Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Academy

The portion, Toldot (These Are the Generations), begins with the wedding of Isaac and Rebecca. After twenty years of infertility, Rebecca conceives and the Creator tells her she will have two sons. The first is Esau, and the second, who is holding unto his brother’s heel, is Jacob. Esau becomes a hunter and Jacob studies Torah.

The first confrontation between the twins arises over the selling of the birthright. Esau returns empty-handed from a hunt, and Jacob offers him lentil stew in return for the birthright. Esau agrees. After some time, Esau discovers that Jacob deceived him.

Later in the portion, Isaac digs two wells, both of which are taken by the Philistines. A third well remains in Jacob’s hands, and he calls it “Rehovot.” Finally, Avimelech and Isaac make a covenant between them.

The second confrontation between the twins happens when their father wishes to bless them. Isaac wants to bless Esau, his firstborn, and Rebecca asks Jacob to dress as Esau in order to receive the blessing of the firstborn. When Esau discovers that Jacob received his blessing, he wants to kill him, so Rebecca sends Jacob to Haran, to her brother, Lavan.

Commentary

The drama before us is, in fact, the process of man’s spiritual development. The story deals with man’s most fundamental forces, although it has been turned into a novel.

The Creator created the will to receive. That desire is the entirety of the substance of Creation. It is possible to use the will to receive for one’s own favor or in favor of others. In fact, all of Creation is prone to using the desire in favor of others, as it is written in the Jerusalem Talmud, “Love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah” (Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, 30b). This is the law of the whole of reality, the whole of Nature.

On the one hand, we must use the will to receive and satisfy it however we can. On the other hand, the act of satisfying, in which we draw everything to ourselves, must be for the benefit of others. This seems contradictory, but it is vital to use the ego, the will to receive, solely in a direction that is good for everyone. We cannot understand that contradiction, which is why we cannot understand the Torah, making its meaning hidden from us.

The portion seemingly explains this contradiction by saying that although Abraham loved Ishmael, he sent him away. Isaac, who loved Esau—the will to receive, all the substance of Creation—acted similarly, though Esau is our entire nature, which we need and use in everything we do in life.

We must learn to use Esau with the aim to bestow, a state where our egos turn from evil inclination into good inclination. “Love your neighbor as yourself” means that you first act only according to the “as yourself,” meaning as you love yourself. Subsequently, you turn the intention into love of others.

This inversion does not happen through actions because an act in our desire is to receive. Rather, it is done by receiving in order to bestow upon others. Then, all that exists in the world, all the lights and bounty traverse each and every one of us and flow to the rest of the world. In this manner, everyone is nurtured..

Today, as we are discovering how interconnected we all are, we have an opportunity to understand that only through good connections between us will we receive all the satisfactions we so crave. It will happen only when we satisfy others; this is when we enjoy.

This is the meaning of the birthright. The firstborn is the one on top, in the Rosh (head). The head must have the intention to bestow, to benefit others, to love, which is called “Jacob,” who is studying Torah, which is bestowal.

The portion discusses our need for the Kelim (vessels) of Esau, just as on Purim we speak of the lights of Haman that we receive clothed by Mordechai, which is the end of correction. It is like the Haman Pockets, where pockets are his Kelim. Esau, the hunter, brings all the egotistical desire under the reign of bestowal, Jacob’s Torah. This is the right way to use our egos, our will to receive.

This makes the combination of Esau and Jacob appropriate. Isaac, the older one, the bigger degree, actually loves the next degree, which is entirely as Esau, a will to receive that is surfacing. In each new degree, its strong will to receive appears first, and subsequently the correction takes place. In other words, when an “Esau” is born in you, you gradually correct it through Jacob until you can use it.

An example of the right combination is the “three wells.” Two wells, right and left, are not a good combination. The third well is truly Rehovot (wide/broad), “For now the Lord has made room for us” (Genesis, 26:22), which enables us to draw great benefit from it.

Jacob receives all the light that comes from the higher degree, from the patriarchs, since Esau cannot receive the blessing. In fact, Esau relinquishes it because otherwise he would starve. Only through Jacob—who is operating correctly with Esau’s Kelim, our desires—can everyone be satiated because Jacob directs all his desires toward the benefit of others.

After the stealing of the birthright, a war breaks out between Jacob and Esau because they are completely different. Finally, they find the third well, the third line, founded by both of them.

We have the same problems in our world. On the one hand, we exist in our egos. On the other hand, the emerging global, integral system compels us to be tied to one another. However, we do not know how to connect the two ends. Each of us wants everything for his or her self, but the emerging integral nature does not allow it; it “argues” that we are all connected.

Thus, we are all as was Esau, facing the emerging nature that is as Jacob. Now we must complement the two. We need to dig the third well through the upper one, Isaac, in order to resolve the crisis.

Questions and Answers

Sarah was barren for many years, and so was Rebecca. Suddenly, they became pregnant. What is the meaning of barrenness and pregnancy, and the transition between them?

In the spiritual world, birth implies the advent of a new degree. In other words, we take the part of our desires that we can aim to bestow upon others and correct them into love of others. The “offspring” of this operation is called a “son.”

