Isaac called over his eldest son Esav and told him, ‘grab
your hunting gear, your sword and bow and go to the field and trap me a
hunt.’ There are many strange things
about this. We have known for quite some time that Esau was a capable hunter-
he spent his youth in the field trapping. Why did his father need to remind him
to grab his hunting gear and then spell out the weapons? But even stranger, why ask Esav to hunt at
all? Isaac is a wealthy man and has his own flock that could be eaten. We know that because that is exactly what
Yakov does. His mother told him to grab a couple of sheep from the flock in the
back yard and feed it to his father. And finally, wouldn’t Isaac taste the
difference between some domesticated goat meats as opposed to hunted venison
meat?
The
answer goes back to a bigger problem. How did Isaac miss it? Esav, the blood thirsty murderer, was right
under his nose the whole time and Isaac didn’t see that he was evil. Luckily, Rivka could see past Esav’s charades
and corrected the situation. What did
Isaac respect in Esav and why did he send him on a hunt?
A hunt denotes that one animal
has conquered another; it is an expression of might, an expression that in the
face of struggle I can come out on top.
That aspect of Esav is what Isaac appreciated so much- the ability to
overcome obstacles, to conquer adversity. Struggle allows a person to tap into a level
that he didn’t know existed inside of him. On a metaphysical level, Yakov had
to demonstrate this same quality to get the blessing from Esav. It is great to be righteous, but are you willing to struggle to stay righteous? He risked
everything to get the blessing having to bend the truth in front of his father-
he showed real grit. That is the taste
that Yitzak was looking for in the animal he was about to eat. It didn’t matter
what animal it was, only that the animal was conquered through struggle.
In the
face of the adversity we currently face, the proper response is to be
unwavering. Not in a vengeful way, but
in a way that puts more grit behind our positive actions. There is nothing else to be done because these
types of act are purposefully random to show us that it is out of our hands. What is in our
hands is to invigorate the good.
