The Struggle Within

[Shimon]

(Genesis 25:19 – 28:9)

“The children struggled with one another inside her.”

• Genesis 25:22, Tree of Life Version

Esau was the first born, while Jacob was born grasping Esau’s heel. This is how Jacob received his name, meaning heel, or supplanter, because, eventually, he supplanted the rights of the firstborn. Additionally, “Jacob’s holding on to the heel of Esau may symbolize that the values which Esau would stamp his foot on, would be the very ones Jacob would cherish” (Akeidat Yitzchak 23:1:10, sefaria.org).

This appears to be a reference to the verse, “Why should I fear in evil days, when the iniquity of my deceivers [literally, heels] compasseth me about” (Psalm 49:6, TLV), concerning King David’s fear that the sins of his heels, pertaining to the breaking of the lesser mitzvot, those that most people disregard (trample upon), would prevent him from entering Olam Haba (the World-to-Come).

Akeidat Yitzchak applies the same verse in the manner, pertaining to the mitzvot, implying that Esau would tread upon the very values that Jacob upheld, the same values that Jacob emulated in his father Isaac, those same values of Abraham, that exemplified his integrity as the first monotheist. Jacob was destined to supplant Esau in regard to the rights of the first born, so that the legacy of Abraham, replete with the qualities of chesed (kindness), gevurah (moral restraint) and emes (truth) would be continued.

 

“Focus your mind on things above, not on things of the earth.”

• Colossians 3:2, Tree of Life Version

 

“Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that AD’NAI blessed” Genesis 27:27, Tree of Life Version). When Isaac blessed his son, Jacob, who he thought was his firstborn, Esau, he had his son draw close to him. Although Jacob was wearing goat pelts, to resemble Esau’s hairiness, Rashi comments that what Isaac smelled was “the perfume of the Garden of Eden that entered the room with Jacob” (Genesis Rabbah 65:22, sefaria.org).

What is the greater significance? Yalkut Shimoni infers that before they were born, Jacob and Esau were struggling inside the womb, for the inheritance of the two worlds: Olam HaZeh (This World), and Olam Haba (the World to Come). According to this rendering, the struggle was a cosmic struggle (Gur Ayeh), with the victor claiming the greater inheritance.

Symbolically, Jacob represents the higher spiritual values of man, while Esau is symbolic of man’s lower nature. We should aspire to greater heights than the materialistic benefits of this world. Another perspective, concerns the struggle between Jacob and Esau as representative to the struggle within each and every one of us, between the yetzer tov (good inclination) and the yetzer hara (evil inclination), otherwise known as the battle between the flesh and the spirit.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Shimon