Finding Our Way (and God’s) in the World
Nov 13, 2012 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. Yet Rebecca’s strength has dreadful consequences.
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In Search of God
Oct 29, 2013 By Julia Andelman | Commentary | Toledot
Through the unexpected and serendipitous Shabbat meal invitations that often seem to come about when one is studying in Jerusalem, I found myself many years ago sitting at the festive Shabbat table of an ultra-Orthodox family one autumn Friday night.
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Giving Blessings on a Full Stomach
Nov 13, 2015 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
Some stories are rich with visual imagery, while others resound with song. But it is fragrance, specifically the smell of savory food, which infuses Parashat Toledot. Food plays an essential role in several pivotal scenes. It is with a pot of lentil stew that Jacob purchases Esau’s birthright, and it is with a steak dinner that he secures the senior blessing from his father. The first story is simple—Esau is famished and ready to trade away anything for a bowl of soup. But the second story is enormously complex.
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Reimagining a Fixed Image
Nov 13, 2015 By Allison Kestenbaum | Commentary | Toledot
When I read Toledot, I can’t help but have in mind a painting called “Jacob and Esau” by Jose de Ribera. I studied this painting while taking an art history class at the Prado Museum in Madrid many years ago. It is so vivid in my imagination that not only can I recall most of the details, I also can remember the exact location of the painting in the museum. The painting is known for its lifelike depiction of fabrics and the sheep skin on Jacob’s arm used to trick his father.
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Father, Have You No Blessing Left for Me?
Nov 21, 2014 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Toledot
In Parashat Toledot, the saga of our somewhat dysfunctional ancestral family continues, and included within is one of the family’s saddest and most poignant episodes. Yitzhak, scion of the family and heir to his father’s covenant with God, has just married at the age of 40. He and his wife, Rivkah, remain childless for 20 years, when, in response to his entreaties to God, she conceives. Unlike her late mother-in-law’s easy pregnancy at an advanced age, Rivkah’s pregnancy is complicated. We are told right away that “the children, the ‘sons’ in fact, were struggling within her womb” (Vayitrotzetzu habanim bekirbah; Gen 25:22). However, she does not know the reason for her discomfort and distress.
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Conflicted Relationships
Nov 25, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Toledot
At the start of this week’s parashah, and again at its conclusion, we confront the complex, conflicted relationship that binds Isaac’s twin sons to one another and to their father. The middle section of the parashah, by contrast, is concerned with the no less complex and conflicted relationship that binds Isaac and his family to their neighbors.
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