Halloween, Broken Yolks & Toldot
I’m a real party pooper; I pretty much hate Halloween. I really do. I was never good at it, and I’m so glad I’m beyond the age of having to figure out a costume for myself or my children, or how to control the amount of candy they eat—or not. Maybe I’m just not the kind of person who likes to pretend to be someone I’m not.
I do like seeing what other people do for costumes, but in New York City it also becomes an excuse for violence, so I dread it. People wear ghoulish costumes and cover their faces to instill fear and dread in strangers—like we don’t have enough of that already.
Halloween happened in Torah this week, too. And our story reflects the same structures of society set up to keep us in the grip of fear of losing what we have and pulling the wool over our eyes, thus maintaining the status quo.
And we see it in the political struggle of the Climate Summit in Glasgow while the climate emergency instills fear in all of us. Our survival depends on the outcome.
Also in both the Summit and Torah are the many hopes and disappointments, promises made and broken.
In Torah, Rebecca has twins, Esau and Jacob. While pregnant, she called out to God in her suffering: “If this is so, then why do I exist?” Pain and fear grip her as “two warring nations” grow within her.
And when the boys grow up, so different, so opposite, one connected to the earth and one connected to the home, one favored by his father, the other by his mother, they are pitted against each other, first for the birthright, and then for their father’s blessing.
Esau gives up his birthright in a moment of fear when he comes home famished from the hunt. Jacob must be afraid of being left behind, because he manipulates Esau in his moment of weakness.
When Isaac is on his deathbed, Rebecca devises a plan to have her favorite, Jacob, receive the blessing of the first born. Jacob goes along with it. When Esau discovers this and confronts his father in confusion, Isaac says he has given away the blessing already—it’s too late.
Esau is devastated and heartbroken. He wails, “Have you no blessing left for me, Father?”
“Okay,” says Isaac after much pleading, “your blessing is that you must be live with a yolk around your neck, serving your brother until you die.” (Some blessing!)
A broken promise leads to a broken heart.
Society of biblical times is set up in such a way that Rebecca, the female with so little power, must figure out how to take that power in devious ways, always working behind the scenes, pretending to be someone different to different family members—a little of Halloween.
The powerful male of the household must have the wool pulled over his eyes, almost literally, in order for the accepted societal order to be turned on its head. And birthrights are a real thing that children must compete for what feels like their survival.
And Isaac, though legally blind, could have “seen” if he’d wanted to, that his son Jacob was dressed up in kid skins and Esau’s clothes; he had his other senses intact and his common sense, yet he chose to ignore them. Isaac, also, must have been afraid in and feeling vulnerable.
Like Esau and Jacob, human beings are all different and sometimes opposite to each other, and we war with each other; we play favorites and hurt those we love; we can be devious and pull the wool over each other’s eyes; we refuse to see, even when our common sense tells us otherwise.
But the survival of human life on earth depends on breaking the existing social and economic structures of power. It depends on breaking the yolks that keep us serving what no longer works.
Also, Isaac was wrong; there is no limit to the number of blessings available to us and the world.
So, may we be blessed with clarity, full awakening and the breaking of yolks that will dismantle the structures that prevent us from bringing healing to our dear Earth and to each other.
Because loving home and loving the Earth are not opposites; they are one.
And let us say Amen.
