When Deception Is Jewish (And When It's Not) Parashat Toldot 5777

When Deception is Jewish (And When it’s Not) Parashat Toldot 5777 Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg I was at a meeting out of the building this week and, during the “Jewish goodbye” (as a few of us were schmoozing afterward), I said, “I’ve gotta go write a sermon for Shabbos.” My interlocutor responded: “These days, don’t they just write themselves?” They sort of do. I went into this week thinking I want to focus on the parasha in my talk – and I will. Because this week we witness perhaps the greatest con in the Torah. Ya’akov hoodwinks his brother Esav not once, but twice, first by getting him to trade his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew and second when he masquerades as Esav in order to attain his father Yitzhak’s blessing. This parasha is all about honesty and deception, which leads me, once again, back to the state of our nation. A big story lately has been the preponderance of so called “fake news,” factories for which are located in the Balkans and other regions overseas, but are packaged and distributed by websites like Breitbart. I’m sure you’re aware of this so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it, but I do want to share some thoughts about an important op-ed from this week by Ned Resnikoff in ThinkProgress. Resnikoff argues the Trump campaign and now transition is part of a well-designed scheme to get more and more Americans to question the very nature of reality, to deliberately blur the lines between fact and fiction so that we are no longer able to have substantive debates about policy solutions. “In a world where nothing is true,” writes Resnikoff, “the only real choice available to voters is between competing fictions.” We know the statistics about our president-elects’ lies. Why then do so many people say they believe Trump to be honest? For one he appears to be emotionally honest, but I think it’s more than that. “Trump offered a particularly compelling set of fictions,” Resnikoff says, “but he also found various ways to telegraph that he knew what he was doing. Through irony, evasion, self-contradiction, and obviously ridiculous claims, he let his supporters in on the joke. If everything is a lie, then the man who makes his lies obvious is practicing a peculiar form of honesty.” Peter Thiel, the wealthy Trump supporter, famously put it this way: “[The media]…never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take him seriously but not literally.” Whether Trump fully grasps the Machiavellian import of his myriad offensive comments and tweets is an interesting question, but Steve Bannon does. "Darkness is good," said Bannon in an interview two weeks ago. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing.” So let’s take a look at our Sedra’s brilliant con, because we might think that Rivka and Ya’akov are guilty of a similar maneuver. What exactly happens? Yitzhak, growing blind with age, calls his upon his purported favorite son Esav. He tells him,“I have grown old; I do not know the day of my death. So, now sharpen your implements, your sword [and take] your bow, and go forth to the field, and hunt game for me. And make for me tasty foods as I like, and bring them to me, and I will eat, ba’avor t’varechecha nafshi b’terem amut, in order that I should bless you before I die” (Gen. 27:2-4). It happens to be that Rivka overhears this conversation, gets Ya’akov and, while Esav is out hunting, dresses him up in hairy garments so his skin will feel like his brother’s and sends her younger twin in to attain his father’s blessing. 1 There are many distressing parts to this story, not the least of which is Esav’s later reaction when, upon returning from his excursion, finds that he’s been duped and cries out to his father: “Havaracha achat hi l’cha, avi?! Have you but one blessing, my father? Baracheini gam ani, avi! Bless me too, father!” (v. 38). It’s a gut-wrenching scene, but the most disturbing part of the story, I think, happens earlier. It’s when Ya’akov, dressed up by his mother like a child in a Purim costume, deceives the aging and disabled Yitzhak. Vayomer Ya’akov el aviv, Jacob said to his father, anochi Esav b’chor’cha, I am Esau your firstborn” (v. 19). How could Ya’akov avinu, the patriarch with twelve sons who are to become the twelve tribes, the father of our nation for whom all Israel is named, so brazenly lie? It seems the traditional commentators are uncomfortable with that notion as well. Rashi explains that some words are missing or implied in the phrase; what Ya’akov actually says is “anochi hameivi l’cha, I am he that provides for you, v’Esav hu b’chorcha, and Esau is your firstborn.” Rabbi Shabbethai Bass, author of the Siftei Chachamim, a supercommentary on Rashi, makes Rashi’s concern explicit: “God forbid we should imagine Jacob spoke words in falsehood! Anyone who claims such a thing need only recall that Esav sold his birthright to Ya’akov [earlier in the story].” In other words, Ya’akov was, by all rights with regard to birth-order and inheritance, Esav. When Esav relinquished his first born status for a bowl of stew, he also surrendered his right to Yitzhak’s blessing. The perceived lie is really a truth. Now if you’re listen to this right now and thinking, “Eh…While I appreciate the Rabbis’ clever reframing of the narrative, this doesn’t seem to be the exact p’shat reading of the text,” I would say, you’re probably right. It does appear Ya’akov and Rikva are lying. And the Torah tells us, “midvar sheker tirchak, keep far from falsehood” (Ex. 23:7). In fact there’s a whole body of legal literature that forbids three kinds of deceptive speech – lies, slander and gossip – as well as fraud in business. So, is Ya’akov to be condemned? Are there exceptions to these rules? Yes, there are a few exceptions. Think about your own life. I’m guessing we can all think of times when we’ve lied or avoided the truth for constructive or compassionate reasons. Without going into all the details of halacha, there are a number of circumstances where our tradition suggests lying (or omission of the truth) is called for. Among them are to generate goodwill, to protect privacy, to shield society from harm and to uphold just ends. It’s tricky territory, of course, especially when societies experience the erosion of shared values and norms. But just because some would co-opt righteousness, wearing its mantle in order to wield it as a cudgel against the vulnerable doesn’t mean there is no real justice in the world. Just because some would abrogate reality so as to distract us from the urgency of hard policy choices doesn’t mean the world is without objective truth. The Torah posits a universe where there is truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, and into that universe wades the third of our patriarchs. It is against this backdrop we must judge him. Enter Malbim, the nineteenth century chief rabbi of Bucharest and later a key rabbinic leader in Poland. Malbim doesn’t call Ya’akov a liar, but he does offer a plausible explanation for why, in my estimation, Ya’akov did lie. It all has to do with the character of Esav who isn’t worthy of being the next leader of the Jewish people. He’s temperamental and impetuous. He makes rash decisions without forethought. He’s a predator who relishes the hunt. Ya’akov, on the other hand, is a shepherd, a classic Biblical indicator of patience and forbearance. 2 Perhaps we can assess the two characters’ worthiness in each of their exchanges with their father. When Ya’akov approaches Yitzhak he says “Anochi Esav bechorecha, I am Esau your first born. When Esav returns from the hunt to seek out his blessing, he says “Ani bincha v’chorcha Esav, I am your first born son, Esav.” What’s the difference? According to Malbim the key variance here is the word “I.” There are two words for the first-person singular in Hebrew. Esav says ani while Ya’akov uses the word anochi. Anochi, Malbim says, “implies essence, the very being of the one speaking.” When Ya’akov addresses his father, he is saying, in my heart of hearts, in the fabric of my being, I am ready to lead this people. The word ani, on the other hand, is an indication of who one is, but not what one is. Yitzhak, whether he knows the young man in front of him is Ya’akov or not (and that’s an interesting question), is clear in his aims: “ba’avor t’varechecha nafshi, not just that “I” may bless you before I die, but that my nefesh, my very essence, can be transmitted to the next generation. This is the nature of true blessing. The word baruch in Hebrew is related to the word barak which means lightening or Baraka in Arabic which means the same.

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