• This Week's Torah Portion

One of the more lamentable patterns in Genesis is that of siblings being pitted against each other, with the younger son repeatedly being favored over the older. First, God favors the offering of the younger Abel over that of Cain (Genesis 4:4). Then, God chooses Abraham’s younger son, Isaac, over the older Ishmael, insisting that it “is through Isaac that [Abraham’s] offspring shall be continued” (Genesis 21:12). Then comes this week’s parashah, Tol’dot, about the birth of Rebecca’s twin sons. The first, Esau, is defined by his head of red hair and the second, Jacob, by clinging to the heel (ʿeqev) of his older brother. This description frames the two as diametrical opposites, as different as head and heel. This sense of rivalry is only strengthened by the ensuing sketch of the two boys as they grow into men, with Esau portrayed as an “ish yode’a tzayid ish sadeh,” a skillful hunter, a man of the fields, and Jacob as an “ish tam yoshev ohalim,” an innocent man who sits in tents (Genesis 25:27). For generations, this verse has provided a way to vent against our oppressors, giving rise to commentaries that picture Esau as cunning and bloodthirsty and Jacob as a mild tender of his flocks (Ibn Ezra); or of Esau as a perverse idolator and Jacob as a pious denizen of houses of study (Genesis Rabbah 63:10). In the modern period, this is expressed in Hebrew poet Ḥayyim Nahman Bialik’s poem “Yaakov ve’Esav” (1896), which depicts Esau as a drunken, violent “goy” who beats his wife and Jacob as a righteous shul-goer and kindly family man. The unspeakable Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the ensuing war, and the wave of anti-Israel campus protests have given cause for many in the Jewish community to fall back on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yoḥai’s painful pronouncement that “It is a known halachah that Esau hates Jacob” (Sifrei 69:2). It is hard to deny the recent upswell of antisemitism. It is precisely in times such as this, however, that we need to be reminded of the danger of generalizing about entire peoples. Indeed, it is only by going beyond such prefabricated enmities that something beyond war can ever be achieved. As a corrective to this, I’d like to turn to “Ha’omnam?” (It is True?), this week’s shir hadash [new parashah poem of the week] by the great Hebrew poet Lea Goldberg (1911-1970). This poem was written against the backdrop of the antisemitic horrors of World War II, but nevertheless imagines a redemptive melding of the habits of Esau and Jacob:

Is it true that days will still come with forgiveness and mercy And you’ll walk in the field, walk there like an innocent wayfarer, And your barefoot feet will caress the alfalfa leaves Or grain stubble will stab you and their stabbings will be sweet. Or the rain will catch you in its trail of pounding drops On your shoulders, breast, neck, and your mind will be restored. And you’ll walk in the wet field and silence will widen within you. Like the light on the edges of a cloud. And you’ll inhale the scent of the furrows, breathing and calming, And you’ll see the sun in the golden mirror of the puddle, And things will be simple, and alive, and you’ll be allowed to touch them And be allowed, be allowed to love. You’ll walk in the field. Alone. Unscorched by the blazing Fires on paths bristling with terror and blood, And with heart upright you’ll humbly surrender, Like one of the grasses, like a fellow human being.

