Embryonic Experience

PARSHAT TOLDOT

Shira Smiles shiur 2015/5776

Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein

            With Parshat Toldot the Torah begins tracing the offspring of Avraham Avinu that will eventually give rise to Bnei Yisroel. However, Rivka is concerned about her pregnancy, for she feels strange “runnings” within her. She goes to the Beit Medrash of Shem and Ever to seek an answer to her questions and reassurance from Hashem. Hashem responds that two nations and two regimes are within her, that the might shall pass from one to the other, and that the elder shall serve the younger. How does this response calm Rivka and allay her fears?

Rashi focuses on the words vayisrotzitzu habanim, that the sons “ran” within her, and explains that whenever Rivka would pass a place of Torah study, Yaakov would run and strive to get out, while when she passed a place of idol worship, Esau would run and struggle to get out. This explanation seems logical, given their later history, but it also raises some important questions. First, how does this response calm Rivka as the mother of both? But further, we are left with questions about the children themselves. If this was the case, why would Yaakov want to leave the ultimate Beit Medrash of the womb where an angel was teaching him Torah (according to the Medrash) and run toward an outside beit medrash? Further, writes Leavedecha Bemet, Esau was a redhead, a sign of a proclivity toward bloodshed. Does that mean he was destined already from the womb toward evil? Is fare already predetermined and there no free will already from the embryonic state?

While Yaakov was trying to exit the womb near a beit medrash,  he was trying to get away from the evil Esau. He could not flee to a random place, for Esau could be lurking there, but Esau would not be hanging around a place of Torah, so Yaakov could feel safe there, a place wherekedushah, sanctity prevailed, writes the Birkat Mordechai. But Rabbi Yehonoson Gefen offers an alternate explanation, based on the teaching of Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz. While an angel may be teaching Torah to the baby in the womb, the baby himself is exerting no effort in the process. Our purpose in life is to toil in Torah, and Yaakov wanted to struggle, invest, and work to attain his Torah knowledge and achieve the satisfaction of his attainment. Therefore, he struggled to get out of the womb. Already within the womb, notes Rabbi Scheinerman in Ohel Moshe, the fetuses could already sense the positive or negative energy exuded by the places they were passing.

So when does the yetzer horo enter into a person, at conception or at birth? The Gemarrah Sanhedrin concludes that it enters the person at birth, as the verse in Bereishit states, “Lipesach chatas rovetz - at the opening sin is crouching.” If that’s the case, how could Esau already be drawn to idol worship while still in the womb? The Beer Sheva elucidates this Gemarrah and explains that there are two facets to the yetzer horo, a thought facet and an action facet. While the action facet does indeed enter the individual at birth, the thought facet, the predisposition toward certain behavior enters the individual at conception. The good yetzer teaches Torah to the embryo while the bad yetzer balances it out by introducing negative thoughts. Each individual gets both inclinations in the womb, and each must meet his challenges.

The Sefer Yemin Yakov approaches this from another perspective.  He writes that Hashem created this situation of pain during Rivka’s pregnancy specifically for the purpose of imparting a necessary prophecy to her in private, away from Yitzchak. Rivka needed to hear about the future of these two boys so that she would be able to take the appropriate steps to ensure that Yaakov would get the blessings that would ensure the continuation of the Abrahamitic legacy.

Yet a third interpretation is offered by the Gur Aryeh, the Mahara”l. As one would expect, his is a mystic approach. The Mahara”l denies that any good or evil inclination exists before birth. Rather, he suggests that Jacob and Esau represent cosmic forces in creation that transcend the natural course of personality development and exist prior to birth.

The mystical approach takes a different turn with Rabbi Eliezer Friedman in Mipi Seforim Vesofrim. He writes that Rivka was a reincarnation of Chava, and her mission was to rectify Chava’s sin. That Yitzchak prayed to Hashem opposite his wife, la’y-h-v-H (l”Hashem)lenochaCH ishtO(v) form, with their final letters, the name ChaVaH. The result of Chava’s sin was that good and evil became intermixed, gray became dominant over black and white, and it was often difficult to differentiate between the two. When Rivka sensed that her child was running to both Torah and idol worship, she became spiritually agitated and was afraid she would fail in her mission. When she was told that she had two separate entities within her and each would embody one aspect of this struggle that would continue over many generations, she understood that she was rectifying Chava’s sin and again separating good and evil through her two sons.

