A we read in partners about the Perushim on the story of Yaakov and Esav, it said that while the babies were in the stomach, one kept kicking when they were near an unholy place( Esav) and one kept kicking when they were near a synagogue. We also learned about Esav being a hunter, where the perush then says that he was a very deceitful, tricky and harsh person) while Yaakov was a tentdweller, where the perush said that he was learning Torah all day being holy and good.
Mrs Perl then told us in class that these explanations are simply Perushim trying to give us insight, but might not be correct.
This made me think about the idea of perushim. I think that sometimes they can be perceived as negative since they paint for you a picture that you can never forget and you end up seeing the people in the Torah as the Perushim explained them. For example, all my life, while i was thinking of Esav, I saw him as this evil man, while Yaakov seemed to me like the person son, learning Torah and being good.
Yaakov also did tricky things, like taking advantage of Esav when he was hungry, or posing as Esav in order to get a Bracha, but since he was the Nivchar he was not judged as harshly in my opinion.
I think it is sometimes hard to decipher the Torah, but the persushim in my opinion could be very misleading.
Sharon I totally agree with you. I think that the midrashim are supposed to be more geared towards children; they are kind of like fables or fairytales-they're not meant to be taken literally. However, this can be very confusing when we grow up and we have this picture painted in our heads of the way people in the Torah are, and it is hard to try to realize that everything is not so black and white (like how we may think Esev is a villain and Yaakov was the good guy, always studying-there's so much more to it than that.) I think perhaps the midrashim are meant to help out younger children, but at a certain age some midrashim seem a little ridiculous to us.
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