הַאֻמְנָם עוֹד יָבוֹאוּ יָמִים בִּסְלִיחָה וּבְחֶסֶד, וְתֵלְכִי בַּשָּׂדֶה, וְתֵלְכִי בּוֹ כַּהֵלֶךְ הַתָּם, וּמַחֲשׂוֹף כַּף־רַגְלֵךְ ילִָּטֵף בַּעֲלֵי הָאַסְפֶּסֶת, אוֹ שִׁלְפֵי־שִׁבֳּלִים יִדְקְרוּךְ וְתִמְתַּק דְּקִירָתָם. אוֹ מָטָר יַשִּׂיגֵךְ בַּעֲדַת טִפּוֹתָיו הַדּוֹפֶקֶת עַל כְּתֵפַיִךְ, חָזֵךְ, צַוָּארֵךְ, וְרֹאשֵׁךְ רַעֲנָן. וְתֵלְכִי בַּשָּׂדֶה הָרָטֹב וְיִרְחַב בָּךְ הַשֶּׁקֶט כָּאוֹר בְּשׁוּלֵי הֶעָנָן. וְנָשַׁמְתְּ אֶת רֵיחוֹ שֶׁל הַתֶּלֶם נָשֹׁם וְרָגעַֹ, וְרָאִית אֶת הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ בִּרְאִי־הַשְּׁלוּלִית הַזָּהֹב, וּפְשׁוּטִים הַדְּבָרִים וְחַיִּים, וּמֻתָּר בָּם לנִגְעַֹּ, וּמֻתָּר, וּמֻתָּר לֶאֱהֹב. אַתְּ תֵּלְכִי בַּשָּׂדֶה. לְבַדֵּךְ. לֹא נִצְרֶבֶת בְּלַהַט הַשְּׂרֵפוֹת, בַּדְּרָכִים שֶׁסָּמְרוּ מֵאֵימָה וּמִדָּם. וּבְיֹשֶר־לֵבָב שׁוּב תִּהְיִי עֲנָוָה וְנִכְנַעַת כְּאַחַד הַדְּשָׁאִים, כְּאַחַד הָאָדָם.

  “Is It True” was first published in the labor newspaper Davar in February 1943, and was later included in “Saʿar,” a book sent as inspiration to the soldiers of the Jewish Brigade who were serving in the British army in World War II. There are some who read the poem, with its feminine address, as referring to Ruzhka Korczak, a female partisan leader during World War II who helped smuggle Jews out of Goldberg’s native Lithuania. According to this reading, the poem offers a picture of a future time when Korczak and her fellow partisans will no longer need to fight antisemitic aggressors in the forests and will instead walk the open fields in peace. Others read the poem as part of a debate in the pages of the Hebrew press about the kind of poetry necessary during times of war. Goldberg’s contemporary, Natan Alterman (1910-1970), insisted that the times called chiefly for patriotic poetry. Goldberg argued that there was a place for lyrical and love poetry, even during war. I choose to read this poem, in dialogue with Parashat Tol’dot, as revising the recurrent binary at work in this portion and elsewhere in biblical and Jewish tradition. In envisioning a time beyond war, Goldberg pictures her female addressee — not a son, but a daughter — striding basadeh (in the field, the realm of Esau) like a tam (an innocent, the disposition of Jacob), combining the two brothers. If Jacob covers up with goat’s hair to pose as his hairy brother, the poem imagines a time when the addressee will stride barefoot and experience the full measure of contact with the prickly leaves underfoot. Like both Jacob and Esau, who are equally blessed with the “dew of heaven and the fat of the earth” (Genesis 27:28), or in Esau’s case, “the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven” (Genesis 27:39), this postwar woman will be reinvigorated by that very blend of blessings: heaven’s rain and the fatness of the earth. But if Jacob deceives Isaac by way of touch (the goat’s hair) and smell (the scent of Esau’s clothes) in Genesis 27:15 and 27:27, the third stanza shows the addressee inhaling the scent of the fields in a calm, non-transgressive scene. In marked contrast to the deception that occurs when Isaac touches Jacob’s hairy arms and gives Jacob the blessing (and love) meant for Esau, the female addressee is told at the end of the third stanza that she “will be permitted to touch” and “permitted to love.” The final stanzas directly describe the horrors of war — the terror and the blood — and their hoped-for end. A time will come, the poem declares, when the “you” of the poem will no longer need to stand apart, when she and her comrades can once again become undifferentiated grasses, rediscovering their shared humanity. What could be a fitting message of hope for this time of prolonged war and political polarization, and for a Torah portion named Tol’dot, which means both “generations” and “history?” Chava Alberstein’s gorgeous musical rendering of the poem brings this message home with all of its intergenerational blessings.