Torah Stories By Hannah Parasha  Toldot

Parasha Toldot is the story of Yitzchak, son of Abraham.  Yitzchak was forty years old when he took as wife Rivkah, daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban, the Aramean. Yitzchak pleaded with HaShem on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and HaShem responded to his plea, and his wife Rivkah conceived.  But the children struggled in her womb, and she said: “If so, why do I exist?” She went to inquire of HaShem and HaShem answered her:

         “Two nations are in your womb,

         Two separate peoples shall issue from your body;

         One people shall be mightier than the other,

         And the older shall serve the younger.”

When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantel all over; so they named him Esav.  Then his brother emerged, holding onto the heel of Esav; so they named him Ya’akov.  Yitzchak was 60 years old when they were born. 

When the boys grew up, Esav became a skilful hunter. A man of the outdoors; but Ya’akov was a mild man who stayed in camp. Yitzchak favoured Esav because he had a taste for game; but Rivkah favoured Ya’akov.

Once, when Ya’akov was cooking a stew, Esav came in from the open, famished.  Esav said to Ya’akov:  “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished.” – Which was why he was named Edom. Ya’akov said: “First sell me your birthright.”  And Esav said: “I am at the point of death, so of what use is my birthright to me?” But Ya’akov said: “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Ya’akov. Ya’akov then gave Esav bread and lentil stew. He ate and drank, and he rose and went away. Thus did Esav spurn his birthright. 

There was a famine in the land – aside from the previous famine that occurred in the days of Abraham – and Yitzchak went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar.  HaShem had appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt. Stay in the land which I point out to you. Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; I will assign all these lands to you, and to your offspring, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your forefather Abraham.  I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and give to your descendants all these lands, so that all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your offspring – inasmuch as Abraham obeyed Me, and kept My charge: My commandments, My laws and My teachings.”

So Yitzchak stayed in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said: “She is my sister.”  For he was afraid to say: “My wife,” thinking “the men of the place might kill me on account of Rivkah, for she is beautiful.” When some time had passed, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looking out of the window, saw Yitzchak fondling his wife Rivkah, Abimelech sent for Yitzchak and said: “So she is your wife! Why then did you say, ‘she is my sister’?”  Yitzchak said to him: “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.” Abimelech said: “What have you done to us! One of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” Abimelech then charged all the people saying: “Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall be put to death.”

Yitzchak sowed in that land, and reaped a hundredfold that same year. HaShem blessed him, and the man grew richer and richer, until he was very wealthy: He acquired flocks and herds and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him.  And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth.  And Abimelech said to Yitzchak, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.”

So Yitzchak departed from there, and encamped in the plains of Gerar, where he settled. Yitzchak dug again the wells, which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death. And he gave them the same names his father had given them.  But when Yitzchak’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarrelled with Yitzchak’s herdsmen saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek, because they contended with him and when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also. So he named it Sitnah. He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it.  So he called it Rehoboth saying, “Now at last HaShem has granted us ample space to increase in the land.”

From there he went up to Beersheba. That night HaShem appeared to him and said: “I am the G-d of your father Abraham. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your offspring, for the sake of my servant Abraham.  So he built an altar there and called upon HaShem by name. Yitzchak pitched his tent there and his servants started digging a well. And Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath, his counsellor and Phicol, chief of his troops.  Yitzchak said to them: “Why have you come to me seeing that you have been hostile to me and have driven me away from you?”  And they said: “We now see plainly that HaShem has been with you and we thought: “Let there be a sworn treaty between our two parties, between you and us. Let us make a pact with you, that you will not do us harm, just as we had not molested you, but have always dealt kindly with you and sent you away in peace. From now on, be you blessed of HaShem!” Then he made for them a feast, and they ate and drank.

Early in the morning they exchanged oaths.  Yitzchak then bade them farewell.  And they departed from him in peace.  That same day Yitzchak’s servant’s came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him: “we have found water!” He named it Shibah. Therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day. 

When Esav was forty years old, he took to wife Yehudith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite.  And they were a source of bitterness to Yitzchak and Rivkah. 

When Yitzchak was old and his eyes were too weak to see, he called his older son Esav and said to him: “my son,” he answered: “here I am,” and he said: “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die.  Take your gear, your quiver and bow, and go out into the open and hunt me some game.  Then prepare a dish for me such as I like and bring it to me to eat so that I may give you my innermost blessing before I die.”

Rivkah had been listening as Yitzchak spoke to his son Esav.  When Esav had gone out into the open to hunt game and to bring home, Rivkah said to her son Ya’akov: “I overheard your father speaking to your brother Esav saying: ‘bring me some game and prepare a dish for me to eat that I may bless you with HaShem’s approval before I die.’  Now my son, listen carefully as I instruct you: Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for your father, such as he likes. Then take it to your father to eat in order that he may bless you before he dies.” Ya’akov answered his mother Rivkah: “But my brother Esav is a hairy man and I am smooth skinned.  If my father touches me I shall appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse and not a blessing.”  But his mother said to him:  “Your curse my son be upon me!” Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.”

He got them and brought them to his mother. And his mother prepared a dish such as his father liked.  Rivkah then took the best clothes of her older son Esav which were in the house and had her younger son put them on; and she covered his hands and the hairless part of his neck with the skins of the kids, then she put in the hands of her son Ya’akov the dish and the bread that she had prepared. 

He went to his father and said:  “Father,” And he said: “Yes, which of my sons are you?” and Ya’akov said to his father: “I am Esav your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Pray, sit up and eat my game that you may give me your innermost blessing.” Yitzchak said to his son: “How did you succeed so quickly, my son? And he said: “because HaShem your G-d granted me good fortune.”  Yitzchak said to Ya’akov: “Come closer that I may feel you, my son – whether you are really my son Esav or not.”  So Ya’akov drew close to his father Yitzchak who felt him and wondered: “the voice is the voice of Ya’akov, yet the hands are the hands of Esav.”  He did not recognise him, because his hands were hairy like that of his brother Esav, and so he blessed him.

He asked: “Are you really my son Esav?” and when he said: “I am,” he said: “Serve me and let me eat of my son’s game that I may give you my innermost blessing.” So he served him and he ate.  And he brought him wine and he drank.  Then his father Yitzchak said to him: “Come close and kiss me, my son.” And he went up and kissed him.  And he smelled his clothes and he blessed him saying: “Ah the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that HaShem has blessed.

         “May G-d give you

         Of the dew of the heaven and the fat of the earth,

         Abundance of new grain and wine.

         Let people serve you,

         And nations bow to you;

         Be master over your brothers,

         And let your mother’s sons bow to you.

         Cursed be they who curse you,

         Blessed they who bless you.”

No sooner had Ya’akov left the presence of his father Yitzchak – after Yitzchak had finished blessing Ya’akov – than his brother Esav came back from his hunt.  He too prepared a dish and brought it to his father.  And he said to his father: “Let my father sit up and eat of my sons’ game so that you may give me your innermost blessing.  His father Yitzchak said to him:  “Who are you?” and he said: “I am your son Esav, your firstborn!”  Yitzchak was seized with very violent trembling. “Who was it then,” he demanded.  “That hunted game and brought it to me? Moreover, I ate of it before you came and I blessed him; now he must remain blessed!” When Esav heard his father’s words, he burst into wild and bitter sobbing, and said to his father: “Bless me too, father!”  But he answered: “Your brother came with guile and took away your blessing.” Esav said: “Was he then named Ya’akov that he might supplant me these two times? First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing!” And he added: “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”  Yitzchak answered saying to Esav: “But I have made him master over you, I have given him all his brothers for servants, and sustained him with grain and wine. What then can I still do for you, my son?”  And Esav said to his father: “Have you but one blessing father? Bless me too, father!” And Esav wept aloud.  And his father Yitzchak answered, saying to him:

         “See your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth

         And the dew of the heaven above.

         Yet by your sword you shall live,

         And you shall serve your brother;

         But when you grow restless,

         You shall break his yoke from your neck.”

Now Esav harboured a grudge against Ya’akov because of the blessing which his father had given him.  And Esav said to himself: “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Ya’akov.”  When the words of her older son Esav were reported to Rivkah, she sent for her younger son Ya’akov and said to him:  “your brother Esav is consoling himself by planning to kill you.  Now, my son, listen to me.  Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban. Stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury subsides – and until your brother’s anger against you subsides – and he forgets what you have done to him.  Then I will fetch you from there. Let me not lose you both in one day!”

Rivkah said to Yitzchak: “I am disgusted with my life because of the Hittite women.  If Ya’akov marries a Hittite woman like these from among the native women, what good will life be to me?” So Yitzchak sent for Ya’akov and blessed him. He instructed him saying: “You shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women.  Up, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father and take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.  May El Shaddai bless you, make you fertile and numerous, so that you become and assembly of peoples.  May He grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring that you may possess the land where you are living, which G-d assigned to Abraham.” 

Then Yitzchak sent Ya’akov off.  And he went to Paddan-aram to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rivkah, the mother of Ya’akov and Esav. 

When Esav saw that Yitzchak had blessed Ya’akov and sent him off to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, charging him as he blessed him: “you shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women.”  And that Ya’akov had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram. Esav realised that the Canaanite women displeased his father Yitzchak, so Esav went to Ishmael and took as wife in addition to the wives he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nebaioth.