PARASHAT Toldot

Torah Gems - November 28th 2008 / 1 Kislev

This week's Torah Gems were prepared by

Rob Lindeman

PARASHAT Toldot

"And the children struggled together within her..." (Beresheit 25:22)

The twins Jacob and Esau are not merely struggling together. The verb the Torah uses here, va'yitrotzatzu, suggests they are struggling against one another. The root of the verb is resh

-tzade, meaning "run". The tzade is repeated, rendering the root resh-tzade-tzade. In ancient Hebrew, duplication of the second letter of a two-letter root suggests intensification. In this case, the verb is not only intensified, it is transformed from the intransitive "run" to the transitive "trample, crush, as underfoot." The verb is presented in the hitpalel, or reflexive, form. This suggests that whatever the twins were doing, they were doing it to each other. A more literal translation of the verse gives "And the children crushed each other within her..."

Elsewhere in Tanakh, resh

-tzade-tzade also suggests crushing, either real or metaphoric.

"...[A]nd you will be only cheated and downtrodden (ratzootz) all the days." (Devarim 28:33)

"They broke and crushed (rotz'tzu) the children of Israel..." (Shoftim 10:8)

"You have relied on the support of this splintered (ratzootz) cane..." (M'lachim II 18:21)

"You crushed (ritzatzta) the head of Leviathan..." (Tehillim 74:14)

The Torah's choice of a reflexive verb based on resh

-tzade-tzade (crush) suggests that Jacob and Esau not only trampled each other with their feet inside of Rebecca, but that in so doing they also inflicted injuries on each other. In fact, their original injuries prefigure the injuries they will inflict on one another in life. Jacob humiliates Esau through the purchase of the latter's birthright for a mess of pottage (25: 29-34.) Esau, via an angel, cripples Jacob during the wrestling match at the Wadi Jabbok (32:25-30.)

Jacob's and Esau's injuries never heal, and yet the two become brothers again. At the beginning of Chapter 33 they meet after years apart and weep in each other's arms. At the end of Chapter 35, Jacob and Esau bury their father Isaac together.

The Jacob

-Esau narratives teach that Teshuvah (return, or in this case reconciliation) is attainable even after a lifetime of epic fighting, injuring, and separation. How much more so is Teshuvah available to us after the relatively minor injuries we inflict on one another!