick her husband through Jacob for the blessing. Do you, even if you are certain of God's will and even God's promises, do you let them unfold, or do you actively attempt to make them happen? That's a big question here. So I would ask the Torah, what exactly would you want Jacob to do? He sees the birthright not shifting over. He sees a grub for a brother gaining it, gonna get the blessing, gonna get all this stuff. What am I, Jacob, supposed to do? Sit back and relax and go, well, it's not God's will. That grubs carry on the blessing. Do you see what I'm saying? And so, you know, it's again, I think that in some ways my dear, uh, respected, uh, Gunther Plaut is, is again, as all are understandably. I'm not knocking their ideas on, but I'm asking, which I always do, what is the alternative? What should Jacob have done if in fact the point was to carry on the tradition from his grandfather. Okay, let's leave that in abeyance as we have an entirely separate story in Genesis 26, which I'll try to move through with some rapidity. This is really inserted for, uh, for literary narrative reasons. It is not chronologically following the preceding because it makes no mention of their having children, Isaac and Rebecca. And so the odds are this happened before. It's very common in the Torah. Uh, any yeshiva student learns the famous statement, 'En mukdamu ucharba Torah.' There's no earlier or later. In other words, it doesn't follow chronologically at all times. But let's go through it. 26, chapter 26. Okay. There was a famine in the land, which aside from the first famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham And so Isaac went to Avimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Gerar is on the way to Egypt, and Isaac believes that he will be dealt with there, that he will be well dealt with there, because his father had made a contract with the king of Gerar in Genesis 21. If any of you remember that, he, Abraham, had already had dealings with the king of Gerar. And they were very positive ones. So he assumed that if he stops off in Gerar as the child of Abraham, he will be dealt with well there. And that's why, that's where he stops on his way to leaving where Israel, where there was a famine. He was going to go to Egypt, which had already been done earlier. It's in a sense following a pattern. Number 26:2, God appeared to him and said, don't go down to Egypt, which is where he had obviously intended to go, as I said. Rather, I want you to reside in the, in the land, uh, that I will tell you. The— I don't know if you recall, but that is exactly what God said to Abraham. He said, go go to the land that I will tell you. In a sense, this is a test of Isaac's faith in God, just as God attested Abraham's faith when he said, leave your father in Mesopotamia, remember, and go where I'll tell you. The exact, almost the same words here, that you will go where I tell you. Now, the man after all is leaving a famine. There is an element of faith here, of course. And of course, the larger question arises of how is it a test of faith if God appears to you? Ladies and gentlemen, if any of you were certain that God told you anything, wouldn't you do it? What's the test of faith? I mean, I wish God would sneeze, right? Most of us would be happy with a sneeze, let alone a very clear, explicit set of directions. But let me now— but let's now deal with that for a moment. For a moment. What if God said to you— what if you were certain it was God? Okay, God appeared to you, and God said, 'Leave your family. I want you to go to, uh, Vladivostok in eastern Siberia for 10 years and spread my word.' Even if you were certain it were God, are you certain you would do it? Because God doesn't coerce. If God coerced, then that would end humanity, right? We have freedom of choice even when we know it's God's word. Listen, I'll give you an example, and this is a very important thing I'm dealing with here because a lot of you probably think as I used to: what kind of test is it if God comes to somebody and says something? What's the test? The test is if you're not certain it's God. That's the test. I'm telling you it's a test if it's God. I'll bet you a lot of you believe, for example, that God ultimately said, "Do not steal." And yet I suspect that in most of your lives some itty-bitty stealing, even if it was just washcloths from a hotel room or ashtrays from a hotel room or copying software for a computer, and yet I am certain that if I, if I quizzed you and said, do you think that stealing is wrong? You'd say yes. And if I said to you, do you think God thinks stealing is wrong? You'd say yes. And you'd still steal. So I'm— what I'm saying to you is our knowledge that God said something doesn't make it less of a test, okay? It's very important to know that. There are very religious people who I am convinced believe in God with every fiber in their body who commit adultery. If you'd ask them, do you think that God knows what you did? They'd say yes. Do you think that God said do not commit adultery? Yes. So you know, you in your gut, God said don't do what you just did? Yes. Why'd you do it? I'm weak. Okay, fine. My point is not to condemn the person. My point is to explain that the very fact that God says something doesn't make it less of a test. That's the point. Okay, so there is here a difficult thing. The man wants to leave a famine, go to a place where there's food, and God says, uh-uh, and makes it tougher. He doesn't even tell him, just says, you'll go where I tell you to go. All right, that's faith in God even when God is talking to you. That's, that's a key thing. I had to work that out for myself because I always used to think, hey, if God told me, it would be, it would be easy as pie. It's not.

