1. (27:28-45) Isaac blesses Jacob. Esau returns home and discovers Jacob’s deception. Esau weeps and pleads for a blessing from Isaac, who complies. Enraged, Esau plots to kill Jacob when Isaac dies. Rebecca hears of this and advises Jacob to flee to her brother March in the land of Haran. Genealogy of Ishmael’s descendants.
2. (27:46-28:5) Isaac blesses Jacob and sends him off to Haran.
3. (28:6-9) Esau realizes that his Canaanite wives displease Isaac, so he takes a daughter of Ishmael for a wife.
Love and Admonishment
And Esau seethed with resentment against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “As soon as the time for mourning my father comes round, I will kill my brother Jacob.” (Gen. 27:41)
- The pronoun him is ambiguous. Does it refer to the blessing given Jacob or to the one given Esau? (Artscroll Commentary)
- Why it is that when a butcher asks a rabbi if a particular animal that he had slaughtered is kosher or not and the rabbi rules it isn’t, he doesn’t shout or scorn the rabbi and accepts the ruling without protest. On the other hand, if two men come to a rabbi for a ruling relating to a small amount which is in dispute between them, the one who loses the case will shout and scorn the rabbi, and will also try not to fulfill the ruling?—When a rabbi declares an animal not kosher, it is only the person who asked the question who loses, but nobody else benefits. On the other hand, in a dispute, one loses but the other profits. In this case, the one who lost a little money is pained mainly because the other one got it. The same was true for Esau. He was not angry with Jacob for taking his blessing, because he had no need for blessings from Isaac. All he needed was “by your sword you will live.” Why then did he hate Jacob? Because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him—Esau was angry not over what he had lost, but that his brother gained something. (Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschuetz)
- [Rabbi Yohananben Zakkai said to his five students:] Go out anddiscern which is the evil path from which a man should distance himself. Rabbi Eliezer said: An evil eye. (Avot 2:14) He begrudges the good that befalls his neighbor. (Rabbenu Simhah)
- Shimon HaTzaddik was from the remnants of the Great Assembly. He used to say: On three things the world stands. on Torah, on worship, and on acts of kindness. (Avot 1:3)
Human beings interact with the world on three levels: thought, speech and action. Each of these three is the key to the three basic relationships: You act on yourself through thought or will. Yo interact with God through speech. And you relate to others through actions.
…The first pillar of creation is knowing your identity and your mission … Avodah, the second pillar, is service of God. Chesed, the third pillar, is a commitment to performing acts of human kindness. Life is not a zero sum game. The success of others is your boon not your bane. God created us in order to give us good. The world was designed such that the greatest good is to give to others and to be
other-centered. A person totally focused on himself and oblivious to the needs of others has, almost by definition, failed in the first two pillars. The third pillar of creation is to know that you are not in it alone. You are your brother’s keeper. (Howard Witkin)