Parshat Toldot: Rashi's Silence - Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb

[Music] [Applause] Yakko got the blessing and they said beg for something understood that it was permanent they begged that cause you give him something so it does give him worth less is not mentioned one of the objections his father had given him was I've made your brother a master over you whatever gave you is gonna belong to him in what he says to Esau at the end he sort of takes care of that because he says the fact that he's your master may not be permanent he's got to deserve it and if he doesn't then you could throw off his yoke from off your neck and one of the fortune says if you'll give something to a slave and then the slave will get his freedom what he has in his hand will belong to him so if God gives to Esau and he's are under Jacobs control still if the time comes when he throws off Jacobs control that will be is there's not necessarily empty all depends on jail we know that that in fact what happened and we said that Esau was very upset Harvard hatred and I indicated it that I'm not able to accept the translation heyyyyy so it's not hoping that his father will die quickly but he's saying the day's my father's mornings my father are drawing closer after all his father told I'll give you a blessing because I don't know what I'm gonna die so it's all appeals that he's old and uncertain about continued life he throw things over him that his end is near and when that happens he says I'll kill my brother now we mentioned either yesterday or not this is an extraordinary thing and he says part Esau is guilty of the worst crimes in the Jewish in the world and he's full of impetuous emotions and impetuous action I thought out doesn't have a lot of great control but he's not going to kill his brother until his father dies this is two things number one he cares enough about his father that he won't do something which he knows will distress his father and number two he knows it will distress his father he knows his father loves Jacob he knows that his father has not lost feeling or connection for Jacob because of the incident that Jacob received him that's another indication that what Jackie did was not something that was wrong so that's Esau now he's so saying it's waiting my father to die 42 Rebekah was told the words of her older son Esau she sent and summoned Jacob now she was told his words hmm how did that previous verse says Esau a thought 41 no if it says he said in his heart we were page 141 he's a said in his heart how does she know what Esau said in his heart so they say that there's a kind of ha'qodesh and she now is gonna take precautions so she called her check her youngest son said to him the old your brother Esau is consoling himself regarding you to kill you in other words he's very upset very angry very hurt consoling means he's making himself feel better and the way he's making himself feel better is by saying to himself my chance will come my chance will come I'll kill him and then I'll get revenge and then I feel even now in anticipation he's making himself feel good now she says to him 43 so now my son heed my voice and her rides fleet my brother LaVon to her on everywhere with him a short while - the brothers wrath sub-sites I don't know okay short while I'll tell you brothers anger against you subsides and he forgets what you have done to him then I will stand and bring you from there why should I be wreathed he bereaved of both of you and the same day now bereaved means to lose someone dies she means not what you would think on the surface it sounds like with what seesaw his plan when my father dies I'm gonna kill my brother alright so father dies they bury him he still takes out his gun and shoots Yaakov because that's what he planned to do and she would be saying I'm gonna lose two of you meaning I'm gonna lose my husband and I'm gonna lose Jacob on the same day but that's not what it means that's not what she's saying why she brings four measures and Isaac hasn't been mentioned in her speech so Isaac is not a plausible candidate for who the two are so she says so the measure says that I'm gonna lose both of you if you kill him if he kills you then your children will kill him I'll lose the two brothers in one thing because it means that she's anticipating the pain of losing even ISA even though she loves Jacob and we pointed out at the beginning of the parsha that she doesn't love you so in the same way at least she might not love him at all but he's her son and the idea of losing him is something which she anticipates is going to be very painful to her maybe other grounds which I told you the other day that he could always turn back he could always reform it's always possible that his outcome should be different when he dies it's over and you know has no more potentiality any whatever it is but that's what she says I don't want this to happen so now if you go if you're out of town if Isaac dies I'll be very good and you're out of town yes he says first thought will be now I can kill my brother but that might pass it might piss I'm hoping it will pass and when it passes I will send a message to you that you can go home you're not in danger anymore that's her what she says heed my voice we said he my voice means to obey me and to do that now Jacob Jacob's answer is not recorded but the next step is and he obviously accepts it he's willing to go but he can't just leave home what about his father it's a father who runs the affairs of the house and as we had the case of Abraham and I and and and Sarah when Sarah said kick her garnish well out of the house she couldn't throw them out she had to convince Abraham everyone said no so God came to him and said yes she's right no wrong do what she says here - Rebecca has a plan but she can't enact it she can't tell Jacob to run she's got to get Isaac to agree that's the next move like I said to Isaac I'm disgusted with my life on account of the daughters of face the hittite women 143 if I if Jacob takes a wife of the doors of case like these the daughters of the land what is life to me let's see if you remember he helps you pick up what she's saying she says I'm disgusted of my life in the count on account of the daughters of case the hittite women if Jacob takes a wife or the daughters of a face like these which these he saw married to Hittite women