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A refreshing and clear review of each Parsha in the Torah presented by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe
00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.
00:13 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, good morning everybody. It's so wonderful to see everyone. We are now going to talk a little bit about parshas. Told us, told us, we know the story of Rebecca being pregnant with two children. She's a little confused. What's going on? When she passes by the study hall, the baby kicks. When she passes by the house of idolatry, the baby kicks. So she goes to a prophet and the prophet says guess what? You have twins and they're going to be two different nations One is going to be serving Hashem and one is going to be serving idolatry. And she was then calm. Oh, okay, finally she's calm. It's not one child confused, but rather it's two separate children, which is an interesting thing onto its own. What do you mean? Now she's happy. What does it mean now she's happy, you're going to have a son who's an idolater? Happy. What does it mean? Now she's happy, you're going to have a son who's an idolater. What's wrong? That's not a great thing. Why would that calm her down? Okay, our sages teach us, because the benefit of the Yaakov is going to be so great that it will supersede all the negative that she experiences from Esau. Okay, very interesting.
01:26
Then we look a little bit further into the parasha, chapter 25, verse 28. V'yehav Yitzchak es Esau ki tsaid b'fiv. V'rivko oheves es Yaakov. Very, very interesting verse. Isaac loved Esau, for he put game in his mouth. He fed him. Verivko heveses Yaakov, but Rebekah loves Jacob.
01:58
This is a very challenging verse. Why is it a very challenging verse? First, is you know, shouldn't you love all your children? Shouldn't you love all of your offspring? Why is there a focus here of like the parents were in a dilemma. Thank you so much. The parents were in a discord. The wife loves one child, the husband loves the other child, the father loves one, the mother loves the other. Shouldn't they both love both? Isn't that a better, healthier way to raise your children?
02:30
So we also have to understand what love is. We have to understand what is love. See, most people interpret love to be I fell in love or I find similarities, but our sages teach us that that's not what love is. Love is seeing the virtue of a person. Love is seeing the potential of a person and connecting to that, and this makes a lot of sense. Rivka saw the unbelievable potential in Yaakov and that's what she loved, and this makes a lot of sense. Rivka saw the unbelievable potential in Yaakov and that's what she loved. And Isaac saw the unbelievable potential in Esau. Isaac saw Esau if he used his power, if he used his abilities, his strengths, his talents for good things, he'd be the greatest of all. And that's what he loved. He loved the potential, while Rebecca, she saw the potential of Yaakov and that's what she loved. It wasn't that they disliked the other, that's who they focused their love. They saw the potential of that son, of that child.
03:53
This is a very big, fundamental foundation for us in our parenting, in our friendships. What is it that we love in another person? Is it just oh, this is my good-looking kid, this is my smart kid, this is my talented athlete? You have to find the uniqueness, the specialty of every single child. In a relationship it's exactly the same. Couples come and they ask you you know, I'm not in love anymore. Well, what got you in love to begin with? Well, if it was just attraction and now you're not attracted to your spouse, so you got a big problem but if it was the goodness of their heart, if it was their kindness, if it was the unbelievable potential that they have, then just focus on it and you'll fall in love again. But if it was something that's external, that's fleeting, and what you may like today in looks, you may like something different tomorrow. So a person needs to be very careful. When we talk about love, when we talk about building a relationship with another person, it has to be focused on the right things.
05:18
But I want to talk about something here. The verse just after this says sorry, just before before this says the following and the youths grew up and Esav became a man who knows hunting, a man of the field, but Jacob was a man who was wholesome, dwelling in tents. We see here something that we've seen many, many times already in the book of Genesis, and that is we have two forces in this world. We have the force of heaven and we have the force of earth. God created the heaven and the earth. There are two forces. These two forces are constantly battling it out. Another very interesting thing when Esau is born, we see that Yaakov is holding on to his ankle. He's holding on to his heel. That's why he's called Yaakov Eikev. Eikev is the heel. He's holding on to the bottom of Esau's leg.
06:32
If you want to focus, you want to develop into a spiritual person, you're always going to be at the heel. You're not going to be at the head. It's not going to be easy for you to just grow and attain great levels. You're going to face challenges. And here we come with the question. We see that, till Yaakov was 63 years old, yaakov didn't get the blessing from his father and Yaakov was in a state of discomfort with who am I? What am I supposed to be doing here? My father doesn't acknowledge my greatness. Maybe I'm wrong. Until when he was 63 years old, his father gave him the blessing. My father doesn't acknowledge my greatness, maybe I'm wrong. Until, when he was 63 years old, his father gave him the blessing. And why did he give him the blessing? What does the Torah tell us? Because Yaakov fed him. And Yaakov, where's that? Verse 20.
