42 | NOVEMBER 24 • 2022

T

his week, we see Isaac as the
parent of two very different sons.
“The boys grew up. Esau
became a skilful hunter, a man of the
outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man
who stayed at home
among the tents. Isaac,
who had a taste for wild
game, loved Esau, but
Rebecca loved Jacob.” Gen.
25:27-28
We have no difficulty
understanding why
Rebecca loved Jacob. She
had received an oracle from God in
which she was told: “Two nations are
in your womb, and two peoples from
within you will be separated; one people
will be stronger than the other, and the
older will serve the younger.” Gen. 25:23
Jacob was the younger. Rebecca seems
to have inferred, correctly as it turned
out, that it would be he who would
continue the covenant, who would stay
true to Abraham’s heritage, and who
would teach it to his children, carrying

the story forward into the future.
The real question is, why did Isaac
love Esau?
Could he not see that he was a
man of the outdoors, a hunter, not a
contemplative or a man of God? Is it
conceivable that he loved Esau merely
because he had a taste for wild game?
Did his appetite rule his mind and
heart? Did Isaac not know how Esau
sold his birthright for a bowl of soup
and how he subsequently “despised” the
birthright itself (Gen. 25:29-34). Was
this someone with whom to entrust the
spiritual patrimony of Abraham?
Isaac surely knew that his elder son
was a man of mercurial temperament
who lived in the emotions of the
moment.
Even if this did not trouble him, the
next episode involving Esau clearly did:
“When Esau was forty years old, he
married Judith, daughter of Beeri the
Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of
Elon the Hittite. They were a source of
grief to Isaac and Rebecca.” Gen. 26:34-

35
Esau had made himself at home
among the Hittites. He had married two
of their women. This was not a man to
carry forward the Abrahamic covenant,
which involved a measure of distance
from the Hittites and Canaanites and all
they represented in terms of religion,
culture and morality.
Yet Isaac clearly did love Esau. Not
only does the verse with which we
began say so. It remained so. Genesis
27, with its morally challenging story
of how Jacob dressed up as Esau and
took the blessing that had been meant
for him, is remarkable for the picture
it paints of the genuine, deep affection
between Isaac and Esau.
We sense this at the beginning when
Isaac asks Esau: “Prepare me the kind
of tasty food I like and bring it to
me to eat, so that I may give you my
blessing before I die.” (Gen. 27:7) This
is not Isaac’s physical appetite speaking.
It is his wish to be filled with the smell
and taste he associates with his elder

A
Father’s
Love

Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH