come out first."
Indeed, Jacob holds on to Esau's
heel as Esau exits Rebecca's womb
— presumably to hold his brother
back from being the first-born. (The
Hebrew root of Jacob's name, Yaakov,
means, "heel:')
Similarly, during Tamar's labor,
her son, Zerah, thrusts his hand
out of the womb; and just as the
midwife ties a red string around his
wrist to signal that he will be born
first, Zerah's hand suddenly retreats
and Perez actually comes out first
— the implication being that Perez
has pulled his brother back and
charged ahead.
As if to underscore the gesture,
his mother remarks, "You broke
through" and "Wherefore hast thou
made a breach for thyself?" — thus
the origin of his name, Perez, which
means "breaking" or "breach."
"The stories are both about the
younger usurping the older:' Wolpe
says, pointing out that in each par-
able, the twins struggle, as if to sug-
gest that they are born already in
conflict. "In both cases, the natural
order is overturned by deception or
by force:'
English professor Hillel Schwartz
in his book The Culture of the Copy:
Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable
Facsimiles has a different take on
why Zerah might have begun to sur-
face, only to retreat and have Perez
go ahead.
"Commentators describe the two
struggling for primogeniture," Hillel
writes, "but the episode can also be
read as expressing Zerah's reluctance
to leave the perfect twinship of the
womb:'
I prefer that reading, and also
Wolpe's gentler take on why Jacob
grips his twin's ankle.
"You actually could read it as say-
ing that Jacob was frightened that
Esau was leaving him, so he grabbed
hold because he didn't want to be
abandoned:' Wolpe offers.
The twin accounts in Genesis
bring to mind the traditions of the
Yoruba tribe — the African clan I've
been researching because of its inor-
dinately high rates of twinning (45
in every 1,000 births, as opposed to
the typical 12 in 1,000.)
The Yoruba believe that the
older twin is actually the one who
emerges second. Their conviction is
that the older twin protectively stays
back, holding down the fort, as it

Abigail Pogrebin

were, while sending the younger
twin out to safety.
This African interpretation rings
truer to me than the biblical one
because it suggests the sweetness of
twins' first moments in the world,
not the violence of fighting to be No.
1 or the notion that twinship, even
in its incubation, is inherently frac-
tious. Not only has my twin experi-
ence been fairly uncontentious, but I
was born first — one minute ahead
of Robin — as a result of my mother
being delivered by Caesarean sec-
tion; and I like to think Robin, who
should have been the eldest, was
overseeing my safe arrival.
Even in the Torah, as it turns out,
a more optimistic view of the sibling
relationship eventually emerges.
Isaac and Ishmael do come back
together at Abraham's graveside
— their father's favoritism did not
alienate them from one another
forever. Similarly, Esau greets Jacob
after years of estrangement, not with
an assault, as Jacob predicted, but
with a surprising embrace. Joseph
also finds it in his heart to forgive
his brothers despite their treachery.
Siblings in the Bible may be cast
as foes, but at the end of the day
they are brothers above all: connect-
ed, charitable, even loving. That's
what rings true for me. And it seems
a more suitable, resonant takeaway
for the new year. P1

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Abigail Pogrebin is the author of "Stars

of David: Prominent Jews Talk About
Being Jewish" and "One and the Same,"

coming out in October from Doubleday.

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Jewish Book Fair in November.

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