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 2 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.

Verse 3. Settle in this land, that is Israel, and I will be with you and I will bless you because to you and your seed I will give all the lands around here. In other words, all of the nations, for example, and I will keep up the oath that I made to Abraham your father. And I will multiply your seed as this, as the stars of the heaven, and I will give to your seed all these lands, and through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Now, comment on this. This is a very important statement that God also made to Abraham: Through you and your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Judaism does not have a parochial mission. I just wrote an article which those of you who receive my journal have— my, I hope, will have read. It was titled simply, Why Are There Jews? Why, why are there Jews? Now, I'm not going to repeat the article, but one of the important things to understand is that the purpose of the Jews is not a Jewish purpose. The Jewish purpose is a universal purpose. The world will be blessed through what God and the Jews work out. Is that clear? Now, what has happened in Jewish life historically and today today is. There is always a massive tension between the particular and the universal in Jewish life. Am I a universalist or am I a Jew? Do I care about the Jews and Judaism, or do I care about the world? This tears at any thoughtful Jew. Most Jews tend to go into one extreme or the other. Most religious Jews tend to be preoccupied with Judaism and basically forget any sense of mission to the world. Most non-religious Jews feel some sort of universalist mission and basically have neglected their Judaism and Jewish roots. That's why you have, my friends, for example, so many Jews active in universal causes— socialism, Marxism, feminism, environmentalism. Jews are disproportionately involved because from Judaism itself is a universal mission. But what these Jews have done is dropped the Jewishness and they've kept only the universalism. Other Jews have retained all the Jewishness and neglect the world, retreat into religious ghettos, and ignore overwhelmingly the rest of the world. The task for a Jew is to remain rooted in Judaism and talk to the world, because that's the entire purpose of Judaism, is to talk to the world. Very few Jews do that. It's to me the greatest tragedy, frankly, of Jewish life. But here is a classic example. The whole purpose of my recognizing Abraham and you, Isaac, is so that the whole world will be blessed through you. I, I am as interested in every other nation as I am in you. You are simply my vehicle to the blessing of the world. Now you'll say, why does God need a specific vehicle? And for that you should read Ultimate Issues, the article Why, uh, why, why are there Jews? That, that there is a need for a specific human vehicle is the, is the essence of the case that I make. Okay, so that's very important statement. 5:26. 5: Inasmuch, or because Abraham obeyed my voice, he, he, uh, he kept my— it says my charge here, whatever you wish to use— my commandments, my laws, and my teachings. Now this is a tough one here too. We don't know of almost any commands, teachings, and laws that God taught to Abraham. It says here that Abraham kept all the laws and teachings and commandments that I gave him. But can you name any? What are there, 2 or 3? Leave your father, sacrifice Abraham. Does anybody remember any others offhand? Circumcision, right. I mean, but I would hardly say that 3 or 4 laws constitute, says, a man who followed my statutes, my Now the Hebrew is very important. It says, my mitzvahs. You all know the word mitzvah. My— you don't know who, uh, hukim, with ordinances or statutes or laws. And torotai, my Torahs. Torah means teaching. It doesn't mean law. It means teaching. Now there is no— well, say no question. There's little question to me that this is a pedagogic statement for later Jews rather than a specific statement necessarily made by God to Isaac, right? Even the Orthodox Jew holds that this is written far later than Isaac, after all, right? It is a way of using terms that the Jews should be obedient to these things, to my mitzvahs and my Torah, just like Abraham was. You with me? That's why I'm I'm convinced that it is in there. It is a pedagogic statement rather than a factual statement. Verse 6, "And Isaac settled in Gerar." Verse 7, "When the men of the place asked him about his wife—" Little déjà vu, my friends. This is the third time this has come up, and it's only two patriarchs. And, uh, so let's see. "When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, 'She's my sister.'" he was afraid to say, 'My wife,' thinking, as you know, 'The men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she's beautiful.' Patriarchs had good taste in women, that is, there's no question about it. When some time had passed, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out— looking out of the window, saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah. They were an active crowd, our patriarchs. And I will tell you, this is a very— this is a thing worthy of its own discussion. I can't get into it in detail. The Torah is very, very realistic about sex. It— and the Torah's view of sex, if I had to summarize it, is it's part of life, now let's move on. It does not have a Hugh Hefner view, and it doesn't have a Pauline view. Paul, the dominant figure outside of Jesus in the New Testament. It is not a big deal. Virginity is not a big deal except as a legal, as a legal thing, but it doesn't have a profound spiritual value. If you have sex, you have not, you have not engaged in something inherently in any way dirty. Uh, it's, it's just, it's