This is why we spend many years searching for how to sort out our egotistical desires, how to take from them only the ones on which we can build our next degree. Thus, Rebecca’s barrenness for twenty years represents ten Sefirot of Ohr Yashar (Direct Light) and ten Sefirot of Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light), until they all comprise a complete structure that becomes a birth.

In the birth of a new degree, we always beget both Esau and Jacob. Jacob cannot be born without Esau because there cannot be an intention to bestow without something on which to establish it. Likewise, Esau cannot be born without Jacob because there is nothing we can do with only our egos. Thus, both have to be born together.

This is why “sin crouches at the door” (Genesis, 4:7): first, the self-centered will to receive that must grow is born, and subsequently the desire to bestow arises. Both desires, or both sons, grow. One becomes a hunter, being with animals, with nothing but egotistical vitality. The hunter works with the ego, the will to receive, and enhances it. The other desire has the aim to bestow and brings us to contemplate how to use our nature to ascend to greater achievements beyond this life, to a higher degree.

When the desires grow and reach the higher degree, a struggle unfolds between them, within us, between right and left. It is settled by means of the third well. Esau must sell his birthright to Jacob or he will starve to death and never be able to receive the upper light. Likewise, Jacob cannot do without Esau because without him he has no Kelim in which to receive the upper light. Thus, they need each other.

Once Esau is born—our ego, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination”—the second one is born, Jacob, and corrects it, as it is written, “I have created for it the Torah as a spice.” Both Jacob and Esau eventually achieve the complete correction. They use all of Esau’s Kelim and all of Jacob’s intentions, similar to Haman and Mordechai. In this way, everyone achieves completion in the third line, the third well.

What is the “birthright” and how can it be transferred or sold?

“Birthright” means being the leader. Who is leading, the intention or the desire? According to the Torah, the firstborn inherits everything the father has. There is no meaning to being the firstborn other than that. It may very well happen that the second or third child will succeed more because they have learned from the experiences of the elder.

Clearly, the evil inclination comes first, meaning the desire that the Creator created, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.” Initially, we are all evil; we all emerged from the breaking of the vessels; we are all egoists. Only afterward do we correct ourselves according to our free choice.

The firstborn is always Esau. However, we see that we cannot succeed with our Esau. We can see through today’s crisis that we are in an impossible situation; there is nowhere to go. It will not be long before we have nothing left in the world, not even food. We are in “search mode,” in Esau’s field, but we cannot find any fulfillment in it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to understand things before they happen. Having no other choice, we must turn to Jacob and ask him to take over, to accompany us, and to manage us, since Jacob knows the ways of the Creator. He is studying Torah and he is in the light. Jacob has revealed the Creator and knows how to achieve love of others. In a global, integral world, we have to establish such connections, too, but we do not know how to do this correctly in order to sustain ourselves. This is why, eventually, the Jacob in us steps forward and manages us, meaning he becomes the elder.

So why did Esau feel deceived and seek revenge?

Esau is the evil inclination. Until it is corrected, it will always appear as such, crueler and crueler. These are the “pangs of the Messiah,” where our egos, our desires to receive, appear so we may gradually correct them.

From The Zohar: And the Boys Grew – for He Had a Taste for Game

“This was so even while in Rebecca’s intestines; each went to his own side, since when she engaged in good deeds or when she went past a place where it is good to perform the Mitzvot of the Torah, Jacob would rejoice and rattle to get out. And when she went near a place of idolatry, that wicked one would rattle to get out. For this reason, when they were created and came out to the world, each of them was separated and went and was drawn to his befitting place.”

Zohar for All, Toldot (These Are the Generations), item 74

Man is born wanting nothing but to devour everything in sight. Even when we are little, each of us wants everything. The more we grow and expand our fields of vision, the more we want to dominate and rule over everything. It is natural and good because the ego has to grow.

In our evolution as human beings, we grew over millennia using our Esau desire. This desire grew and drew us forward, but now the world is compelling us to keep advancing, but with our Jacob desire, not the Esau one.

We are the will to receive and we always chase pleasures, but we are still not happy. Worse yet, we are sinking into depression and anxiety.

For thousands of years we thought that we were obtaining the best, that we were building the “American Dream.” Now we are discovering that we are not happy because Esau is no longer leading us. All over the world we are discovering that the Esau in us can no longer hunt anything. It did not happen on the first day when he went out into the field because the world had developed and become a successful hunter while Jacob was studying Torah.

But since the day the Kabbalists arrived, matters have changed. They were sitting quietly and engaged in nothing but connection with the upper source of the light that reforms, that corrects us, while the rest of the world continued to develop with technology, which only caused people to want everything in a never-ending race to acquire.

Today Esau is returning from the field, tired and hungry, and is asking to be fed. It will not be long before decision-makers understand the gravity of our situation and seek advice. They will seek it even in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and that is when we will work together.

It is not such a simple matter because we are talking about cunningness. Even Jacob is considered a fraud because he deceived Esau twice.

