Ziv Parashat Toldot

I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me…

This portion tells us about the encounter of Isaac and Rebecca, who has just come from her father’s house, in the company of the faithful Eliezer. For the first time in the Bible, we find the verb “love”, in Hebrew “ehov” used for a man and a woman. (The term appears in Genesis 22, when Abraham is commanded: “Take your son, your beloved one… “, but there it describes the love of a father for his son). This couple seems to live a love that is special – a model of accomplishment. The two will have to go through hardships, but their love will be their strength: we are told that when they are visiting Abimelech, Isaac claims that Rebecca is his sister, because he is afraid of the king (the same story happened to Abraham and Sara). But Abimelech sees them through his window. The text says that Isaac was “laughing” with his wife, in Hebrew, “metsahek”, which is the intensive form of the name “Isaac”, in Hebrew (Genesis 26:7 ff.). We could read: Abimelech saw Isaac “finding himself” or accomplishing himself in Rebecca… She gives him a special feeling of being “present to himself”, and this is the mark of true love. Similarly, it is in the particular love of the Creator that the people can find itself, and build itself. The covenant is primarily “for the people”, it is a special calling, and a special choice that allows, for instance, Abraham to leave his country and family to go to the unknown.

Isaac is the one that inherits the promise, and the responsibility to transmit it to his descendants. But his wife is barren! Like it was with Abraham, the promise is at stake. But Isaac does not doubt, he does not try to find human solutions, he is praying, not for himself, but for his wife, so that she may give him a child. And his prayer is heard (25:21).

At the end of their life, we see this couple in a strange situation: Isaac decides to give his blessings to Esau without telling his wife. And upon discovering the plot, she decides to cheat her husband as well, so that Jacob would receive the blessing, and not his brother.
She does not hesitate to lie to achieve her goal. The tradition comes to rescue her reputation, saying that she had a spirit of prophesy, and knew that Jacob was to receive the blessing, not his brother. Nevertheless, she betrayed the old Isaac… but their love is strong enough to overcome even these betrayals, and it evokes the tormented story of the divine covenant, endlessly broken and repaired. This is what we read in the prophet Malachi, in the haftara that accompanies this portion: “I have loved you says the Lord”. Shabbat shalom.