part of life. I mean, look at this description. It's— she sees him, he sees— he looks out the window and sees him playing with his wife. I mean, that's quite something. It is not something you would find in, in, uh, uh, in, in the New Testament about a Christian hero fondling his wife. Okay, Jesus, after all, is celibate. And you don't have it in, in, uh, well, it's interesting. In Islam you have much more of a, uh, early in the Quran, not in Islam, but in the Quran you have, uh, more toward the Jewish aspect with Muhammad who has a lot of wives and so on. But it's a very matter-of-fact view of it as part of life. And as I get a kick out of this, he looks out the window and sees our second patriarch. By the way, I'm happy about it because Isaac is such a non-colorful figure, you know, you almost are happy. Well, at least he did that, you know. Maybe he was not the most exciting guy around, but he did fondle his wife. Thank God for that. And you know, it's, it's like a redeeming feature in an otherwise not terribly dynamic portrayal, uh, or, or a portrayal of a not terribly dynamic male figure in the, uh, in Genesis. Rebekah is without question the far more dynamic figure of the two. All right, so he looks out, this, this king, and he sees, and he sees Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah. Avimelech sent for Isaac and said, 'Ah, so she's your wife. So why did you say she's my sister?' Isaac said to him, 'Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her. And this, by the way, why I said earlier that chronologically it doesn't follow the other, because had they been walking with two little kids, it would have been obvious too. You know, this is my sister and these are our kids would not have worked. Uh, thank God, uh, not even in Gerar, uh, people didn't do that. So, uh, he doesn't understand. Why didn't you just tell the truth about this? Now, Avimelech said, what have you done to us? One of the people might have laid with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Avimelech instructed all his people saying, "Anybody who molests this man or his wife will be put to death." Remember, he's a stranger. Remember I told you about this? I don't want to go over it. The stranger was worthless in most societies. That's why he had to make this claim. If you were a Gerarion, it didn't matter. You and your wife were protected by Gerar laws. But here's an alien coming in, and that's why he's afraid he'll be killed, so that somebody, some guy could take his beautiful wife. You with me? That was the fear. Now, what is the difference between this story and the one with Abraham? The story, as Sarna points out, is unlike the two other episodes in Egypt and also Gerar before with Abraham, there was no kidnapping of the woman here. There was no divine intervention. And there are no gifts. It's a simple matter of human to human. Oh, I see. Uh, God didn't appear to Avimelech in a dream and say, you know, you better not. They weren't afflicted with impotence or disease. It was simply a matter of, oh, I see you're married, you should have told us. So it turns out that they're nicer in that regard than, than, uh, Isaac suspected, just as the others turned out nicer than Abraham suspected. Remember, it's an interesting thing. There is no depiction of non-Jews as in any way less worthy inherently than Jews in the Torah. It's a very, very important theme that runs through the Torah. The Jews have a task, but they're no inherently better than anybody else. Thus the task is sacred, period. All right, verse 12. Isaac sowed— Isaac sowed, that is, uh, sowed agriculturally in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. You hear that? He was a very good man in agriculture, clearly. It's another, by the way, positive statement about Isaac. He did very well. But of course, why? Because it says the Lord blessed him, and the man grew richer and richer until he was very rich. He acquired flocks and herds and a large household. So that the Philistines envied him. And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. And Avimelech said to Isaac, 'Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.' Now, this is a very interesting little story. It's a paradigm of much of Jewish history. The Jew, the alien, comes in, does very well, is found to be a threat and a source of, uh, cause of envy, and is kicked out after achieving in that place. Now, it's also interesting, the Hebrew of verse 16 is— it says here, 'For you have become too big for us.' In Hebrew, you can translate it just as correctly, 'You have become too big through us, which is a very common complaint of anti-Semites historically. You took out all of our, uh, native wealth and you have usurped it for yourself. Okay, now why didn't the Philistines, who had the same exact earth, do the same exact agriculture, is a question that obviously, uh, he could have opposed, but I'm just telling you that that's the interesting thing here. And he wrote as follows on this particular verse: even when there was only one Jew in the country, there was no room for him. Isn't that a great point? One guy, get out of here, we envy you. It's a very great point that this Sorotsky made. Isaac did not live at the at the expense of the other inhabitants. He was 100% productive, a highly successful farmer from whom much could be learned about plowing, fertilizing, planting, and harvesting. I thought it was a very valid point that this rabbi made. He said, you would think, why don't the people of Gerar go, hey, that's pretty good, how'd you do it? Nah, we hate your guts. And not only that, to show you how we hate productivity, we'll fill your wells with dirt. I mean, so who gets hurt? They get hurt. Which is, by the way, exactly again what has happened historically. Spain