If blessings warrant spiritual commitments, one would expect them also to be contingent on moral and ethical standing of the person receiving them. But “Toldot,” this week’s portion, and its later rabbinical readings send mixed messages in this regard.
In the portion, Jacob appears at best as a clever trickster when he barters his twin-brother’s primogeniture for a plate of lentil soup and at worst as a con artist scheming Esau not only out of their father’s blessing but also out of a significant chunk of inheritance (according to tradition, firstborn got twice as much as other sons). In the latter instance he also deceives their elderly, blind, dying father by pretending—with the help of elaborate costume—to be Esau and be named as the ruler of their people. And when Jacob is discovered to have lied to his father and cheated his brother, he happily allows his mother to send him away under false pretenses. This behavior is hardly suited one of the patriarchs of the Jewish people. Deception, fraud, evading responsibility for one’s actions are by no means markers of high morality. So does this mean that Jacob, the future forebear of the twelve tribes and arguably the most important of the patriarchs, is undeserving of his father’s blessing or that morality is not a necessary condition for paternal and divine sanctification?
According to traditional rabbinical interpretations, Jacob’s attainment of the privileges of the firstborn is not only not reprehensible, but right and fair because Esau is not worthy to offer sacrifices (the prerogative of the firstborn) and be the heir to the covenant of Abraham and Isaac. While the portion describes Esau as a hunter and an outdoorsman, Jacob is portrayed as a gentle man who stays in camp where he presumably studies Torah. To emphasize the purported difference between uncivilized Esau and cultivated Jacob, the former is said to be hairy while his brother—“smooth;” the Talmud makes physical distinctions between the two brothers even more obvious: Jacob was born clean, handsome, and circumcised and Esau—covered with hair all over, red in color, and with all his teeth developed. Talmud’s retrospective description of the twins is supposed to symbolize spiritual differences between Jews (offspring of Jacob) and pagans—descendants of Esau who married two Hittite women and, supposedly, through them becomes an idolater himself. Therefore, it is Jacob who is presented as a more virtuous successor to Abraham and Isaac and hence a more suitable beneficiary of the privileges of primogeniture. In short, he is a better Jew (to use an anachronism) and this makes him entitled to Isaac’s blessing even though he obtains it dishonestly. Thus, ethics trumps morality: particularistic religious commandments supersede universal principles of truth.
To me, this raises two problems. First, it makes me wonder whether immoral means can really justify ethical ends. I believe that such interpretation of Jacob’s transgressions suggests that misdeeds against fellow human beings—compatriots, co-religionists, comrades, as well as “the others”—can be absolved if they are committed in the name of god. But what about offenses that are explicitly proscribed by one’s religion, which in Jacob’s case would be, for example, disrespecting for one’s parents, telling lies, thievery, or envy (see Ten Commandments for more precise formulation)? Here morality encoded in particular religious laws contradicts other ethical behaviors mandated by the same doctrine.
Secondly, Talmud’s whitewashing of Jacob’s actions aims at presenting him as an ever-righteous, unswerving, loyal man who from birth was predestined to greatness and never faltered in his mission. However, this also makes him one-dimensional and precludes any possibility of personal, spiritual, or moral growth, which is not only uninteresting dramaturgically but also narratively incorrect since after many years of living away from home and being deceived himself Jacob returns to ask for Esau’s forgiveness.
Furthermore, it is precisely this overcoming of one’s moral and spiritual failings—as we will also see in the story of Jacob’s son Judah (the progenitor of the messiah) in “Vayeishev” in several weeks—that is rewarded with eminence and renown for himself and his successors.
