Toldot: Hunting Down One Good Prayer
By Chaya Lester
In this week’s parsha we read that Isaac prayed for his barren wife Rebecca. It is notable that the term used here is “lanochach eshto”, which can be read literally as he prayed “standing before”, or “opposite” his wife. Midrash Rabbah picks up on this curious phrase and paints a picture of Isaac and Rebecca standing together, facing each other in shared prayer. It’s a poignant image of a couple working together in a striking face-to-face pose; an admirable Biblical model for partnership.
So one might ask, if this is such a partnership, why is it that it is Isaac’s prayer alone that is recorded & answered by God. Rashi explains that his prayers were heard because he was the son of a saint, whereas Rebecca is the daughter of an evil man. The poem I’m about to share attempts to take that answer one step further.
But first, let’s look briefly at a little of what we know about Isaac’s psychological makeup. Later in the parsha we read that Isaac’s eyes grew dim in his old age. The Midrash explicitly links Isaac’s blindness to his experience of being bound upon the altar beneath his father’s sacrificial blade. It records that angels witnessing the binding wept tears that dropped into Isaac’s eyes. Those very tears were taken as the cause of his blindness later in life.
Aviva Zornberg likens Isaac’s blindness to a type of psychological vertigo. She notes a remarkable phenomena where people who suffer traumatic experiences earlier in life can often, in later years, suffer from serious vision impairment. It is as if their compromised vision in old age is an expression of years of repressed emotion. Their blindness manifests a psychosomatic drive to un-see all the horrors that they had witness so long ago.
According to these findings, blindness can be an indicator of unprocessed trauma. As the text itself says, “Isaac’s eyes became dimmed from seeing.” His eyes were dimmed from the impact of all that he had seen. And so we return to the scene of Rivka and Isaac’s prayer for children with this in mind.
Yes, God hears Isaac’s prayers because he was the son of a saint; a man so saintly that he was willing to sacrifice his beloved son! We must ask ourselves what psychological impact did that near-sacrifice have on Isaac? And, most pointedly, what sort of an impact did it have on Isaac’s stance towards begetting and parenting his own children.
In keeping with their model of an honest face-to-face relationship, Rebecca in this poem urges her husband to do the laborious work of processing his past. She, in her own desire for children, begs him to confront whatever resistances he may have to generating his future generations.
It is striking that the opening & title of the parsha, “Toldot Yitzchak”, means the Generations of Isaac. Such a title could thus be seen as a testimony to his successfully stepping up to the task of continuity and child-rearing in the face of his own complex childhood.
STANDING OPPOSITE ISAAC You were brokenlike
porcelain.
Dashed against a desert.
Shattered neath a father’s
dagger. And a flinty mirror streaked
with tears
dripped
not blood
but blindness
into your grey hairs. Your pieces plastered
back together
hold me tender
a fragile tendon
– tiptoed to the next generation. You, the quiet casualty
of your father’s spiritual
ambitions. Perhaps you fear
that G-d demand
you do the same
if you were to father
your own ambitions. – Would you?
Or would you rather
pray?
Pray for me. Here –
where you were
born up
on that unforgiving rock,
beneath an angel’s eye
and ram’s horn
fortuitously caught. Would you pray a future
to fill this vacant womb? Would you pray for continuity?
Would you
– continue? And tell me, husband dear,
can you eye your own
resistance
and defy your very fears? Forgo the blindness
that has plagued you
and face your own
descendants
with a faith
that here
is holy
and life
is weighty
and no more waiting
for safety
but rather brave the gaze
of a world that is
crazy
beautiful
and full of grace.
And shun the blade
that bids you to
accuse your father
or mourn your mother
or resent your God
or blame anyone other
than yourself
for your own debilitating
fears? For the hand that
you are dealt
is but yours to
commandeer. So let’s move on
to making our own
glaring
parenting
mistakes. To risking inflicting
some untold & unending
trauma onto our children. And with a
well-intentioned will,
sacred and sincere,
let us lift our prayers
to God’s awaiting ears. With the knowledge
that beyond old traumas
and emotions on the mend
there is meaning
to the riddle
of Moriah
though our tongues
are twisted
and our eyes are dimmed. Come, husband
to this field
with me
and hunt down
one good prayer. For the fixing of your childhood
is through fathering your children.
if you dare.
Lester, Chaya. "Hunting Down One Good Prayer." Spoken Word Torah. (Viewed November 2, 2013). http://blogs.jpost.com/content/toldot-hunting-down-one-good-prayer-0
Sharing The Blessing
Isaac’s decision to bless both of his sons gives us hope for achieving a peaceful solution to the conflict between Jews and Palestinians.
By Rabbi Daniel Bronstein
Indeed, few Biblical struggles, few familial conflicts–in a book filled with stories of intra-family struggles–are as tragic as the confrontation between Jacob and Esau.
It seems that from that moment, the twin brothers clashed and competed over the family birthright and legacy. The twin grandsons of Abraham and Sarah were, from their birth onwards, locked in a constant struggle over inheriting the prophetic mantle of Abraham and Sarah, inheriting the leadership over the family, and of course, inheriting the riches of the land which God had first promised to Abraham.
As the Torah portion Toledot unfolds, we witness Jacob, the younger brother, gaining through guile what had first been granted to Esau by virtue of being born first. Together, Jacob and Rebekah successfully conspire to transfer the blessing Isaac had intended for Esau over to the younger brother. More than being mere words, Isaac’s blessing was critical because it served as the instrument for bestowing the family legacy, leadership, and ownership of the land.
Yet, in the end, we read that Isaac also rejects playing a zero sum game and grants an alternative blessing to Esau. Although the two blessings are not identical, Isaac, nonetheless, chooses to depart from the tradition of granting a single blessing to his eldest son and instead blesses both of his children.
Some of the sages are puzzled over the multiple blessings, while others attribute Isaac’s actions to a father’s compassion for a grieving child. But whatever the reasons, Isaac’s deed offers us an important lesson in the contemporary struggle for peace. Far from being a perfect analogy, there are still many elements in this story all too reminiscent of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians.
This present-day conflict is also the story of two nations at war with one another from the moment of conception. And as the tragic violence continues between the contemporary nations, we are also reminded that Jacob and Esau also fought over being blessed with the Land. Finally, we are reminded that along with Jacob and Esau, Jews and Arabs are also descendents of Abraham. Like Jacob and Esau, today’s conflict seems unsolvable, and we lament over being locked into what appears to be an eternal struggle.
However, Isaac’s blessings for Jacob and Esau leave us with a measure of hope, even now when many despair of ever achieving peace in the holy land. Isaac blesses both sons with inheritances of fruitful land. Facing different circumstances and possessing different traits, both twins nevertheless receive their father’s blessing–and with it a measure of hope for future descendants of Abraham.
One Jewish tradition teaches that possession of sufficient food and drink is of itself a profound blessing. Still, “if there is no peace,” argued our sages, “there is nothing at all, for “peace equals all else.” Today, we must also reject facile zero sum games, and find ways to share the blessings.
While we may possess sufficient sustenance, we still live without peace. Today, against expectations and against the odds, we also must struggle to share the blessings of our ancestors and to share in the blessings of the land. Now more, than ever, let us remember Isaac’s deeds, and remember that ultimately, “peace equals all else.”
Bronstein, Daniel. "Sharing the Blessing." My Jewish Learning. (Viewed November 1, 2013). http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/toldot_socialaction5761.shtml?p=0
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