was angry at its Jews, so it kicks them out and goes into a 500-year impoverished hibernation. See? We'll show you Jews. We'll kick you out. And what happens? So long to Spain for half of a millennium. And it's that really in this regard it is such a classic recurring theme. Oh, the Jews got wealthy. Aha. So instead of saying, how'd you get wealthy? We'll kick you out and destroy your wealth. Then we can all be impoverished without you. That is exactly what happens. And by the way, this is a common theme, uh, not only vis-à-vis Jews, but vis-à-vis wealthy people generally. Instead of saying, how'd you get wealthy? There is a great often envy. America is one of the few few places in the world where the wealthy are not so much envied as admired. It's generally been that way in the United States. "Oh wow, look at his car!" instead of "Oh, that slimebag for having such a car!" You see? And there are those, and by the way, that's where you have the political question of creating class antagonisms. But generally in America, it is fair, one of the few countries where the wealthy were looked at as having achieved something, not having robbed everybody else of their wealth. In the Soviet Union, or the ex-Soviet Union, you have exactly this attitude where if somebody makes money— if I buy tomatoes for 10 kopecks for a kilo, just to make up a thing, okay, of tomatoes, and then sell it for 40 kopecks from a stand in the middle of of St. Petersburg. You know what I am called? I am called an extortionist, a speculator, not a business person. You— and what happens? You then destroy the people who make wealth for themselves. But generally speaking, the wealthy make wealth for others too. I'm not saying that all wealthy are altruistic, no, but the very fact that That is, they're the ones who make it possible for them to have tomatoes, for it to be shipped from the farm to the city, and for me to employ a tomato salesman. Look at all I've done even though I am totally selfish. And it's a very interesting thing. That's exactly what occurs here. That's why it's very odd historically that Jews would become socialists. Jews historically were the wealth creators. Creators in the societies they went to. So to have wealth envy among Jews was, was actually in some ways a distortion of the original Jewish impulse in most societies in which they went.

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. Program. 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 2 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.

So But he writes here about this, and that was, I thought, a very effective statement of Rabbi Sirutzkin. Okay, continuing. What verse are we up to? Thank you very much. Verse 17. So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled. Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham's death. And he gave them the same names that his father had given them. In other words, to restate, it's my family's wells. I'll talk about these sentences when I get to 22. But when Isaac's servants digging in the wadi found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar warreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, 'The water is ours.' It's happened again. They find good water. Ah, it's ours. Well, why didn't you find it? Instead of saying, 'What a great thing, how do you find water?' 'It's ours.' If the same thing happens again, he named that well Esek because they contended with it. Esek means contentiousness. And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also, so he named it Sitnah. Which is basically envy and hatred and enmity. That's what the way he named that well, uh, Isaac. It's interesting that he named wells which he gave up, by the way. He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called it Rehovot, saying, now at last the Lord has granted us ample space to increase in the land. Rehovot means widenesses. If you will. Wide is rachav. Okay, that's how you got that word. So Isaac builds wells, others fight with him, and he finally builds a third well. Now what's interesting here is a little bit about Isaac. Isaac is a very peace-loving man. All right, you argue, I'll build another well. Builds another well, you argue, I'll build a third well. You notice that he's not a fighter. He's clearly not a fighting type. And which, which has come through because he, of all the, uh, he's the hinani man. He's the here I am man. You know, Dad, you want to sacrifice me? Here I am. Uh, Rebecca, what would you like me to do? Which we'll see next. I'll do that. Uh, and, and it is, um, he— I don't say this negatively. In fact, I want to say something about Isaac which I, I thought about while doing this. It is very important to understand, and I think that this is what Genesis is trying to say about the patriarchs, it is very important to understand that you all, we all, cannot be an Abraham or a Jacob, who in some ways has his own greatness later, strives to He fights with the angel of God and so on. Life and God do not call you to be Abraham. You are called to be what you are at your best. It's a very important lesson. To say that Isaac was not an Abraham is like saying, well, you know, Dennis Prager is just no Mickey Mantle. Of course not. I could play baseball every day since my, my, my 5th year, and I would, I would never have made the major leagues, let alone have been a Mickey Mantle. But it's pointless. I can't be it. I'm not made that way. I'm made to be Dennis, the best Dennis I can be, as you must be the best you you are. You cannot do it to others, and you cannot do it to yourself. And this is the key point, and this is why I justify the idea of saying Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, not just Abraham, or Abraham and Jacob and ignoring Isaac. Everyone has a role