07:47
After it says that Yitzchak loved Esau and Rivka loved Yaakov. Sorry, and Adashim was regarding Esau earlier, but here Jacob stood a stew I'm sorry, it's right over here with Esau. He stood a stew, I'm sorry, it's right over here with Esau. He stood a stew by Yavu, esau, min, asadu v'huayif. And then what happens? And Esau comes in from the field and he was exhausted. He was exhausted from what? From killing, from hunting, it says over here. Rashi says that he was tired. V'ritz was tired. He murdered someone. Till this point, yaakov is still not accepted by his father as being someone who's great meaning his father didn't really see that.
08:40
I want to share with you an incredible, by the way, how did Esau convince his father that he was great? I want to share with you an incredible, by the way. How did Esau convince his father that he was great? It's very, very clever. He asked them questions. You know they say that if you want to curry favor with someone, acknowledge their wisdom and ask them for advice, even if it doesn't mean anything to you, even if it's not. You know, you hear this, mark, right, ask them questions. Then they'll say, wow, this guy is really attentive, he listens to me, he asks me questions. Right, he's Esau understood this. Esau goes to his father and he says to him how do we do ma'aser, how do we tithe from the salt? How do we tithe from the crops, from the field? He starts asking him questions. His father thinks he's a big scholar.
09:28
Now, yitzhak didn't know that Esau wasn't a great guy. So we know that Yitzhak was blind. Yitzhak was blind, see. He didn't see who was who and he was being tricked. This trick went on for 63 years. This trick went on.
09:47
I want to read to you an Orachayim. The Orachayim HaKadosh says an amazing thing here about Yaakov serving food to his father. Yitzchak Vayozet Yaakov, he says and Yaakov stu deistu she-si, ba-sa-dov-a-she-gar-om, li-yaakov, li-shano-ses-da-arko-va-li-sa-sik-bi-bi-shu-ma-chol-im, what suddenly happened? That Yaakov, after 63 years, decides you know what? I know how to feed him some food, just like Esau did. I'm going to become a chef, I'm going to cook some food for my father and like this, I'll be able to curry favor with him. Masha'alohu asa hadayom. He didn't do till that day. He did not serve his father food.
10:40
Kivon shiro Yaakov she Yitzchakovev Esau. Since Yaakov saw that Yitzchak loved Esau and he sees that Esau is always busy serving food to his father, I'll do the same. I'll feed my father food and then my father will find favor in my eyes, I'll find favor in my father's eyes and then I'll get blessings from him. It caused pain to Yaakov that the love that Isaac had was primarily for his son, esau. It caused him pain, but you know what he did. You know what Yaakov did.
11:41
Yaakov overcame his temptation to just listen to the Yetzirah, because every single person who wants to grow and become holy and become righteous and become a scholar in Torah, will always have the Yetzirah pulling and tugging, saying you know what? Maybe go to this place, maybe hang out with those people, maybe be like them, and then you'll have all the favors, then you'll have all the gifts, then you'll have all the success. Yaakov, 63 years, had that push of the Yetzehara. The Yetzehara is telling him look at Esau, look how Esau is so beloved by your father. If you want to find favor in your father's eyes, do the same as Esau. And he withheld. Let's see, though. See. Finally, at 63 years old, he says you know what? I figured it out. It's not being like Esau in his actions, being a hunter. It's not like being like Esau involved in trickery. It's the food. You know what? What they say? The way to reach a jewish soul is through the stomach. Right, you feed a jewish, jewish person food. You got him. So every jewish event has food. There's no such thing you don't just come to. Every jewish event is about here, in our classes too, by the way, right, the or Chaim says Yaakov finally figured out that if he wants to get to his father, this is the way. Now, yitzchak was no silly person. Yitzchak knew, he understood. Yitzchak was a wise, righteous one of our patriarchs. He wasn't a fool. He convinced him with food.
