Blessed with Judgment, Blessed as Esav

1My father and teacher, R' Yechiel of Alexander, zt"l, said in the name of the holy Rebbe, R' Yitzchak of Vurka¹, zt"l, on the famous question: why did the blessings come about this way, with Yitzchak blessing Yaakov Avinu in the guise of Esav and not as Yaakov? The Rebbe answered that all the blessings, and indeed “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children,” were meant to hold until the end of all generations. Had Yitzchak blessed Yaakov as Yaakov, the blessings would be ours only when we stand on Yaakov's level. So Hashem, Who wants the good of His children and is abundant in kindness, arranged that Yaakov be blessed as Esav. And there is no Jew lower than Esav. These are his holy words.

2aWhen my father was with my teacher, the holy Rebbe of Radzymin, and told him this, the Rebbe raised a difficulty. Rashi explains, and the Zohar on our parshah says the same, that “May God give you” (Bereishis 27:28) means with strict judgment: “if it is fitting for you,” and so on; see there. My father, zt"l, answered that Yitzchak Avinu did indeed bless that way at first. But afterwards, when Esav came to receive the blessings, the Torah says, “Yitzchak trembled a very great trembling” (Bereishis 27:33). Onkelos translates, “he was greatly astonished.” He was astonished, as if to say: “What is this? Why did Hashem hide His intention from me?” He went on, “Who, then, is he that hunted game?” As the Zohar explains, the delicacies and the wine were needed to draw down joy from the supernal place. So Yitzchak meant: “He” truly was the one who hunted the game, and he had in mind all the proper intentions. A further proof: “and I ate of all,” meaning I tasted every flavor in it, as Rashi and the Midrash explain.

2bAnd a further proof: “before you came.” Rashi explains (on Bereishis 2:5) that every terem in Scripture means “not yet.” So here too: since Yitzchak saw Gehinnom open beneath Esav, he told him, “Even now you have not yet come,” for this is not the way to come and receive the blessings. And yet another proof: “and I blessed him.” As R' Chanina ben Dosa said, “If my prayer flows fluently from my mouth, I know that it is accepted” (Berachos 34b). So too here, “I blessed him”: the blessings flowed from my mouth and rose all the way up to the supernal place. “If so, why did Hashem close this off from me, and not tell me plainly that I should bless Yaakov, only in concealment, in the guise of Esav?” All these words were still spoken in astonishment, as Onkelos translates. But then Yitzchak Avinu understood from this that it truly was Hashem's will that he bless Yaakov in the guise of Esav. That way the adversary, the Satan, would have no room later to argue that Yaakov's children are not worthy of the blessings. And when he understood this through his ruach hakodesh, he declared aloud, accepting Hashem's will, that in this way too “he shall indeed be blessed.”

3aTo explain my father's answer further, and to uphold the words of the tzaddik, “the foundation of the world” (Mishlei 10:25), the Elder of Vurka, we can look closely at Rashi's wording. He says: “If it is fitting for you, He will give to you, and if it is not fitting for you, He will not give to you. But to Esav... whether righteous or wicked, He will give to you. And from him Shlomo HaMelech learned the wording of his prayer...” (see Rashi on Bereishis 27:28 in his holy wording). At first glance the phrase “if it is fitting for you” is hard to understand. If it means whether Israel is worthy of the blessings, he should have said, “if you are fitting for the blessing,” as Rashi says elsewhere (on Bereishis 48:8), “Who are these, who are not worthy of a blessing?” So we can explain that Yitzchak Avinu had the Vurker's intention in mind from the very start of the blessing.

3bThere is such a thing as “wealth kept by its owner to his harm” (Koheles 5:12), may Hashem save us. And there are sufferings that are for a person's good, because they shield and save him from other great and heavy sufferings that were due to come upon him. In truth, from the side of chessed, “the way of the Good is to do good,” Hashem's will is always to give Israel only good and salvation. As is known, chessed is an expansion without limit, and it pays no attention to the harm that may grow out of the very good it brings. Only when it is blended with the attribute of judgment, gevurah, which is contraction and limitation, the “gevurah within chessed,” is the kindness held back from coming now, so that He may “do you good in the end” (Devarim 8:16), and the like. And this is given only to Israel. For Israel are “believers, children of believers” (Shabbos 97a). They do not question Hashem's judgment, and they know that “whatever Hashem does, He does for the good” (Berachos 60b), for even judgment has mercy as its ultimate purpose. Through this faith they also sweeten the force of judgment. So the harm destined to come in the end is cancelled, and afterwards they merit complete good.

3cBut a member of the nations, whoever he may be, questions Hashem's ways and does not believe that this is for his ultimate good. “What is his strength, that he should hope?” (Iyov 6:11), since he is rooted in evil. This is what Yitzchak Avinu intended in his blessings. “God,” that is, with judgment, means “if it is fitting for you.” Through the attribute of judgment He will bring about a limitation, and Heaven will look into whether the blessing is fitting for you: whether it is truly good for you to receive it now and will not bring you harm afterwards, Heaven forbid, becoming “wealth kept by its owner to his harm.” If it would, it is not fitting for you. And surely you will not question Hashem, and no desecration of Hashem's Name will come of it, Heaven forbid. So the blessing will reach you afterwards.