to play in history, not just Churchill, and not just Abraham, and not just Moses. So do the Isaacs have a role to play. And if the Isaacs don't play their role, it's irrelevant what the Abrahams do. You see what I'm saying? You must know that, and I must know that, or else we all will punt, because we're not Abrahams or Churchills. Your role in the scheme of life and in God's scheme is as great as Abraham's. It is simply different. That's the point. This is his nature. His nature is not to fight with God like Abraham. It is not to be a leader like Abraham. It is not to wrestle with the angel of God like Jacob. It is to be Isaac. And he did his job. Isaac did his job as well as Abraham did his, because if Isaac didn't do his job, you wouldn't have had the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Isaac's yes was as important as Abraham's yes. So I, I give a defense here for Isaac, okay? He's not, he's not the sort of guy who's picture you'd have up, you'd have Abraham's picture up. But there are far more Isaacs in the world than there are Abrahams. And if the Isaacs don't do their job, it all fails. And that's my argument for Isaac. And we have a picture here of a thoroughly decent fellow who's obviously a peace-loving guy. He argues, he plays with his wife— I mean, he doesn't argue, he plays with his his wife. Hey, he loved the wrong kid. Okay, so? A lot of parents love the wrong kid. Isaac was not the first in history to love the wrong kid, right? So that's my defense too on behalf of Isaac, who when compared to Abraham, it's like sometimes in music you'll hear, you know, about a composer, "Oh, but he doesn't compare to Mozart." Well, so what? So what? Therefore he's not great? Therefore he's not enjoyable? Therefore his greatness looms less? I mean, it's a pointless thing to even make that point, unless somebody asked, "Who wrote the greatest music?" I'm not even sure there's an answer to that, but then, okay, I could say, "All right, you know what? Mendelssohn's Mendelssohn's was not as great as Mozart's, but it was great. And Mendelssohn did with what he could do the best. He was a giant for him. There is a great Hasidic story about that. It's about the guy named Zusha who dies, goes to heaven, and appears before the divine court and says, "God, please forgive me. I was no Moses." And God responds, respond, 'Zusha, I never expected you to be Moses, but I did expect you to be Zusha.' That's the question you have to ask yourself, and that's the point here. Not, 'Were you Moses?' 'Were you Barbara?' 'Were you Sally?' 'Were you— were you Jim?' That's the point, and that's the question one has to ask, and it's the only one you'll ever be asked. Asked, why didn't you do what you could do with what you had? And Isaac may have— seems to have, in fact. Okay, uh, let's move on to verse 34. No, no, excuse me, we're on 23, right? It's because I have nothing to say between 23 and 34. That's why I said that. Read fast. So he went from there to Beersheba. That night God appeared to him and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. That's how he would know this God. It was still a, a family, tribal, national identity. Fear not, for I'm with you, and I'll bless you and increase your offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham. Interesting, by the way, uh, here is that I felt a little bad for for Isaac, that that's the way God spoke to him. It's only because of your father that I'm, that I'm appearing, and so on. I, I felt a little bad. It's one of the questions I'll ask God, uh, when I, when we meet, which hopefully is not too soon. So he built an altar there and invoked the Lord by name. Isaac pitched his tent there and his servants started digging a well. And Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his counselor and Pichol the chief of his troops. Isaac said to them, why have you come to me, seeing you've been hostile to me and have driven me away from you? See, the guy stood up for himself. Okay. And they said, we now see plainly that the Lord has been with you. And I find it interesting that it's God's specific pronoun name that is used here, proper name. It is not Elohim but Adonai that's used. And we thought, let there be a sworn treaty between our two parties, between you and us. Let's make a pact with you that you will not do us harm, just as we have not molested you. Notice, of course, we filled your wells with dirt, but we didn't molest you. It's very, you know, it's very precise thing here. We can all make good cases for ourselves. They were not molested, just as the— as he had ordered his people, remember, not to molest him or Isaac or Rebecca. Uh, but, uh, have always dealt kindly with you and sent you away in peace. From now on, be you blessed of God. Then he made for them a feast, and they ate and drank. Early in the morning, they exchanged oaths. Isaac then bade them for Farewell, and they departed from him in peace. That same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug and said to him, we have found water. He named it Shiva, uh, Shiva, which is 7. Therefore, the name of the city is Beer Sheva to this day. It's such an important place that they wanted to give you— the Torah wants to give you a source of how the name Beer Sheva came about. Sheva means 7, also comes from shivua, which means oath. So that, that's how it came there, as it were, from oath. Verse 34, which is an interesting little addendum that ends this chapter: When Esau was 40 years old, he took to wife Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, or Hittite, and Bosmat. It's a beautiful name, my daughter Bosmat. By the way, clearly the tradition— traditional Jews did not care for it either, because while you have many Judiths, there are very few Bosmats in Hebrew history. Daughter