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

