As we enter the most difficult time of the year for those who feel any kind of pain or regret related to their family of origin, our Torah offers for our consideration an ancient story of family discord. It touches upon favoritism vs aptitude, truth vs smoothing relationships, avoidance vs honesty. Most of all, though, it bears witness to the heartbreak too many of us experience in our relationships with parents, siblings, and offspring.
So much can go wrong in a family! and underneath it all, the longing for love.
The story of Jacob’s usurpation from Esau of the blessing meant for the eldest in his family is a painful one to read: Isaac is lied to and fooled by Rivkah and Jacob in cahoots against Esau, and poor Esau is the absolute picture of desolation when his dreams for his future are dashed. Unlike the midrash that ensues from the story (which justifies Jacob), the Torah brings us into Esau’s broken heart at the moment he realizes that his mother and twin brother have betrayed him profoundly, and the human suffering is hard to read.
We are not offered much in the way of understanding what the parents may have been thinking; there is midrash that suggests that Isaac was playing along, and actually agreed with Rivkah’s successful scheme to get the blessing meant for Esau bestowed upon Jacob. He may have been blind in his old age, our ancestors argue, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to distinguish between his children! And what about Jacob stealing the blessing? well, Rashi informs us that Jacob is really the firstborn: he was actually conceived of first, although he was the second of the twins to emerge into the world.
How much we are all willing to twist and contort justifications and explanations when the only other possibility is to say Jacob was wrong, Rivkah was wrong, and Esau was wronged – and Isaac’s disability was abused. Or: how far we will go to keep from having to say to Esau’s face that his aptitude is not for the content of the blessings Isaac will bestow.
O the aching distance between parent and child! Psychology teaches what theology intuits: we begin life physically connected to another human body, and must separate, at birth, in order to survive and thrive – yet paradoxically our human existence is one of loneliness unless and until we are able to connect to others in loving, intimate and sustainable ways.
It must be said: not every parent is a good parent. And not every child is able to be just in judgement of their parent. Jewish tradition insists that we are to honor our parents – unless they require of us dishonorable behavior. If your parent wants you to sin with them, you must refuse. There is no equivalent command to “honor” one’s children, but much that is demanded of our Jewish community is dedicated to making sure our children thrive: all of us are expected to help create the social conditions for the next generation to grow up and take their turn joyfully in the dance of generations, even if we do not bear children ourselves.
Esau plans to kill Jacob in response; Jacob flees immediately, sent by mom to her family back in the old country. The fracture of the primary set of relationships represented by family is so often inevitable, for so many complicated reasons – yet we need to learn a fundamental truth of human existence conveyed by our tradition’s deep understanding of human nature: we cannot bypass our need for human connection if we would be whole. We cannot do without it. We are not built to be happy by ourselves – nor mentally healthy – any more than we can support our existence without a web of social and physical connection.
This is why we create families of choice if we cannot maintain connection with our family of origin. And this is where deep levels of community become vital to our ability to learn better ways of relating: lying one’s way out of a difficult situation may seem easiest but it never is.
Our tradition teaches that we, who are all broken in some way, seek wholeness; we all hurt. Empathy may not always be possible, but compassion is, if we choose to exercise that capacity. In this understanding is our only hope not to fall into cynicism and despair. The next time someone hurts you, consider what may be going on for them. Consider that you may not even be their true “target”. Most of the time, most of us are struggling with internal challenges, and too often the people we interact with are only the bystanders of our personal drama.
The gift of kindness is radical: you can give it regardless of whether someone “deserves” it in your (surface) estimation of their character. You can also receive it in that same generous way. It is a free choice: to let the inevitable wounds of the heart control one’s acts, or to respond to the narrowness of fear with the expansiveness of love.
Astonishingly, that’s exactly what Esau does; but that’s a story for another week.
shabbat shalom
_______________________________
Rule One of all rules one:
No one ever knows
how much another hurts. You. Kate. Ray. Randall. Me.
The nurses who were kind to you, the gaspump kid
across the bridge, the waitress here
this noon.
No one ever knows.
Or maybe in a thousand, one
has the toughness to,
to care,
to give, beyond a selfish pity. Even any given day,
given weathers, detours, chances of what look like luck,
if we feel bad we refuse the givens.
What blighted lives we lead. Or follow:
showering, feeding, changing shirts or
pants, working, as one used to say,
to make ourselves presentable.
Partial strangers to our painful selves,
we’re still stranger to
diminished friends
when they appear
to hurt.
How much we fail them,
failing to come close:
a parent, newly single, in Seattle;
an upstate poet in intensive care.
You. Blanche. Alvin. Sue.
Who hurts
and why.
Why we guess we know.
How much we never.
– Philip Booth
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 