of Elon the Hittite. And how's this? Mother-in-law. And they were source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebecca. Not just to Rebecca, but to Isaac too. Esau's wives— another hint that we're not talking about a classy character when we talk about Esau. Okay, he picked some real lulus apparently, who caused great aggravation to Esau's parents, Isaac and Rebecca. Once again, he's shown to be unworthy of the heir of Abraham and his message, which is the perfect introduction to his not being the heir of Abraham and his message of chapter 27, one of the most interesting on purely narrative basis. Not, in other words, the, there are not massive insights into human nature, just It's one of the most interesting stories in history, and I want to get through it tonight. When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, 'My son.' And he said, 'Here I am.' 'Hineni,' the same words as used when Isaac responded to his father and Abraham responded to God. He was a very dutiful son, by the way, and that is important, and it is always given to Esau's credit. And he said, I am old now— that is Isaac— and I do not know how soon I may die. Take your gear, your quiver and bow, and go out into the open and hunt me some game. Then prepare a dish for me that I like, one of those you know I like, and bring it to me to eat. So that I may give you my innermost blessing before I die. Now, just a little word here. Who is cheating whom? Shouldn't Esau have said, "Dad, I think I ought to tell you I'm not the one who gets it," right? Who's cheating whom? The guy made a deal and says nothing to his father about it. Okay. Rebecca, God bless her, 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, God's approval, before I die. Now, my son, 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'll appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.' But his mother said to him, 'Your curse, my son, be upon me. Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.' This is a powerful woman. 'Your— that curse is on me. I take full moral, religious responsibility for what we're doing.' That's, that's, that's extraordinary. Her certainty that Isaac was wrong in wanting to give the blessing to Esau was such that she was willing to stand before God and defend what she did. I mean, think about it. It's a very remarkable thing. It's not you are doing this, my son. I take absolute responsibility. He got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked. Rebecca 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. Then she put in the hands of her son Jacob the dish and the bread that she had prepared. It's, by the way, it's a very touching thing. She put in his hands. It's not that she even gave it and he took. She's the actor here, you see. This is, this too is a fascinating thing. And by the way, I think I've told you, I think here too, while obviously we're not talking about late 20th century American feminism, sexism. The Torah's picture of women as independent beings of strength is frequently very different from the sexist view that we always attribute to the ancient world. Clearly Rebecca here is the tower of strength. The men are less so. And she is not only the tower of strength, she's right. She's the— she, like Sarah, Remember what I told you about Sarah? After all, it's Sarah's kid specifically, not Abraham's kid specifically, who carries on the tradition, right? Matriarchs are critical, critical in the stories, and in this story more critical. If it were up to the patriarch, history would have been confused, right? If it were up to Isaac. Yes. So he went to his father, that is, uh, Jacob went to his father, to Isaac, and he said— and he, that is Isaac, said, yes, which of my sons are you? Which is interesting to begin with. Why would he even ask the question? Just keep that in mind. Because I'm going to ask a very tough question after the story. Jacob said to his father, 'I'm Esau, your firstborn. 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?' Right, he just sent them out. And he said Because the Lord your God granted me good fortune. That was a sharp answer on his part, because if he'd have said, the Lord my God, Esau would have said, since when did you get God? Right? Esau would not have spoken of the Lord my God. We do not have a sense that he was theologically inclined. So he Says, the Lord your God, Dad, granted me good fortune. Isaac said to Jacob, come closer. This is the third. All his reactions are, who are you? Right from, who are you? How did you get here so fast? And now, let me make sure it's you. Come closer that I may feel you, my son, whether you're really my son Esau or not. So Jacob drew close to his his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered. And this, the next words in Hebrew, are so frequently cited in Jewish life that there have probably been more divrei Torah, more commentaries of Torah, instructive speeches and sermons given, than on any other sentence in the Torah. Hakol kol Yaakov, be hayadayim yedei esav. The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. By the way, it's a symbolic thing too. Wherever that happens, where you don't know exactly what is this— is it a bad guy or a good guy? And you can say that the The voice is the gentle one, but the hands are the ferocious ones, or the wild ones. But he means it literally here. It is literally the voice is Jacob's and the hands are Esau's. He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau. And so he blessed him. He asked, time number 4, are you really my son Esau? 