Mother of Jacob and Esau: What’s the Lesson?

There are only two acceptable methods of dealing with recalcitrant children: Either shower and smother them with love and warmth, or in extreme situations employ tough love. To do neither is unacceptable in virtually all situations.

“…the Mother of Jacob and Esau.”

Isaac summons his son Esau and offers to give him his blessings before he dies. Isaac asks his son Esau to go out and hunt and prepare a gourmet meal for him before he would bestow these special Divine blessings on him. Rebecca overhears the conversation and tells her son Jacob to pose as Esau and get the blessings instead. Jacob successfully pulls off this “ruse” and receives his father’s blessings. When Esau discovers how Jacob wrested the blessings from him he vowed to kill him.

Rebecca, meanwhile, advises Jacob to flee to her brother Laban and stay there until Esau’s wrath would subside. Rebecca fears that if Jacob would stay she would lose both of them in one day.

Rebecca then tells her husband that she could not countenance the idea that Jacob would marry one of the local girls. She therefore suggests to Isaac that Jacob should go to Padan Aram to find a suitable wife for himself. Isaac then summons Jacob and tells him to go to Padan Aram and marry one of the daughters of Laban, Rebecca’s brother.

The Torah then continues: “And Isaac sent Jacob, and he went to Padan Aram to Laban the son of Besuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebecca, the mother of Jacob and Esau.”

Rashi, in a rare comment, observes: “I do not know what this—information that Rebecca was the mother of Jacob and Esau—teaches us.”

Rashi is obviously puzzled at the need for the Torah here to identify Rebecca as the mother of Jacob and Esau. Don’t we already know that she was their mother? After all, the entire parsha is about: Rebecca’s difficult pregnancy with them, how she was told by G-d that she would have twins, her giving birth to these children, their upbringing and her relationship with them. In fact, there is no other story in the Torah of a mother that provides so many details concerning the relationship of a mother with her sons as it does here. How could the reader of the Torah not know that Rebecca was the mother of Jacob and Esau?

Rashi therefore concedes that he does not know what message this was meant to convey.

Rashi’s Rejection of Explanation

One might suggest the following explanation, which, can answer Rashi’s question, but will generate another question, as to why Rashi did not give this explanation.

When one reflects on the way Rebecca goes out of her way to help Jacob receive Isaac’s powerful blessings, knowing how upset Esau would be, one might have been justified in concluding that though she was the biological mother of the two of them, Rebecca was, in fact, more Jacob’s mother in the nurturing sense of motherhood, than she was Esau’s.

Indeed, the Torah says so much in the beginning of this week’s parsha: “Isaac loved Esau… and Rebecca loved Jacob.”

The difference between her attitude towards Jacob and Esau is once more dramatically illustrated in the last narrative of this parsha where she asks Jacob to flee to her brother. In addition to her concern about his safety she is also concerned that he not marry any of the local women, but should instead find a more suitable match with one of her brother Laban’s daughters. Why did Rebecca not ask Esau to go there to marry one of her brother’s daughters? This again appears to underscore her preference for Jacob over Esau.

To dispel this notion that Rebecca cared less for Esau, the Torah states empathically—here, in the very last occurrence of Rebecca in the Torah—that she was indeed the mother of both Jacob and Esau. Despite the appearance of her preference for Jacob, she was equally concerned for the well-being of her son Esau and was his mother no less than she was Jacob’s mother.

However, this raises two questions:

First, if this explanation is valid, why did Rashi not provide it? Why couldn’t Rashi state simply that the Torah wanted to tell us that despite the appearance of Rebecca playing favorites and preferring Jacob over Esau, she was truly the mother of both, she loved them both?

Second, if it is true that Rebecca loved them both equally, why did she display far more love and concern for Jacob than for Esau?

The Only Way Esau could be Helped

The answer to the second question is that the reason she demonstrated more affection for Jacob was due to the unique circumstances that prevailed then:

From the Torah’s narrative—especially as it is illuminated by the Oral tradition—it becomes evident that the only way Esau could be helped to overcome his deficit was tragically not through love and affection. Isaac attempted to use the approach of love for his son Esau and did not succeed in changing him. Esau was incorrigible. The more Isaac tried to show how much he loved him, the more Esau deceived his father and led a life of violence, immorality and contempt for the legacy of Abraham and Isaac, even as he was deceiving his father and trying to convince him that he was the pious obedient son. Esau loudly and defiantly proclaimed as much when he disgraced the birthright (read: the legacy of Abraham and Isaac) and sold it for a mere pot of lentils.

It gets worse. Esau was not only a threat to Jacob, but he was a threat to the entire world. If Jacob and the legacy he followed would have been destroyed by Esau, there would never be a Jewish nation, and the Torah would not have been given. Thus, the entire world’s purpose and raison d’être would have been undermined, for we are told that the only reason G-d created the world was for the purpose of Torah and Israel. Absent those two, our Sages declare, the world would revert to nothingness.

No Tough Love

To be sure, there is another approach to raising children. That is tough love. But even that was not a viable option in Esau’s case. We also do not find that Isaac or Rebecca used “tough love” on Esau. That too was not an alternative, Rebecca had to face the bitter reality that she had an incorrigible child who was—at that time not ready to be helped. Esau could not be reached and rehabilitated. She had no choice but to focus all of her attention on Jacob and saving him from Esau, while hoping and praying that someday Esau would be able to be helped.

We can now understand why Rashi states, “I don’t know what this teaches us.”

Unique Parental Challenge

Rashi may have known that the Torah wishes to emphasize that Rebecca loved both of her sons despite the appearance to the contrary. Yet Rashi states, I don’t know what this could teach us, because this was such an aberration it cannot serve as a model for future parents who have a recalcitrant child.

There are only two acceptable methods of dealing with recalcitrant children in virtually all situations; either shower and smother them with love and warmth or in extreme situations one must employ tough love. To do neither is unacceptable in virtually all situations. Rashi warns us in this one isolated instance were none of those methods worked not to learn lessons from Rebecca’s approach to parenting. Her situation was so isolated that it can hardly ever be applicable.

Thus the lesson from this aberrant situation is that we should avoid learning a lesson from it. Our parenting should be based exclusively on love, even if it is occasionally “tough” love.

In the Messianic Age, we are told; Esau will eventually come around and be reconciled with Jacob. At that time we will see how Rebecca was truly concerned with both of her children even though she could not show that love and concern at that time. For thousands of years Rebecca’s love was concealed because the Esau’s of the world were not ready for it. We are now standing on the threshold of the Messianic Era when all nations will serve G-d as one and true universal peace and harmony will prevail.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Toldos by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.