It is not actual deceit because Esau was hungry. Today, we have no choice; we have completed the Esau stage and we must begin the period when Jacob is ahead. Esau did not vanish; he is just working with Jacob’s method, and it is specifically with that method that he finds fulfillment.

If you are hungry and want to fill yourself, the way is to connect to the nature that is now emerging. We are all connected; we have no choice. The world and Nature are showing themselves as mutually connected. We must work accordingly and stop our self-centeredness and biases. We need to truly begin to build ourselves differently through education, and we must explain to every person in the world how much we are all interdependent, and that only through our connections will we be able to sustain ourselves.

Why did Jacob steal the birthright?

Jacob did this because Esau could not understand; he is the evil inclination. Esau is not merely the will to receive in order to draw, to satisfy itself. Esau sees that he has no choice, that he has no more meat to eat, so he is compelled to ask for the lentil stew. His consent to eat the stew expresses the transformation of his fulfillment.

What is the meaning of the lentil stew?

It means taking pleasure in giving, in satisfying others, and then all the lights will pass through us. We will live in such a way that we receive for ourselves only what we need for ordinary life, and focus our minds and hearts on connecting to others and on satisfying everyone.

Each of us ties him or herself to another, and this is the mutual guarantee. It is a major psychological shift. If we connect in this way to one another, each of us will be filled in both body and mind. But for that, we must alter our internal structures.

It is as though we must deceive ourselves. We must choose which way we want to go. We can take the path of suffering; this will leave us hungry and empty-handed mentally and physically, and will eventually force us to change. Nature, too, will force us because everything has been set up this way for us, deliberately, so we would understand.

Alternatively, we can choose the other way—to change voluntarily. The minute we place Jacob in the lead and Esau in the back, everything will harmoniously and perfectly fall into place on every level: the economy, water, ecology, and so forth.

In the end, Esau still wants to kill Jacob. He does not calm down, but only intensifies.

It has to be this way. The ego must constantly grow within us. In the next degree we will rise to an even greater level of egotism and discover that we must fight additional wars.

In other words, we are learning a method here.

These two forces, right and left, meet at higher degrees each time. Each time, they reach a temporary agreement until the end of correction, when we are all using the singular, huge ego that the Creator created. Then, we turn it into bestowal.

Nothing has changed throughout history; the same two forces keep fighting each other.

Of course things do not change in any of us, or in all of us together. However, we must enjoy this revelation. We must want this situation to appear even more. It is truly a great delight when we know what is happening and are thus in a state of connection, searching, and implementing these two forces. Thus, one builds the middle line each time and learns to use one’s nature correctly, toward connection with the world, with others. In this solution, one finds the connection with the upper force.

From The Zohar: The Blessings

“Blessings mean giving strength for the end of correction, as it is written, ‘And go out to the field and hunt game for me,’ with a Hey (in the word “hunt” in Hebrew). This implies the correction of Malchut de Tzimtzum Aleph, whether in Esau’s way or in Jacob’s way, to perpetuate that way forever.

It is known that because of the breaking of the vessels, 320 sparks fell from holiness to the Klipot (shells), and that afterward the Emanator corrected some of them. And because of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, they fell into the Klipot once more, and our whole work in Torah and Mitzvot is to take those 320 sparks out of the Klipot and bring them back to holiness. They are the MAN that we raise.”

Zohar for All, Toldot (These Are the Generations), item 147

We raise MAN through the 288 sparks. We cannot correct the stony heart (32 desires), and it is corrected only at the end of correction.

What does it mean to raise MAN?

Raising MAN means to increase the connection between us. Only through such a request—called “prayer for many”—does the force known as “The Light that Reforms” comes from above and connects us. In this connection between us, in the new, corrected Kli (vessel), we discover the upper world, our spiritual, eternal life here and now.

It appears from the story that Rebecca favors Jacob, and Isaac favors Esau. Why is this so? In many families we find that fathers favor the son, and mothers favor the daughter; what is the spiritual root of this phenomenon?

The root of it is that first we reveal the evil inclination, the ego, which is called “the son,” “the firstborn.” In each new degree, the evil inclination grows first, and the father is happy about it because he wants his son to initially grow without the corrections, to be strong, to want to “devour” the world. This is the foundation, the will to receive that is ready for correction, although this will is not yet ready to be used. Henceforth, the correction will come from Rebecca, the mother.

It is as we learn in the upper Partzufim (plural of Partzuf), upper Aba ve Ima (Mother and Father) from whom emerge the forces of correction. Ima comes from the side of Hesed (mercy); hence, her favored son is Jacob, the quality of Jacob. She keeps him the way Bina gives birth to ZON. Conversely, within the father is the force of his Hochma, which acts against the vessels of reception. This comes from the side of Isaac, the father. The mother, the power of Hassadim (mercies), the force of Bina, corrects these Kelim.

We also need to keep in mind that Isaac is the left side of Abraham, who emerged as the left line, in relation to Abraham. This means that his very essence is to bring to the world the force called “Isaac,” the force of our egos, to discover it, so he is certainly closer to Esau.