she says if Jacob marries Duany so did my life is over that gives you another indication that he's so married he's hit a woman wasn't a good move it wasn't a good move I just see by the bottom of the page gonna get worse Jacob can't do that it's bad enough that he's so silly but Jacob for sure nough just like Jacob's father Isaac had a wife from that family her family loved him so she say my son Jacob also should have a wife from my family that's what she says to Isaac and Isaac is 100% in agreement so Isaac summoned Jacob and blessed him if anybody had any doubts as to the state status of Jacob after the deception the very first words are he summoned they may be blessed him and I watched the blessing he instructed him and he said do not take a wife of the Canaanite women arise go to Planet arrived to the house of a fool your mother's father take a wife from there for the daughters of love of your mother's brother okay that's what his wife asked for that's what Rebecca wanted first item is to confirm what she wanted it'll go there I get married from the family now comes something Rebecca didn't say anything about this is completely independent and may now comes with one of the names of God bless you make you fruitful make you numerous make be a congregation of peoples that sounds familiar it sounds to me something like what God told Abraham what God told Isaac it sounds like he's being told he's number three in the chain but you have any doubts look at the next words may grant you the blessing of Abraham yes you are the continuation to you and your offspring with you that you may possess the land of your soldiers which God gave to Abraham so you are and as we pointed out this is not an after-lunch bread blessing and the prelude to this blessing Jacob doesn't have to do anything to deserve it or to connect with its father because the connection is spontaneous and total because of who Jacob is okay now I'm going to tell you something I'll show you a Rashi which is tiny and explosive so Isaac sent away Jacob and he went toward pattern around - lovin the son of a sold the aramean brother of Rebecca mother of Jacob and Esau okay Oh family tree isn't that nice just the mother's brother the father's child family tree Rashi says on the very last words mother of Jacob and Esau I don't know what this teaches us Amy oh damn eyes I'm a Londoner I don't know what this teaches us either why she says it's not unknown for I see to say something like that it's rare but it's not unknown say this I don't know what this is for okay now let's go back and look through the story I want to point out it piece of style in the story it goes all the way from the beginning and I came to pass what eyes had become old his eyes dim from see that he summit Esau his oldest son uh-huh that's who he is all right I remember that from the beginning of the parsha he soon was born first Jake it was born second didn't we know that already oh okay his oldest son said to him my son he's dead to him see I go out the hunt five Rebekah's listing that I just bought the AEE saw his son oh did you forget from verse one did he sauce decide after the beginning of the party no he says that he so went to the field but Rebecca it said to Jacob her son saying the hold of it bring me a brother Esau your brother Esau I don't mean ISA from st. Louis you know I mean your brother Esau right in case you Marik get free cake cake confused right so it's either your brother bring me some game ate so now my son heed my voice go to the flock I'll make for your father bring it eleven check in reply to back Rebecca his mother did you forget that Rebecca was his mother no okay very good but my brother Esau next page my father 13 his mother said to him fecha brought brought to his mother's mother made delicacies 15 Rebecca then took her older sons Esau clean garments her older son oh maybe you got confused the thought it was Issa foot down the street well maybe you forgot that he's the firstborn son unlikely huh clothing with the skins close his arms place the delicacies hands of her son Jacob in case you forgot maybe it was another Jacob you know a cousin came to his father's and father father okay I just said to his son 20 I was quick and he answered I said to Jacob close eyes 22 Jacob grew close to close to his Isaac his father yeah another Isaac you know okay didn't that recognize him you are indeed my son Esau then his father Isaac 26 come close thirty was next night next week 139 middle of Isaac finished blessing Jacob Jacob scarcely left the presence of Isaac his father uh-huh he saw his brother came back he too made delicacies brothers his father my father rise I said to him are you and I tell us Oh fine he serves the father words let's meet your father okay all right jesus said to his father behold now 42 bottom of 141 Rebecca was told the words of her oldest son Esau oh yes the oldest son Esau sir cousin she sent someone Jacob her younger son said to him bold your brother Esau saw something so now my son mm-hmm on all of these Rashi says nothing zero he's silent how many different unnecessary redundant family connections have you met have I mentioned in any verses 15 at least he says nothing now we come on page 143 to verse 5 I just said to my jacob and he went to paddan-aram to love the son of the soul the army and brother Rebekah all that Rashi is silent mother Jacob and Esau Rashi says I don't know what this teaches us okay now a piece of logic what do you have to conclude if Rashi was silent all the way up to here and here he said I don't know what this teaches us what do you have to conclude that what say it on the contrary on the contrary it's all the other stuff all the way through he understood it well this one he doesn't know what it teaches us and that means that Rashi could understand that these verses have a significance and not tell you because he's silent all the way through he means there is something to be communicated and I didn't bother to tell you but here I don't know what to say there it's so obvious that now I'll tell you formally what the difference is the difference is that in all the previous cases you're describing someone performing an action when something performing an action one of the things you want to know is what's going on in his head how did he think about what he's doing and what he's telling you is that in each case when a is