What Shall I Do: The Blessing from Asiyah

25Yitzchak's first answer to Esav ends, “… what shall I do, my son?” Only when Esav said, “Is it one blessing that you have, my father? Bless me, me too …,” did Yitzchak bless him: “Behold, of the fat places of the earth ….” Why did Yitzchak wait until Esav said “Is it one blessing,” and not bless him at once, when Esav first said to him, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”¹ And a second question: at first glance, is it not strange that Yitzchak would want to bless Esav and not Yaakov?

26aIn truth, as is well known, Yitzchak wanted to bless Esav with physical blessings and Yaakov with spiritual ones; that already answers our second question. When Esav saw that Yitzchak had blessed Yaakov with the blessing fit for Esav himself, he cried out to his father, “Have you not reserved …?” He meant: Now that you have blessed Yaakov with physical blessings, which flow down from the three worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, surely the blessing from the world of Atzilus is due to me.² That is “Have you not atzalta (אצלת), reserved, for me …”: the word speaks of Atzilus (אצילות).

26bHis father answered him, “Behold, I have made him a lord … and all his brothers … and with grain and wine …” Lordship, brothers as servants, grain and wine: these three blessings match the three worlds we named, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, and with them he was hinting: these three I have given to Yaakov your brother. “And for you, then, what shall I do, my son?”: the blessing with which I will bless you is from the world of Asiyah. Notice the word e'eseh (אעשה), “shall I do”: it speaks of Asiyah (עשיה), the world of action. Then Esav his son said to him, “Is it one blessing that you have, my father?” The words plainly ask whether he has only one blessing; Esav meant them as a claim, that there is still one blessing more: Yaakov has had his blessing from Asiyah too, but even in the physical, in the world of Asiyah, you will find another blessing to bless me too. And at once Yitzchak blessed him with a physical blessing. But when Esav first asked him for a spiritual blessing, with “Have you not reserved …,” Yitzchak paid no attention to his words at all. He gave him no answer to it, acted as though he did not grasp it, and answered, “What shall I do?” That answers our first question. This is easy to understand.