Monday, May 7, 2012

The Switcharoo and It's Aftermath

We all know the story of Yaakov dressing up as his brother (as his mother told him to) and 'stealing' the bracha from Yitzchak. When Esav comes to get his bracha, he finds out that it's already been given to Yaakov. In פסוק לג it says, "וַיֶּחֱרַד יִצְחָק חֲרָדָה, גְּדֹלָה עַד-מְאֹד." (in big, bold letters; just like Mrs. Perl said!). Obviously when reading this and understanding it on a פשט level we think of how angry Yitzchak must be that his son has deceived him, and that he has given the bracha to the wrong person. However, we learned pretty much the complete opposite. Yitzchak thought that Esav deserved the bracha because he could carry out the leadership role that needed to be filled. He thought that Esav's personality (his physicality and manipulation) would allow him to do this job with much success. However now, by being deceived by his son, he was seeing a whole new side to Yaakov - almost like it was a completely different person - that would be capable of filling the leadership role. It was almost as if he had an epiphany that Yaakov would be able to do his job, and that maybe giving him the bracha wasn't such a mistake after all. This is why he ends off by saying that the Bracha will stand, because he sees a potential in Yaakov he didn't see before. Now Yitzchak's put in a tough position because he couldn't give Esav a bracha that would make him the religious leader (like Yitzchak was) because that doesn't match with his personality. So he has to shift the bracha a bit. He also give him agricultural success, but he says that they'll have a seesaw relation, when Esav is up Yaakov will be down, and vice versa. Contrary to his original thought (that they would both be nivchar), Yitzchak is now realizing that one of them will be nivchar and one will be nidche. When Yitzchak knows that Yaakov is Yaakov, he grants him a bracha that Hashem will give him the bracha of being nivchar. 

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