interacting with me say a these older brother or B's younger son or B's mother or something and so on that's what the agent has in mind I'm doing this to my mother to my father to my brother to my oldest son to my younger son that's what she has in mind she's experiencing it that way here it's not describing an action at all it's not even describing a situation here it says five again on what 143 I just sent away Jacob and he went toward pattern around now where is he going to to lovin decided was sewell the aramean brother of Rebecca all that Raji says nothing if I'm picturing Jacob growing and she's going he's going to that place is going to this person love on who his parents have sent him to go to what's in his mind but what's in his mind is that he's my mother's brother and he's a part of the line that goes back to Terra part of the greater clan but what it says that she Rebecca is the mother of Jacob and Esau as she keep put that into action nothing of what he's going to do it was because his mother is his mother and he said he saw his mother loving is--there's mother brother okay so I'll show you that connection in a road that's what I she's saying all the other and you as a reader you know what means to read about person performing actions and actions in a very weighty and and historic interaction and these words will naturally say cue you know he's doing this because his brother doing this because his mother oldest son younger son all that you kiss you can understand yourself from the point of view of the human feeling of the of the scenario but here it doesn't contribute to scenario see yah she says I don't understand it and that's to tell you that all the other ones he did understand now let me show you where this idea is written in spades look on page 149 you need to prove this to somebody here's where it's written in spades Jacob eventually goes to pattern around where where where LaVon lives and he get ends up with a well outside the city and those Shepherds are there and he talks to them about the city and then Rachel his cousin comes out with her flock now look look at verse 10 and it was when Jacob saw Rachel daughter of LaVon his mother's brother and a flock of LaVon his mother's brother Jacob came forward and rolled off the stone in the mouth of the well and one of the sheep evolved on his mother's brother now I think that's you know spectacular his mother's brother three times in one verse we polish it all how could I study in redundancy we find this to me the paradigm of redundancy three times in one verse what it's telling you is that every interaction here who does he have in mind his mother he has his mother in mind it's her image before his eyes this girl is my mother's nice these flocks are my mother right this is it's all his mother is in his mind that's image in front of his eyes and that's why he's doing what he's doing so here you can feel you can see there's a description of his State of Mind emphasized because it was like the fixation at his part and that's what Rashi is saying where we are there when it says Rebekah the mother of Jake AJ AJ committee so it doesn't describe anything in the quantity quality reaction so therefore he says I don't know what is it worth or what it said and that's you know just something you can get a little rush rush you put it into context and come on as I say okay mother a check of these so the verse repeats the obvious to imply that even though he saw had the same genealogy as Jacob and will it adjusted logical for his parents to ask him to seek his mate in Quran they did not do so because the heir of Abraham was Jacob not he saw as a romances or the Torah says she's the mother of both of them so she sent both of them away because she she didn't want to see bloodshed between the two of them right but this is describing Jacobs action see Russia will say this verse is describing Jacobs you're telling me it says Rebecca the mother of the of the Jacob MIDI so because of her action but that's not what the verse is talking about well is it does my Jacob sighs he's not gonna hear that okay when Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off the pattern around to take himself a wife from there as he blessed to be commanded him saying that is that Isaac commanded Jacob saying you shall not take a wife from among the daughters of Kanade okay gave him a blessing and he told him specifically don't marry the daughters of God and that Jacob obeyed his father and mother and went to put on a rock then he saw perceived that the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Isaac his father first clue and East was like first clue and of course it says that Jacob obeyed his father or mother but in terms of Esau is concerned it was evil in the eyes of his father Esau was committed to his father it was honoring his father that he was outstanding yet not honoring his mother that wasn't part of his reality he honored his father so Esau 20-ish moil now useful is Abraham's son right so it's within the Abrahamic family and took moralize the daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham sister of the way out in addition to his wives as wife for himself okay evaluation time good bad indifferent nice try b-plus what shall we say about Esau move here anybody else have a thought look carefully and what the word say put it together in terms of the way the logic goes look start six no listen eight eight eight and nine what is it that he learned all of a sudden now that the Canaanite women what do you think you should do if the Canaanite women are evil they're the ones in turn evil no you know what he does he adds another wife oh how nice of him another wedding Rafa share all the presents Sheva Broncos will have a good time and everything else and the text emphasizes it because the very last words are in addition to his wives as wife for themselves so here's another he stays like when I talk about the list of negotiations you have to read carefully and you have to read every word I try to put things together the initial impression is well he's marrying a girl from the Abrahamic family and always marrying the way that the Jew should night that's true but what he learned was not every Jew needs a Jewish wife that's not what he learned he didn't learn about getting married at all what he learned was that having Canaanite wives is terrible that's what