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.