NOVEMBER 28 • 2024 | 51
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will be. Animal experiments have
shown that it involves a high
degree of risk and may always do
so. Cloning apparently disturbs
the normal process of “genomic
imprinting” by which the genes
on the chromosomes from one of
the parents are switched on or off.
Many scientists are convinced that
mammalian cloning is an intrinsi-
cally flawed process, too unsafe ever
to be used in human reproduction.
However, cloning is not just
another technology. It raises issues
not posed by other forms of assist-
ed reproduction such as artificial
insemination or in-vitro fertiliza-
tion. Nuclear cell transfer is a form
of asexual reproduction. We do not
know why it is that large, long-liv-
ing creatures reproduce sexually.
From an evolutionary point of
view, asexual reproduction would
have been much simpler. Yet none
of the higher mammals reproduce
asexually. Is this because only by
the unpredictable combination of
genetic endowments of parents and
grandparents can a species gener-
ate the variety it needs to survive?
The history of the human presence
on earth is marked by destruction
of biodiversity on a massive scale.
To take risks with our own genetic
future would be irresponsible in the
extreme.
There is another objection to
cloning, namely the threat to the
integrity of children so conceived.
To be sure, genetically identical
persons already exist in the case
of identical twins. It is one thing,
though, for this to happen, quite
another deliberately to bring it
about. Identical twins do not come
into being so that one may serve as
a substitute or replacement for the
other. Cloning represents an ethi-
cal danger in a way that naturally
occurring phenomena do not. It
treats people as means rather than
as ends in themselves. It risks the
commoditization of human life. It
cannot but transform some of the
most basic features of our humanity.
Every child born of the genetic
mix between two parents is unpre-

dictable, like yet unlike those who
have brought it into the world. That
mix of kinship and difference is an
essential feature of human relation-
ships. It is the basis of a key belief
of Judaism, that each individual is
unique, non-substitutable and irre-
placeable. In a famous Mishnah, the
Sages taught: “When a human being
makes many coins in a single mint,
they all come out the same. God
makes every human being in the
same image, His image, yet they all
emerge different.”
The glory of creation is that unity
in heaven creates diversity on earth.
God wants every human life to be
unique. As Harvard philosopher
Hilary Putnam put it: “Every child
has the right to be a complete sur-
prise to its parents” — which means
the right to be no one else’s clone.
What would become of love if we
knew that if we lost our beloved, we
could create a replica? What would
happen to our sense of self if we
discovered that we were manufac-
tured to order?
The Midrash about Abraham and
Isaac does not bear directly on clon-
ing. Even if it did, it would be prob-
lematic to infer halachah from agga-
dah, legal conclusions from a
non-legal source. Yet the story is
not without its ethical undertones.
At first, Isaac looked like a clone of
his father. Eventually, Abraham had
to pray for the deed to be undone.
If there is a mystery at the heart
of the human condition it is oth-
erness: the otherness of man and
woman, parent and child. It is the
space we make for otherness that
makes love something other than
narcissism and parenthood some-
thing greater than self-replication.
It is this that gives every human
child the right to be themselves,
to know they are not reproduc-
tions of someone else, constructed
according to a pre-planned genetic
template.
Without this, would childhood
be bearable? Would love survive?
Would a world of clones still be a
human world? We are each in God’s
image but no one else’s.

Strength and Spirit
O

ne of the most diffi-
cult-to-understand stories
in the Bible is Rebekah’s act
of deception when she persuades her
beloved son Jacob to masquerade as
Esau and receive the blessings
of the firstborn. How can we
justify a matriarch deceiving her
husband in such a manner?
I believe that Rebekah never
planned to deceive her hus-
band. To understand, we must
return to last week’s portion, to
Abraham’s initial appointment
of Eliezer to find the proper wife
for Isaac.
The major task of our found-
ing parents is to provide a suit-
able next generation to carry on
our narrative. Abraham under-
stands that it may be the wisdom of
the wife who will recognize the most
worthy person to provide continuity.
After all, had it not been for Sarah,
Abraham might have handed the
baton to his firstborn, Ishmael.
It is important to remember that
the first Hebrew had two very special
characteristics. First, he was a man of
spiritual magnitude, a seeker and a
discoverer of God and a practitioner
of righteousness and moral justice;
second, he was an accomplished war-
rior, equipped with strategic ability as
well as physical prowess and courage.
Abraham united spirit of the soul with
strength of hand.
When Abraham charges Eliezer
with what to look for in the next
matriarch, I would suggest that
Abraham is hinting that she must
understand the essence of the Jewish
narrative: To enable the God of love,
morality and peace to dwell within a

world committed to love, morality and
peace.
Isaac believed that his heir had to
be active and aggressive, an individual
who would not fear the use of power
to defeat evil and terrorism. He
did not believe that Jacob, the
wholehearted and naïve dweller
in the tent of learning, would be
able to navigate his way through
the corridors of power.
Rebekah, on the other hand,
was certain that Jacob could rise
to that challenge. She knew that
to receive the blessings which
he had purchased, and which
Esau had forfeited by marrying
Canaanite wives, he demonstrat-
ed the ability to utilize the hands
and the rough exterior of Esau
to gain necessary mastery. She under-
stood that Esau would soon return
with the meat ready to receive the
blessings — and then the ruse would
be over. But by then Isaac would have
realized that Jacob could don the exte-
rior of Esau.
Rebekah was successful. When Isaac
realizes what has happened, he says,
“Indeed, he [Jacob] shall be blessed.”
(Genesis 27:33) And we are the children
of Jacob/Israel, not the children of
Esau. Rebekah’s point: If compassion-
ate righteousness and moral justice
are to rule the day, they often need
the back-up of military strength and
prowess.
We now have the hands and the
arsenals of Esau. May we continue to
use that power with restraint and ethi-
cal sensitivity, as we have heretofore.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr

Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.

SPIRIT
TORAH PORTION

Rabbi
Shlomo
Riskin

Parshat

Toldot:

Genesis

25:19-28:9;

I Samuel

20:18-42.