13:50
It's amazing that we see that throughout Yaakov's journey he never turned his back on Hashem Ever, to the point where it says in Malachi, in the prophets, it says Ve'ohev es Yaakov, hashem loves Jacob. Ve'es Esav Senei, saying I hated Esav. All of this to teach us something very, very important Is that every single person needs to strengthen himself with their knowledge of hashem, knowing what the right thing to do is, and not let go. We cannot let go when we are in our service of Hashem, no matter how difficult it may seem, no matter how difficult we may find ourselves in a situation that is so complicated, where the Yetzirah is just feeding us temptation after temptation. Be like Yaakov. Yaakov doesn't stop in his service of Hashem. He says one day I'll get there. One day I'll get there that even my father will recognize my greatness. He says an amazing thing here. We we mentioned this previously as well that we all have the same abilities as our ancestors have the same abilities as our ancestors. We all have the same journey. The stories that are written in the Torah are not just stories. They're prophecies to teach us about our lives. We all have the Jacob within us. We all have the ability within ourselves to reach the same heights, to reach the same heights, to reach the same greatness that Yaakov reached. But we're going to need to have the same perseverance that Yaakov had as well. Even 63 years of doubt, he says you know, I'm going to stay strong and I'm going to keep my commitment to Hashem. I'm going to keep my commitment to the Torah. Notwithstanding that, I see in front of my eyes that the Yetzehara is pulling the strings, that Esau is being more loved by Isaac than Jacob, and it seems to be something's out of whack here.
16:26
It's very easy to give up. You know, my friend has a quote that he always says. He says quitters always finish first. Okay, quitters always right. You want to finish first, just quit and you'll finish first. But if you want to win, you can't quit. You can't quit In our service, if there's anything that we want to attain in any single trait, you want to become perfect in any specific trait the trait of emunah, the trait of chesed, the trait of patience.
16:58
You, the trait of chesed, the trait of patience. You know what's going to happen. You're going to try and you're going to try and you're going to fail, and you're going to try and you're going to fail, and you're going to try and you're going to fail. So you have two options now Keep on trying or give up, say you know what, I'm just going to stop trying. Or you be like Yaakov and you say I'm not going to give up and the day will come where I will find that success, where I'm going to be able to accomplish. Imagine Yaakov. We'll see soon, when we talk about Parshas Vayetze, the greatness of Yaakov.
17:44
But Yaakov never gave up. He never, ever, went to a point of saying you know what, let me just try going on the other side of the tracks. Let me try that. Let's see how that works. Never, not once, yaakov continued to work on himself. Let's see how that works. Never, not once. Yaakov continued to work on himself, to work on his relationship with Hashem, to work in his growth, to work in his study of Torah and never, ever stopped till he attained the success that he so much desired. I think that there's.
18:20
We spoke previously, earlier, we spoke about the importance of us as parents, our responsibility to ensure that our children know that they're loved, the importance for us to see the potential in every child, even the rotten child, even the one who's not going our ways. You think Isaac didn't love Jacob? Of course he loved him. You think Isaac didn't admire his son Yaakov? No, he just saw that Esau needed more. Esau needed more, but Yaakov still wanted to connect on a higher level with his father. He wanted to get that blessing. Oh, how is he going to get that blessing? He's going to get that blessing using another method. He's going to try something different. He's not going to sell out, he's going to just try a different method. Even if it takes 63 years, like it did for Yaakov, it's worth it Because we always have to remember that, although we are the great, great, great, great great 140, 150 generations or more from Yaakov, we are the patriarchs for our children and our grandchildren, and what we are doing is we are setting the path for their success.
19:51
We are setting the path for their accomplishments. We're giving them the strength and when we recognize that responsibility, we have unbelievable broadened shoulders that help us grow, that help us elevate everything that we touch, because we realize we're on a mission that we touch. Because we realize we're on a mission, we realize that it's not just me right now with my challenge. I'm here facing that challenge for all my future generations. I'm setting a path forward for them.
20:37
It's an important thing for us to recognize that we have a Yetzirah. We have a evil inclination that is constantly trying to pry us away Every single day, coming here to our class. Should I go, should I not go? Maybe I should watch the news. Maybe I'm tired, maybe, and does anybody feel the same? You have that challenge, maybe, maybe not. Yetzirah is working. That means we're growing, because if he wasn't throwing that challenge in front of us, maybe we're just not on. We're not on the battlefield. When we're in the battlefield, we're going to have challenges Every single time. It's always going. Sometimes we'll win and sometimes we'll lose. Sometimes we'll be able to overcome the Yetzirah and sometimes we're going to fail. You know what we do. We just get back up. It's an interesting thing I wanted to mention this earlier and that is we see Sheva Yipol Tzaddik Vikam.
21:48
It says that the righteous fall seven times. Our sages teach us that the number seven is the number of nature. God created the world in seven days. That's the nature. The steady state of something is seven. So what happens when the steady state of a righteous person is seven. They fall seven times Because if you want to grow, you're going to fall. But you know what happens after they come they get back up, they come, they get back up, they fall and they get back up. They don't stay down. They don't say you know what I give up. They don't say for 63 years Jacob tried and fell, tried and fell, tried and fell till ah, it worked. That's our job. Our job is to be that Sadeq who never gives up, who says I'm not going to take no for an answer, I'm going to continue trying. Because the natural state of a righteous person is they fall, but the falling is not the part we emphasize, it's the getting up that we emphasize. If it comes, he gets up again, he falls and he falls and he falls and he gets up again.
23:02
And anybody who thinks that the Chavetz Chaim didn't have a challenge with Lashon Hara, you're fooling yourself. He did, which is why he became so great, because every time he fell, he got back up again and he fell and he got back up again. And who knows if the journey of the Chavetz Chaim becoming so incredibly famous for Lashon Hara not speaking Lashon Hara, but avoiding the speech of Lashon Hara speaking slanderously about another person. Who knows if all of his fame came because he struggled with it so much so he says you know what? I'm going to write a book about it, so that'll help me grow in this area. Who knows?
23:47
We are in a world. We're not here for free. We're here to accomplish, we're here to make changes, we're here to grow. We're here to challenge ourselves, to take another step and to never give in to the Yetzirah. Never give in to the easy answer. Go for the right answer, not what's convenient, but what's the right thing for me to do. My dear friends, have an amazing Shabbos. Thank you so much. I'll just share with you.
24:20
In the process of looking for this, I saw I see another verse here. It's have an amazing Shabbos, thank you so much. I put you on a diet and you're still not losing weight. How's it possible? Three months you're on this diet. You know she saw that he was getting, you know, incredibly overweight. She says you know, I'm going to give you healthy food and like this, you'll be more fit, you'll be healthier. So she puts him on this diet.
24:52
Three months in, he didn't lose a pound. So she asks him what's going on. She says well, I have the Aesop diet. The Aesop diet, what's the Aesop diet? So he says to her. He says what happened to Aesop? Aesop, you know? First he married women from Canaan and then he says the women from Canaan are not good, so he marries the daughter of Ishmael. Did he get rid of the women from Canaan? No, he kept them. He says they're not good and then he adds another one to it. See, this rabbi says to his wife he says I ate your healthy food. And then I went down to the, to the restaurant down the block, and ate what I normally eat. So it's not, uh, it's an ace of diet. But a very interesting thing that was brought to my attention. This shabbos very, very interesting. I want to share this as well as an afterthought. It shouldn't be an afterthought, it's an amazing idea.
25:55
We see by Abraham. What does it say about Abraham? That Eliezer says I'm looking for a girl for your son. I have a daughter. Take my daughter. You know, what does Abraham say? He says absolutely not. He says a righteous doesn't do a wedding with a non-righteous, a holy doesn't. Look at Rashi. Look at Rashi. He says it's an unbelievable thing. He says in chapter 24, verse number 39,. He says and he said my master, perhaps the woman will not follow after me. What is he saying here, elay after me. What does it say? Eliezer had his own daughter. He wanted to find an opening where he can say now to Abraham Abraham, you know, I have a daughter and you know because he's saying what if she's not going to come to me? He's trying to add an excuse here and Abraham is going to say you know what? Your daughter is fine.
27:05
Amr le Avram. Avram says to him b'ni baruch ve'at oru. My son is blessed and you're cursed. And a cursed person doesn't come together with a blessed person. Very, very interesting. This is brought in the Medrash. What is the next verse?
27:29
The next Rashi says I came today to the spring, and it goes on to say the story about Eliezer. And what does it say Referring to Eliezer? Eliezer left and arrived at the same day. It was a far distance, and he left Abraham and arrived at the well to meet Rebekah the same day. Why? Mikan shekav solei aretz? We see from here that it was what we call kfitz ha-saderech. It was a contraction of space, but it was a miracle that happened here, and miracles only happen to righteous people. So the question is what in the world is going on here? Abraham says Eliezer, your daughter comes from an accursed, my son comes from blessing and therefore we don't do weddings between each other.
