Community Torah Corner, November 5, 2021

This week’s elections reminded us yet again of how immensely divided our nation has become. Two major parties are again pitted up against each other, and partnership in governing society and safeguarding life seem to be extraordinarily distant.

 

This may be what Rivkah perceived when she felt her twins fighting in the womb and asked, “Im kein, lama ze anokhi?” “If this is the case, why should I even bother?” It may not have helped when God answered, saying that there were two nations in her womb, two separate people, and one would prove mightier than the other. Indeed, we see as the story unfolds that Yaakov cunningly takes the birthright and deceptively receives the blessing. Though he gets the win, the cost is that he will later be deceived and conned by Laban. 

 

Rabbi Shefa Gold writes that this all results “from the narrow belief in the scarcity of blessing. Our family is torn apart because of the tragic conviction that only one of Isaac’s sons may receive the blessing. This system of limiting blessing and creating hierarchy are born of the belief that love and blessing are finite, that there are winners and losers”[1]. It takes the imagined death of his son Yosef for Yaakov to realize that being divisive and putting one above another will only lead to pain.

 

Instead, perhaps we can learn from Yitzhak’s teaching when he re-digs and renames his father’s wells after the Gerarites stop them up. Yitzhak names the first well esek—contention and the second, sitnah—enmity. When his quarreling with the Gerarites stops, Yitzhak names the third and final well rehovot—spaciousness. When the fighting stops, and we learn to live together, we realize there is space enough for all of us. May we Americans, on all sides, know that blessing is abundant and that what we need to do to find that blessing is learn to sit down together to build something better, in partnership.

 

[1] Torah Journeys, Teaneck: Ben Yehuda, 2006. pg. 43.