Parashat Toldot - First Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
The aliyah opens with Isaac, Abraham’s son, and emphasizes again:
Avraham holid et Yitzchak
Translation: Abraham fathered Isaac.
Isaac marries Rebecca at forty, but she is barren; when the twins are born, he is already sixty. Between those two verses lie twenty years of waiting. Isaac prays insistently, God answers him, and Rebecca conceives. Genesis 25:19-26, Rashi on 25:21
The children struggle within her, and Rebecca asks:
im ken lamah zeh anochi
Translation: If so, why am I?
She turns to God and hears that two nations will come from her, and that the older will serve the younger. Esau is born first, red and hairy; Jacob follows, holding his heel. As they grow, Esau becomes a hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob is a quiet man who dwells in tents. Isaac loves Esau because he eats his game, and Rebecca loves Jacob. Genesis 25:22-28
Esau returns from the field exhausted and asks for some of the stew Jacob is cooking. Jacob asks for the birthright in exchange. Esau swears and sells it, eats, drinks, gets up and leaves. The Torah concludes:
vayivez Esav et habbechorah
Translation: Esau despised the birthright.
Later, famine strikes, and Isaac goes to Gerar, to Abimelech. God commands him not to go down to Egypt and promises him the land, descendants as numerous as the stars, and blessing for the nations through his offspring. This fulfills His oath to Abraham, who listened to His voice and kept His commandments. Genesis 26:1-5
Prayer facing prayer
What do these words add?
lenochach ishto
Translation: Facing his wife.
Rashi describes Isaac standing in one corner praying, and Rebecca standing in another corner praying. Both plead over the same distress. Rashi on Genesis 25:21
Radak adds that Isaac loved Rebecca deeply, and out of his love for her did not want to marry another woman or take one of her maidservants. That is why he prayed so insistently that she would give birth. In this reading, he wanted a child specifically with her. Radak on Genesis 25:21
This suggests a thought about prayer and marriage: Isaac is not asking only for himself and his wish to become a father. Rebecca and their shared future are part of his plea. It is not only “I” before God, but “we.” Her difficulty is his too, and the child he asks for is theirs.
What is Rebecca asking when she says, “Why am I?”
Ramban reads her words as an anguished cry about her very life: if her suffering is so great, why is she in the world? In his interpretation, the pain of pregnancy leads her as far as wishing she were no longer alive or had never been born. This is a stark statement, and it gives weight to the suffering behind the verse’s few words. Ramban on Genesis 25:22
In that distress, Rebecca turns to God and hears about the two nations that will come from her. What is happening within her is now connected to the future of generations. She carries the beginning of a story far greater than her own life.
We can draw a thought from this: sometimes an answer to personal distress comes through a wider view. Understanding that we have a part in a larger story can give us strength to bear pain. Perhaps this is one way a sense of purpose brings relief: the difficulty remains, but its meaning begins to emerge.
What does Esau mean when he says he is going to die?
Jacob is cooking stew. Esau returns from the field exhausted and asks to eat. Jacob asks for his birthright in exchange, and Esau replies:
hineh anochi holech lamut
Translation: Behold, I am going to die.
Is he describing immediate danger, as though he will not survive without the stew? Genesis 25:29-32
Rashbam, citing his father, Rabbi Meir, offers another reading: every day Esau goes hunting where there are bears, lions and other dangerous animals. His life is at risk, so he asks what point there is in waiting for the firstborn’s share he will receive after his father’s death. Perhaps he will not live that long. In this interpretation, his words about death refer to his life as a hunter. Rashbam on Genesis 25:32
This helps us understand the gap between the brothers in that conversation. Jacob seeks something whose value extends into the future. Esau doubts whether he will ever be able to enjoy it and agrees to give it up for the food before him.
Torah before Sinai?
The end of the aliyah raises another question: how can Abraham be said to have kept God’s commandments, statutes and teachings before the giving of the Torah? Rashi brings a midrashic reading that attributes to Abraham observance of commandments that would later be given in the Torah, and even the Oral Torah. Rashi on Genesis 26:5
In this reading, Abraham left behind a way of life committed to God. The aliyah began with the family bond between Abraham and Isaac and ends with Abraham’s deeds and God’s words to his son. Between those two ends, Jacob and Esau are born, and the family’s continuing story begins to be shaped by their choices too.
More Questions on the Parsha
Esau's Blessing Includes 'By Your Sword You Shall Live' and Dependence on His Brother. Is This a Curse, a Different Kind of Blessing, or a Description of a Nation That Lives in Perpetual Movement Between Rebellion and Subjugation?
An exploration of Isaac's blessing to Esau - part material blessing, part existential profile - examining how 'by your sword you shall live' reflects a dynamic fate of strength, conflict, and perpetual tension with Jacob.
Esau Says “I Am Going to Die”: What Does He Mean?
Hunting danger, the responsibility of sacrificial service or denial of the world to come? Esau’s words and a careful comparison with life in danger.
Rebecca and Esau: “Why Am I?” and “I Am Going to Die”
Rebecca seeks an answer; Esau sells the birthright. Rashi, Ramban and Ibn Ezra open a reflection on meaning, responsibility and the future.