he learned she should have gotten rid of the Canaanite one no not that not that now I could still accept what you say in part he's making a gesture it's true the gesture is the right gesture but it isn't that what he should have learned from what he what he understood now that they hate became the knives he should have had to get rid of them so definitely a failure Rashi uses words which I can't quite explain holy details - oh Rashad Rashad Rashad so he added evil to his evil I understand that what he did was wrong but why would marrying a woman within the Jewish clan add evil to his evil eye I only hear the mistaken Gini sources in action he didn't get rid of the Canaanite woman now she wants to say keeping the Canaanite woman me marrying the Jewish woman is worse to have a Jewish woman together with the Canaanite women is worse than not having her at all that's what Rajee say I understand why God explanation of it but you see here that even at the moment that wanted to make a gesture the gesture is my best fractured it's incomplete doesn't doesn't do the job it needs to be done when Abraham sent Eliezer out to find a wife for Isaac right he said go to my friend family he didn't specify where he's had to go to the school Eliezer went to Biswal and loved him and he told him if you agree to the proposition fine and if you don't I'll go to the right into the left and right she says there and the basis of kazaar I'll go do you smell got along so it sounds there that he went maybe they're the closest ones and therefore he went to them first didn't sound like there was any specific preference now that Isaac already married for that family that's a natural place to go first dad I can understand but I don't is any inherent preference for one over the other especially since the soil became a tatak when he died and these people you should be soil and and love and love it certainly wasn't Atari wasn't but it was a terribly wicked person and even so it's his daughter that qualified so if you have an animal North eat animal it's got a split hooves and chew its cud now imagine an animal that has one but not the other split hooves is a four second examination pick up the paw look and see what this split or not does it chew it's cut does it hurt you it's good you have to watch for things animal take an animal that I split the cool it can parade it's conscious just look at my boobs right okay if you stick around with it before you keep chewing and chewing there's an R there's something wrong here you know it's not really but it's not the obvious thing to pig and say cuz I was identified this guy split hooves but doesn't chew it's good so here by holding up Mufasa the the woman for within the Jewish clan he could say you see how closer I am and hiding behind that the richest aha thank you that's it that's a good challenge I didn't mean I said well I'm surprised I didn't see it okay Jacob be part of her bear Sheva and went to word her up now suppose I cut out the first half of the sentence will be lose any data you can't go on a trip if you stay home can't do that obviously he went to Quran he left home we know where he was living so the question is why does the term bother to tell us that he left brush ever I went to yeah so now Rashi says something here and he adds something and we have to analyze the connection now she says because when it's Sadiq leave is a place it makes a difference in the place means to tell you that when I when he went on this trip his leaving Bear Sheva had an independent significance that's how it leaves the place it's not the same place anymore and then as she says just like what the verse in the Book of Ruth says about know me when she and Ruth came back from off it says that she left them alive and came back to Israel and it says you see the leaving a great person leaves the place makes the difference in the place doesn't Rashi says now the obvious question to ask is why would the verses tell us this twice has to be that neither one implies the other there's something unique about the two cases if you said it one is it okay here yes but that there and vice versa so let's try let's imagine the verse here tells us Jacob left bear Sheva and went to hell right when Jacob left for Sheva that was a hit there Sheva took a hit wasn't the same bear Sheva I have that on the table and now I think what happened when Noemi left more did more of take a hit sure I learned from the fact that Jacob's Exodus cost mer Sheva that noemi's Exodus also cost more I don't think so because Jacob is one of the patriarch in some respects is the greatest of the patriarchs when he leaves it's gonna hurt as greatest know me was she couldn't compare with but Jacob so certainly if I was only told that were Jacob left it made a difference I wouldn't be able to attribute that to know me as well question would be the other way around teach me that when know me left know uh I made a difference had an impact assume ha it's always leaving had an impact certainly Jacobs leaving had an impact and you wouldn't have to tell me about Jacob the answer is this there's a gigantic difference not in the status of each individual but in the context when Jacob left bare shovel what was the status of beer sheva at that time well it had in it Isaac and Rebecca sober Sheva had in it three great people and one left so now it's two that makes a difference no question about it but when Noemi was in mo of there was one great person and when she left there was zero the difference between one and zero is much bigger than the difference between three and two imagine a room that's totally sealed no like it's in from the outside and three candles are burning assemblies have one candle that would make a difference but you can't compare it to the same room with one candle burning and put out the candle there's no light at all in total darkness with no me left she left more empty and those are the two things that the two places have to teach us that a great person can make a difference even if you're ugly it's great people great people behind and a lesser person is great but if it's that person versus versus zero leaves the place the difference there is also very significant and has to be taken into account so you see when Rashi makes it double comment like that good logic you can work it out that's that's a form of on both sides okay [Music] you [Applause]