3dNot so with Esav, to whom he said, “Of the fat places of the earth shall be your dwelling” (Bereishis 27:39). Heaven will not look into whether it is for your good or your harm, because you would surely question His ways, and that would bring about a desecration of Hashem's Name, Heaven forbid, whether you are righteous or wicked. For it is ingrained in the nature of idolaters, even the best and most righteous of them, not to believe but to question His ways. And from him Shlomo learned the wording of his prayer, as Rashi explains: grant the foreigner his request at once (Melachim I 8:43), for he will not believe, and he will come to question You. But even the worst of the worst Jews, even one like Esav, has faith rooted in his nature from the Avos. They are believers, children of believers, and do not question, Heaven forbid. Not so the nations: even the upright among them are by nature far from faith.

4This was Yitzchak Avinu's intention from the very start of the blessing. Afterwards, when Esav came and complained about the blessings, Yitzchak was afraid of arousing the power of Esav's heavenly prince, who knows how to accuse against the blessings. After all, from the start they were given only “with judgment,” on the condition that Israel be worthy of them. Indeed, for this reason the Zohar (Vayishlach) says that in prayer a person must spell out his requests clearly. So Yitzchak blessed him explicitly a second time and said, “he shall indeed be blessed.” He meant: “This is my intention. However he may be, he shall be blessed. All I meant by ‘if it is fitting’ was whether the blessings are for his good,” as explained above.

5I have now found Rashi's wording here in the Midrash Tanchuma (Terumah, folio 141b), explained exactly as we said: “If he asks for children and You know that they will anger You, do not give him. And likewise if he asks for possessions and You know that he will kick with them, do not give him.” See there. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)

6According to what we said above, we have explained the verse, “He fulfills the will of those who fear Him, He hears their cry and saves them” (Tehillim 145:19). It is a mitzvah to pray for every sick person, and against every trouble, that it not come, Heaven forbid. True, we do not know the ultimate purpose of things. “How very deep are Your thoughts; a brutish man does not know” (Tehillim 92:6–7). These sufferings may well be for his good, an apparent evil that is really good. Even so, we are obligated to pray. “Why do you involve yourself in the hidden ways of the Merciful One? Do what you are commanded” (Berachos 10a). And Hashem fulfills the will of those who fear Him. Afterwards, if, Heaven forbid, the suffering and trouble come for whose sake Hashem had sent him the earlier sufferings, then “He hears their cry and saves them.” They pray again, and Hashem saves them from the second trouble as well, for He is abundant in kindness. The first time they need only “will,” for at first it is only soft judgment, mixed with kindness. Afterwards it is harsh judgment, so the second time they need prayer, a “cry,” and salvation: “and He saves them.”

7In line with what we said above, we can explain the Midrash Tanchuma on our parshah: “‘These are the generations of Yitzchak’ (Bereishis 25:19). ‘No weapon formed against you shall succeed’ (Yeshayahu 54:17). You find Israel saying before the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Master of the worlds, see how the nations enslave us! They have no other occupation but to sit and plot against us, as it says, “Look at their sitting and their rising; I am their song” (Eichah 3:63).’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: ‘What do they accomplish? They issue decrees against you, and I annul them and break them, as it says, “I am their song.”’” See the whole passage in the Midrash Tanchuma. All who read the Midrash wonder what connection it has to the verse it began with, “These are the generations of Yitzchak.”

8According to what we said above, the Midrash means to explain “These are the generations of Yitzchak son of Avraham” as follows. It may look as though gevurah, severity, which is Yitzchak's trait, grew out of Avraham, whose trait is chessed. In truth it is not so. Rather, “Avraham begot Yitzchak”: this gevurah too is kindness. All the decrees and troubles have good and kindness as their ultimate purpose: to refine quickly the holy sparks that fell in the shattering of the vessels and were swallowed among the forces of impurity, sparks that cannot be raised except through suffering. (See the holy Ohr HaChaim at the end of this parshah.) After that we will merit the eternal redemption. This is what the Midrash Tanchuma means. The nations' intention in their decrees is to lead us astray and destroy us. But “their thoughts are not My thoughts” (Yeshayahu 55:8). On the contrary, “the more they afflicted him, the more he multiplied and spread” (Shemos 1:12), for this was for the sake of the redemption and to raise the sparks, as the holy books explain. And so it is with all the exiles listed there in the Midrash: everything came from the merciful Father, for our good.

9This is what Rashi meant when he explained that the “generations of Yitzchak” are “Yaakov and Esav, who are mentioned in the parshah.” All love and good are the aspect of Yaakov, the World to Come. All hatred and trouble are the aspect of Esav. In every one of these, a person must know that judgment is for the sake of kindness and is contained within kindness, so that he never comes to kick and rebel, Heaven forbid.