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. So he served him and he ate, and he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, 'Come close and kiss me, my son.' And he went up and kissed him. This was a fifth test. And he smelled his clothes, and he blessed him, saying, 'Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that the Lord has blessed.' And here is the blessing: 'May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, abundance of new grain and wine, Let peoples serve you and nations bow to you. Be master over your brothers, and let your mother's sons bow to you. Cursed be they who curse you, blessed they who bless you. That's the blessing. No sooner had Jacob left the presence of his father Isaac After Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, then his brother Esau came back from his hunt. It's a tense story, isn't it? He too prepared a dish and brought it to his father, and he said to his father, 'Let my father sit up and eat of his son's game so that you may give me your innermost blessing.' His father Isaac said to him, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'I'm your son Esau, your 'Isaac was seized with very violent trembling. 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. Now he must remain blessed.' When Esau heard his father's words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing 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, because the Hebrew Yaakov is to grab, it could be one of the things that it means. First he took away, grabbed my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing. Now by the way, that's an interesting question. There. Are they, are they, or are they not related? I think, unless someone knows otherwise, that they are related. Because, A, otherwise why would, why would it have mattered to, to Jacob to have gotten the birthright? And second, Esau's answer to his father, "Who are you?" was, "I'm your firstborn." born. That's why I'm going to get the blessing, right? Just a few verses ago, you remember that he said, I'm your firstborn. So this is not— this is a not quite fair statement on the part of Esau. First the birthright and now my blessing. That's what comes with the birthright. It's like saying, first you took my car and then you took my tires. No, the tires come with the car. And he added, have you not reserved a 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 sustained him with grain and wine. What then can I still do for you, my son? And Esau said to his father, have you not 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 heaven above. 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. Okay, uh, I have a question. Do you think that Isaac was truly deceived? Raise your hand if you think that Isaac was truly deceived. 3? That's it? 4? Raise your hand if you think that Isaac knew it was Jacob. Raise your hand if you can't tell from the text. I think maybe he wasn't quite sure it was Jacob, and the reason why he called Isaac was that was the way to prove his doubts. I mean, he certainly at least had some kind of belief that it was Jacob. Well, he had doubts. He didn't ask Isaac to bring him the second mint. Okay. My dear friends, this is what I believe. No, before I tell you what I believe, uh, I'm going to read you what Plaut believes, then I'll tell you what I believe. Gunther Plaut. This is what Plaut writes under the heading, Was Isaac Really Deceived? As we read the story with close attention to the personality of Isaac, we are led to conclude that throughout the episode he is subconsciously aware of Jacob's identity. However, since he is unable to admit this knowledge, he pretends to be deceived. Seen in this context, the tale contains a plot within a plot. Rebecca and Jacob lay elaborate plans for deceiving Isaac. While unknown to them, Isaac looks for ways to deceive himself in order that he might carry out God's design, though he does not really want to do it, namely to bless his less loved son. Isaac is old but not senile. His blessings are highly sophisticated. He has no doubts about Esau's identity. The latter's single word, 'Here I am,' right, remember that? Is enough to establish it, while Jacob's single word, "Father," in verse 18 arouses doubt so that no amount of play-acting, false skins, and goat disguised as venison can really deceive Isaac. But he wants to be misled. In his heart, he has long known that Esau cannot carry the burden of Abraham and that instead his quiet and complicated younger son must be chosen. Weak and indecisive man and father that he is, Isaac does not have the courage to face Esau with the truth. His own blindness and the ruse of Rebekah come literally as a godsend. Consciously, he cannot admit to knowing the identity of Jacob. In verse 23, subconsciously he is relieved. So he proceeds, and as a start gives a blessing of material goods to Jacob. Then comes the hardest part, the pathetic confrontation with Esau, the father trembling and the son weeping bitterly. Only when this is past can Isaac call Jacob without anxiety and complete the blessing by invoking the memory of Abraham. Note that Isaac does not reprimand Jacob. We're not up to that, for how can he who— how can he who deceived himself be angry at the deceit? In a sense, no one, not even Esau, is deceived, for he too knows that Jacob and not he is the chosen one. Even in this reading of the story, however, the problem of Jacob's morality remains the same, for Jacob believes that he is deceiving his father and he acts on this belief. I agree with every word that Plaut said. And that's why there is a lot of deception going on— Isaac himself, Rebecca, Isaac, Jacob himself— because Isaac is not really being deceived was deceived, and Esau certainly deceived himself because he should have expected this all along given the deal that he had made earlier. My only proof though that Isaac wanted it this way is his reaction when Esau Esau comes in. Now, how— and it's my only proof, the rest is really to infer