Unconditional Love

This week’s Torah portion is Toldot, which means generations. It tells of the birth of the twins, Esau and Jacob to their parents, Rebecca and Isaac. Jacob pursuaded Esau to sell him his birthright, the right of inheritance of the firstborn. There is also a section about Isaac’s servants re-digging the wells of his father, Abraham, and of making peace with the local chieftain; and then there is the well-known story of how Rebecca and Jacob trick Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing of the firstborn, after which Jacob has to leave home to escape his brother’s anger.

Rebecca and Isaac initially had no children. Isaac had been an older groom, she a younger bride. They yearned for children and waited so long, until their prayers were answered with the great blessing of fraternal twins. Esau was born first, a redhead with lots of hair. Jacob, with little hair, was born second. Right from the start, Jacob was a very different person from Esau. The Torah says, “The lads grew up and Esau became a man who knows trapping, a man of the field. But Jacob was a homespun man, abiding in tents. Isaac loved Esau, for game was in his mouth, but Rebecca loved Jacob.” Esau was an active person, a lover of the outdoors, hunting, and physical pursuits. Jacob was quieter: more of a mama’s boy, content to be at home, inside, someone who would rather talk than do; a feelings person who formed a strong bond with his mother. We know how destructive it is when each parent has a favorite, and I’ve spoken on this topic before. We can also look at what the Torah says about the quality of the two relationships, of parent to child and what we can learn from them.

Isaac, we are told, loved Esau because he brought him delicious food. Rashi quotes the translation of Onkelos who said, “Because he would eat of his trapping.” Perhaps Isaac also admired Esau, as the commentators have said, because he possessed the qualities that Isaac lacked: physicality, decisiveness, and energy. Or perhaps he admired Esau, the man of action, in contrast to his inaction at the akedah, when he thought he would be sacrificed. We are not told why Rebecca loved Jacob, but perhaps we can author a midrash to fill in the gaps; to explain how Jacob became Rebecca’s confidante, best friend, and constant companion. Isaac, so many years her senior, may have become remote. Perhaps she forgot her loneliness during the long afternoons of conversation with her younger son. In Pirkei Avot it says, {Mishnah V:16 [V:19 in Hirsch Translation]) “All love that depends on a [TRANSIENT] thing or physical cause will pass away when the cause is no longer there, but the love that is not dependent on a cause will never pass away. Which is the love that depends on a cause? The love of Amnon for Tamar; and which is the love that does not depend on a [TRANSIENT] cause? The love of David and Jonathan.”

As a parent, ideally, we should fill the role of God, loving each child for all of himself: applauding their strengths and supporting them to become strong, independent, happy adults. But so often, whether with children or even with our friends and other family members, our own needs can overshadow the ideal, unconditional love that we are capable of giving to each other. In the book, 20th Century Jewish Religious Thought, in the chapter on Love, Steven Harvey quotes Abravanel’s commentary on “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “Just as you love yourself not for pleasure or benefit, so should you have no ulterior motive for loving your neighbor.” This is also the main topic of Martin Buber’s famous work, I and Thou. He writes, “This…is the sublime melancholy of our lot, that every You must become an It in our world…as soon as the direct relationship has run its course or is permeated by means, the You becomes an object among objects, possibly the noblest one and yet one of them, assigned its measure and boundary…Every you in the world is doomed by its nature to become a thing or at least to enter thinghood again and again…The It is the chrysalis; the You the butterfly.”

Perhaps only God is capable of giving continual, unselfish, unconditional love. The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is a worthy goal that we will probably never reach; yet we can look at our motives clearly, seeing when our need to take is greater than our desire to give. Rabbi Gelberman has written about the necessity of loving a person the way that person wants to receive it, not the way we want to give it, thus serving the person’s needs and not our own. May we love less selfishly and more unconditionally, walking in God’s ways, emulating the great love God has for us, and giving of ourselves generously to each other. May we be more open to each other, less withholding of our love, and more universal in bestowing it, being more God-like and more human at the same time.

The God in Us

This week’s Torah portion is Chaye Sarah, which means the life of Sarah. It tells of Sarah’s death and of Abraham purchasing a cave and field in Hebron, the Cave of Machpeleh, for her burial and the burial of his family. It’s still there, a holy site, where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah are buried. Then Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer, back to his family in Mesopotamia, to find a wife for Isaac. It’s a beautiful story: Abraham does not want Isaac to marry any of the local Canaanite idol-worshippers. He needs to ensure that there will be grandchildren to inherit the land, and that his household and grandchildren remain monotheists. Eliezer envisions problems in the errand, such as: should he bring Isaac along? What if the young woman won’t come back with him? Abraham assures him that God’s angel will go with him and make the task successful. And this is just what happens – the events unfold miraculously.

Eliezer approaches a spring near Haran in the evening. As he arrives, he prays to God, “Adonai, God of my master Abraham, may you so arrange it for me this day and do kindness with my master Abraham. See, I stand here by the spring of water and the daughters of the townsmen come out to draw water. Let it be that the maiden to whom I shall say, please tip your jug so I may drink and who replies, drink, and I will even water your camels, her will you have chosen for our servant, for Isaac, and may I know through her that you have done kindness with my master.” The Torah then immediately says, “ And it was when he had not yet finished speaking that suddenly Rebecca, who had been born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife if Nachor, brother of Abraham, was coming out with her jug upon her shoulder.” A few paragraphs later, the story is retold and the servant says, “I had not yet finished speaking to my heart when Rebecca came out with her jug on her shoulder.” The Torah also says the Eliezer was “astonished.” It was not just that his prayer came true, for it all happened just as he had requested God that it would happen, but that it happened with such great speed, before he even finished saying the words inwardly to himself.

That God hears our thoughts and prayers and knows what is in our hearts, we could call the Us in God. The Creator is not other that we, but we are within the Eternal, which allows God to know us: our thoughts, feelings, and actions. But what allows us to contact the goodness and blessings of God, so that they can come to us, as they came to Abraham and Eliezer? Perhaps it concerns us being in consonance with God’s wishes. God wanted Abraham’s descendants to inherit the land. God also wanted those descendants to be monotheists, so Abraham was took steps to further these results. Eliezer wanted to do his very best for Abraham and Isaac, to serve and to help. Rebecca wanted to be kind and to give generously of herself, by carrying water to a stranger. These three people performed acts of goodness, helping to further God’s plan. Thus, they were able to contact what we might call the God in Us, that goodness and generosity, that willingness to serve and help, that allows blessings to flow in the Universe. Miracles happen when we are aligned with God’s purpose. The Eternal is leading us to greater compassion and Oneness. When we express the essence of Holiness, through words, deeds, even intentions, we draw the attention of the Us in God, which allows us to experience the God in Us, leading to everyday miracles in our lives.

Aligning ourselves with goodness and generosity is not always easy, but knowing it is possible, knowing that we are expected to walk in that direction can help us choose the right way to go. May we all open our minds to the possibility of the God in Us, so that the Us in God feels real to us and becomes a tangible presence in our lives. May we be guided by the Holy One, our Divine parent and teacher, so that we walk, as Abraham, Eliezer, and Rebecca did, easily, joyously, and without impediment, within the mind of Divinity.