28:27
The next Rashi, the next Rashi talks about how Eliezer, this so-called cursed person, has an unbelievable miracle happen to him. Something is. What's the connection here? Rashi's teaching us something amazing, notwithstanding Eliezer realizing you know what? I'm not at the caliber of Abraham. Abraham is really holy, he's really special. So Abraham here tells him, he tears into him and says we're not the same. I know you work for me, you're not the same. What does he do? Does he leave? He says oh, I can't believe it. I'm out. I wanted to be close to Abraham, I wanted to be a family member of his. He says, says no. What does Eliezer do now? He doesn't leave.
29:19
This was a test for Eliezer. Are you going to stay loyal to Abraham? And he stayed loyal to Abraham. Hashem says what's that reward? He's going to have kfitz ha-saderach. He's going to have an accelerated travel which is only shown to righteous people because he did what he needed to do. This was a reward.
29:45
Immediately the next Rashi talks about the reward that Eliezer got for staying loyal to Abraham, for staying loyal to what he was meant to be doing. Every person has a purpose that they're in this world for. Eliezer's purpose was not to be a family member with Abraham. He was to serve Abraham. That was his job. This is an amazing thing to look at Rashi and to see how Rashi puts it together so perfectly. Rashi, the great commentator. There's his reward. You want to see? He was righteous, he remained. He became great because he stayed loyal. Oh, oh, very good, very good. So it's a very good question. It's a great question.
30:32
Was Isaac's favoritism of Yaakov, yaakov's favoritism of Yosef? So I want to, I want to tell you about favoritism, and maybe I should have mentioned this earlier. I tell each and every one of my children that they are my favorite. Each and every one of them. You are my favorite. But how can that be? How can you have two favorites? Well, each one is uniquely different. It's not like you're looking at two apples and saying this apple is my favorite. You're looking at an apple and an orange. So my orange is the favorite orange and my apple is the favorite apple and the banana is my favorite banana. You understand, they're all different they're so if they're two exactly the same, then you got a problem. But because everyone is so uniquely different, there's nothing here that will show a favoritism because they're different.
31:26
What Yaakov was seeing in Yosef was what Yitzchak was seeing in Esav, why Yitzchak was seeing in Esav unbelievable turmoil. Let's think of it like this okay, you see a guy who grows up in a very, very, very wealthy home. He gets an inheritance of $100 billion and he continues to succeed in not losing that money. Right, he continues to. Who's more successful, that guy or the guy who grew up in poverty and struggled and worked hard and made it to $100 billion? Which one? Which one do you give more kudos to? You give it to the guy who started with nothing, the guy who had to face more challenge. That's Esau and that was Yosef. Yaakov saw in Yosef someone who's going to face a lot of challenges and as such, because he's going to face so many challenges, he's going to need that love, he's going to need that push to continue to succeed. You understand so what Esau was to Yitzhak. Where Yitzhak sees, I see a battlefield here. I have to give him everything I have to bring out the greatness of that individual, while Yaakov did the same for Yosef.
33:06
Because what was Yosef's destiny? He was going to head down to Mitzrayim. Yosef was going to be challenged with the wife of Potiphar. Yosef was going to be challenged in prison. Yosef was going to be challenged with the wife of Potiphar. Yosef was going to be challenged in prison. Yosef was going to be challenged in Egypt. Yosef was constantly going to be challenged. He was going to be challenged more than Reuven, shimon, levi, yehudi, yisachar Zebul and Dan Naphtali, gad, asher, binyamin. He was going to. They were all on a silver platter. They stayed with their father. They lived a good life. Yeah, they had a challenge here or there, but like Yosef, nobody had a challenge like Yosef.
33:46
Likewise, esav's challenge. The potential of that could have been so great. The potential of Esav could have been absolutely remarkable. But what can we do? Esav failed. Esav was too committed, too dedicated to the earthly urges and desires, and that's the, that's the pain that Yitzchak leaves this world with, that he didn't see his son, esav, grow to be what he could have his potential, bringing his potential to the fore, bringing his potential to life. But that's why he invested so much in him. It's an excellent question. It really is an excellent question. It really is an excellent question. All right, thank you.
34:37 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.