Gifts and Guidance

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Saturday, December 17, 2005

In case you haven’t noticed, and if you watch TV, read the newspaper, or simply leave the house, I don’t see how that is possible, gift giving season is upon us. While the debate rages in the media whether this time of year retailers should wish their customers a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, all of our media outlets, and all of our nation’s stores are united in encouraging us to buy and give gifts to one another.

In this weeks Torah portion Jacob does exactly what the media and retailers are hoping we will all do.

Returning to the land of Israel after a 20 year absence, Jacob knows that an encounter with his estranged twin brother Esau is inevitable. In preparation for their meeting, Jacob sends messengers ahead to Esau along with a very large and expensive gift. He gives to his brother goats and sheep, horses, cows, and donkeys. 550 head of livestock in total. In addition to the large gift, he instructs his servants to tell Esau that the livestock are, L’av-d’cha l’ya-akov mincha he sh’lu’cha la’do-ni, l-Esav “Your servant Jacob’s. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau.”

While our nation’s retailers would unquestionably be happy if we all gave gifts the size of Jacob’s, the Rabbis are not so sure he did the right thing. In fact our tradition contains both critique and praise of Jacob’s actions.

As Alex pointed out in his dvar Torah, there are often questions about sincerity when Jacob and Esau are interacting with one another. In this case, however, there are no questions. The Torah makes it very clear that Jacob acted in a calculated way to win favor with his brother. Some Rabbis disapprove of this approach seeing it as a sign of weakness.

Including in Esau’s descendants the Romans and other great powers, the Rabbis see Jacob’s gifts and subservience to his brother as justifying and perhaps inviting foreign powers to rule over the people Israel. This point is made explicit by in a midrash attributed to Rabbi Judah Ben Simon. Ben Simon writes, “Esau was going on his own way, yet you dispatch a delegation and to him saying: Thus saith your servant Jacob.”

Elsewhere Jacob’s words of subservience are used to explain an honor granted Esau’s family. As Alex mentioned earlier, Parshat Vayishlach concludes with a very long and detailed listing of Esau’s descendents. As part of this genealogy we read that eight kings from the line of Esau ruled over the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel. In Beresheit Rabbah the rabbis teach that God decreed this specific honor be bestowed upon Esau in order to punish Jacob for having eight times humbled himself before his tyrannical brother, calling Esau by the title Adoni, my lord.

These texts, along with many others in our tradition, speak strongly against Jacob’s voluntary self-abasement; they assert that Jacob’s actions brought much suffering and humiliation upon the people Israel

But our tradition is not mono-vocal on this topic. And so we also find within the corpus of Jewish literature texts that see the language and gifts Jacob used to abate Esau’s anger as a model for diplomacy.

Rabbi Judah HaNasi, unlike many other Rabbis of his time, was forced to deal with realities of governance. The editor of the Mishnah, Judah HaNasi also served as leader of the Jewish community in Palestine and as its emissary to the Roman authorities. Perhaps it was his real world experience that led him to endorse the diplomatic tactics of his ancestor Jacob, an endorsement made clear by the following story.

One day, during the period of Roman persecutions of the Jews, Judah HaNasi ordered his secretary to write a letter to the Roman Emperor, Antoninus. The secretary went off and wrote the letter, addressing it “From Judah the Prince, Judah HaNasi, to His Majesty the Empreror.

When he had finished writing the letter he showed it to Judah. Judah took the letter, read it, and immediately tore it up, instructing his servant to rewrite the letter and this time to address it, “from your servant Judah to His Majesty the Emperor Antoninus.” When the secretary asked him why he would humble himself this way, Judah replied, “Am I better than my ancestor Jacob? Did he not say “thy servant Jacob?”

Judah HaNasi is not the only Rabbi to approve of Jacob’s actions. Rabbi Yonatan writes that “whoever wishes to placate a king or authority and is not familiar with their ways and tactics should place the section of Torah telling of Jacob’s dealings with Esau before him and learn from it the arts of appeasement and placation.”

So what are we to make from our tradition’s contradictory teachings on this topic? Are we supposed to be accommodating or should we put pride ahead of safety and stand up to forces greater than ourselves?

Perhaps what our tradition, in all of its conflicting statements is teaching us is that there isn’t a simple answer. That when confronted by a situation like Jacob’s, we as individuals, based not on some dogmatic teaching, but rather our own weighing of all the different factors, must ourselves decide what to do. We have to trust the values and wisdom that we have gained throughout life, and recognize that no matter what we chose there is a chance that someone will say we should have done the opposite.

In the Talmud we find a debate about whether it is better for Israel to like be a reed or a cedar. One would assume it is better to be a cedar. After all this tall and mighty tree stands unmoved when the wind blows, while the reed moves from side to side in the lightest of breezes.

But the Talmud explains that if the winds blow strong enough, with enough intensity, the strength of the cedar becomes its weakness and it is toppled over, roots and all. But the reed, with its deep and strong roots, is able to bend with wind, is able to sustain the strongest of winds, leaving its roots in place to renew a new stalk.

We live in a world where winds blow in all directions, and sometimes with incredible force. This is especially true for Alex and his friends as they enter their teenage years. And so, during this, the holiday season, the season of American gift giving, I hope and pray that the most valuable gift we give these children is not a new TV or an X-box 360, but rather roots. Deep and powerful roots that will enable them to be flexible in confronting life’s challenges without ever losing track of what they believe and the values they hold dear.

Shabbat Shalom