D'var Torah

Most of us know from experience that parenting is a difficult and complicated job.  If we haven't been parents ourselves, we have all been children and know the problems we caused for our own parents, even the best intentioned and well-behaved among us.  This week's parashah, Tol'dot, is a story of intrigue and deception that exposes the trials and tribulations of parenthood, and ultimately the rewards as well.

We learn that Jacob and Esau struggled with one another from the womb and throughout their lives.  Isaac favored Esau because he was a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors.  Rebekah favored Jacob, a mild man who stayed in camp.  They are distinct personalities, although early in the narrative there does not seem to be an objective reason for a preference of one over the other.  However, our tradition clearly values Jacob over Esau, not only for their later actions, but for their natures from the womb.  Esau fulfills the promise of his nature by spurning his birthright, marrying the wrong women against his parents' wishes (3 times), and threatening his brother.  But how about the contemplative Jacob, who takes advantage of his brother at a time of need and conspires in one of the great tricks and disguises of all time?  Where is the value in that?

There is a lesson here for parents.  It is no surprise that children from the same family, even twins, can be quite different.  Esau is an experiential learner, he needs to go out and do things to grasp their meaning, and he is quite impulsive.  Jacob is more of a scholar, a conceptual thinker who is able to problem-solve and develop a plan, and who is able to work methodically to accomplish his goals.  Jacob is deliberate, patient, and able to take and follow directions (including his mother's plan of deception).  Esau is all about immediate gratification and acting on emotion.

Does one child deserve to be treated differently than the other?  Absolutely, but also with fairness.  Fairness means giving our children what they each individually need, not in treating them identically.  This is true whether they are your own children, your students, or your clients.  Hopefully, if we act and react to our children with a sense of them as individuals, they will all grow to become more like Jacob, not the trickster, but the head of a great nation and himself, a loving spouse and parent.

Shabbat Shalom.