from subliminal messages, but this one's not subliminal. What happens when, uh, when Esau comes back? Well, let me ask you, let's put it this way: if Isaac were terribly upset, what would his reaction presumably have been? He would have cried. His son cried, right? Bitterly. His son cried tears. Yes, he shook. He was scared. That's what he was. He was scared. That's all it is. He trembled. Yes, he trembled of having to confess to confront his son about it. When you tremble, it's because you know something you did was wrong. That's what I think, and that's what I think is clear. It should have said, "And he too wept." There's no emotional reaction. To tremble is not an emotional reaction. It's, "Oh, I tremble because there's a reason to tremble." First of all, perhaps this wild guy who knows what'll do. Is one possibility. Another is, oh God, I'm trembling, I got to confront them with what just happened. Why couldn't the blessing be taken back? Is a good question. Either because you just couldn't do it in those days— it's not, you know, it's not the 30-day money-back guarantee sort of blessing. Uh, I think the other reason is because he didn't want it taken back. Yes, I think that, you know, he gave him the line. Sorry, I gave it. But if it was under deception, he could have said, well, you know, under deception it doesn't really count. That could have been a very logical reaction too, which is another reason why— and if your question is very fair, it's a good question— why did he so want it so much at the end? Well, given the nature of the blessing of the dominance of one brother over the other, I could see why he might. Let me just finish that, uh, that chapter. Uh, what the— where was I up to? Up to 41. 27:41. Now Esau harbored a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him. And Esau said to himself, let but the morning 'Period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob.' When the words of her older son Esau were reported to Rebecca— isn't that an interesting thing, though? If he said it to himself, how were they reported to Rebecca? Probably said it to himself, right? Anyway, it's just an interesting— it— there's no question the juxtaposition of sentences forces you ask that question. The odds are he said it to more than just himself. We don't have a very strong sense of a very self-controlled individual with Esau. Your brother Esau, she said to Jacob, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Is this woman bright? I mean, is that not psychologically astute? It would have been so logical to just say Your brother plans to kill you, but he's consoling himself by planning to kill you. She so understood him. There is that type. There are people who, who feel better only by planning revenge, by planning, by being angry. That's how they feel better. Not by doing something constructive with their life, but by destroying others. That's how he's consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now, my son, listen to me. Flee at once to Haran and to Haran and to my brother Laban. You remember Laban. Stay with him a while until your brother's fury subsides, until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you have done to him. Another very interesting thing is that not proof that he didn't care care, basically, that Esau didn't really care about this whole matter. It's going to subside because what really matters to Esau? Borscht, Judith, and food. Then I'll fetch you from there. Let me not lose you both in one day. I'll lose you because he'll kill you, and I'll lose him because he'll be fugitive. Rebecca said to Isaac, I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women. This is back to the way the previous chapter ended, right, with the daughters-in-law married to Esau. If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like these from among the native women, what good will life be to me? This woman was very concerned about keeping this people alive, this nascent Hebrew nation. This was what preoccupied her. She had the clearest vision of them all of what needed to be done. I defend her right, right through it all. And by the way, remember, you don't have a terribly deceptive woman in Rebecca. There is almost no figure, remember, from our study There is almost no figure whom we know so much about her character or his character as we do about her character, thanks to the test. Remember the character test for the who would be the wife of Isaac? And she turns out to be a woman of extraordinary kindness. So this is not some one of your deceptive, disgusting self-hating, other-hating types. This is a beautiful human being who knew what needed to be done. And by the way, there's no question that Jacob must have told her about the deal he pulled off with the lentil soup earlier. So I tell you, while it's not my favorite story because you would wish that the author origins of the Jewish people would have been pristine, pure, moral. My— I told you this earlier— my belief in the Torah is always increased precisely because of such stories. It wasn't all that smooth. It wasn't all that morally pure. Saints did God didn't found the Jewish people. Flesh and blood people did. Flesh and blood people keep this up, and flesh and blood people are the only things in the final analysis that can influence other flesh and blood. Not saints.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

How come there are so many parents whose kids have different values, especially in the case of traditional parents? Specifically traditionally religious Americans.

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.

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 2 weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food. That's a $1,500 value, absolutely free. Call 864-644-1900.