Does that mean that Esau was destined for evil prior to birth, that he could exercise no free will? Not at all. In fact, notes Rabbi Schwadron, the Maggid of Yerushalayim, Esau had even greater potential than Yaakov. The Torah itself testifies, “Vayigdilu hanearim – the youths grew great.” However, at age thirteen, Esau no longer wanted to work on himself to perfect his character. We have, in fact, many instances in our history where men have overcome their natural inclinations to achieve greatness. Rabbi Dov Yoffe notes in Leovdecha B’emes, for example, that Shmuel did not want to anoint David as king because, as a redhead, David had a propensity to anger. But David channeled the strength that fuels anger and worked on himself.

The Sifsei Chaim elaborates on this idea with Esau. Yes, Esau had negative proclivities, but Yitzchak understood that if Esau could transform those proclivities to holiness, he could achieve greatness. That’s why Yitzchak invested so much effort in Esau, so that he would be worthy of the blessings of the birthright. Esau grew up in the right environment, with the right parents, and Yitzchak exhorted him to elevate his “tools” – “sah na keilecha”. And indeed Esau had good character traits as well. He was thorough in the laws of tithing and scrupulous in honoring his father, for example. Yet he chose to use his strengths not for good but for evil. The character traits we are born with do not affect our free choice, but serve as guidelines to where we need to exert our effort to improve ourselves. Yaakov may have been born with “better” propensities. His struggle was to reach even higher. But Esau, had he struggled with and mastered his negative inclinations, would have risen even higher than Yaakov as a result of those struggles.

We all have spiritual struggles, writes Rabbi Dessler in Michtav meEliyahu, but the struggle for each of us is different. Furthermore, the battle lines keep changing as we master each challenge and are presented with a new challenge. Our choice is whether or not to engage in the battle at the point it presents itself. As Rabbi Pincus explains, Yaakov may have encountered his struggle at a higher point on the continuum, so his struggle was different from Esau’s, just as each of us has our own unique struggle. One may find doing chessed easy, while praying with the proper focus and intent is challenging. Another might find refraining from doing something forbidden on Shabbos challenging, which is  not considered a problem for most of us who were raised in Torah observant homes. Hashem gave each of us our unique challenges and our unique gifts to meet those challenges. As such, no situation is intrinsically bad or good, continues Rabbi Pincus. It all depends on what we do with it. Esau had the potential to be a champion of the sacred had he taken his innate power and strength and used it toward positive goals. He made the wrong choices.

We each have an internal compass, notes Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz in Daas Torah. We choose whether we follow the direction it points to or strike out on a different direction. The struggle between Yaakov and Esau is symbolic of the struggle each of us faces with conflicting tendencies, writes Rabbi Beyfus in Yalkut Yosef Lekach.

Nevertheless, how was the prophecy imparted to Rivka comforting? When a woman is pregnant, she often experiences unusual cravings. She felt the “running” of her baby to diametrically opposing philosophies was perhaps a reflection of her own repressed cravings. Once she knew there were two separate beings within her, she had hope, for she herself had chosen the sacred life in spite of being raised in the home of Bethuel and Laban. Certainly, given the right nurturing that she and Yitzchak would provide, the son with proclivities for evil could also be raised to choose a life devoted to Hashem, notes Peninei Daas.

What worried Rivka, writes Rabbi Eisenberger in Mesilot Bilvavchem, was that Esau had this duality within himself. Through the prophecy, Hashem let her know that this duality would eventually benefit Yaakov. Part of Esau’s stringency was that he would never take something for nothing. When he came home famished from the hunt and requested some of the “red stuff” Yaakov was cooking, Yaakov suggested that Esau take the soup in exchange for the birthright. So while Yaakov may have been using Esau’s stringency against himself, notes the Chasam Sofer, the exchange itself was a valid and legitimate exchange. Rabbi Eisenberger continues and tells us to examine ourselves. We also contain such a duality of motivations within ourselves. When Shabbos comes, we are stringent with all the laws, but are we equally stringent on our focus. When we eat the Shabbos meal, do we try to enhance it with divrei Torah and zemirot, or are we focused on the cholent and the afternoon nap, or even worse, strategizing for the next business week? The duality of Esau exists within each of us.

The embryonic experience is the symbolic struggle each of us faces constantly. Only if we face it with honesty and clarity and choose appropriately can we actualize the potential Hashem has invested in us.