When Competing Worldviews Collide: Rebecca's Response (Toledot 5777)

The 2016 presidential election reflects the collision of two competing worldviews. It is an awe-inspiring conflict leaving some angry and confused about what it means for them and their values. Others are elated and confident about what it means for them and their values. And others are not sure what to think or feel. The aftermath of the election is prompting existential questions for many of us about what we value and how we stand up to others whose values differ from our own. 

This week's Torah portion begins with similar existential questions. It also offers insight and raises questions about how one might respond to this type of collision.
 
Torah this week finds Rebecca uncomfortably pregnant with twins: "But the children almost crushed one another inside her." The contending between them in her womb is so great she brings an existential question to God, "If this [conflict goes on], why do I exist!?!" She receives the answer, "Two nations are in your body, two [contending] tribes from your belly shall be divided; tribe shall be mightier than tribe." (Genesis 25:21-23, translation by Everett Fox.) 

In other words, Rebecca is asking, "What am I? What am I to do?" 

You might be asking similar questions if you supported Trump and feel ostracized by friends. Of if you supported Clinton and feel threatened by Trump's commitments or campaign. Or how to combat the hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism seemingly catalyzed by Trump or his retinue.   

In the Torah narrative, the birth of Jacob and Esau sets up an abstract conflict between competing worldviews and a concrete conflict over birthrights and blessings. As to the concrete conflict, Esau was the firstborn twin ahead of Jacob, meaning that Esau would receive both the primary birthright and the paternal blessing. 

But Rebecca could not abide this. According to most traditional commentators she was moved by her understanding that Jacob, not Esau, would cherish the birthright and blessing in fidelity to the destiny of the Jewish people.* She believed Esau would squander both. In the face of this conflict between her sons, Rebecca is neither neutral not passive. 

She gets involved, really involved. She passionately and actively works to ensure that Jacob overturns Esau. If the story ended at that moment, one could read Rebecca's behavior as a powerful call to action. 

Along with the call to action, comes a caution. Because the Torah narrative is complicated on the issue of Rebecca's success. On the one hand, Jacob receives his father's blessing. On the other hand, Jacob has to run away from Esau for 22 years because his deception so angered Esau. Rebecca's deception conspiracy with Jacob rebounds on him when he suffers karmic doses of deception from his father-in-law (who switches Leah and Rachel in marriage) and his own children (who lie to Jacob about Joseph being killed by a wild animal). Ultimately, the blessing endures through Jacob. But it is a complicated patchwork of advances and setbacks, much like life itself. 

I hear both a call to action and a caution embedded in the existential questions of "Who am I? What am I to do?" Who am I -- that is, if I do not stand up for my values. But what am I -- that is, if I abandon or compromise my values in the very pursuit of them. Each of us is responsible for answering these questions individually. 

Our parents, teachers, and mentors can encourage us, but ultimately we have to decide how to think and how to act for ourselves. The ultimate meaning of our lives is reflected both in the actions we take and the values we enact. May we have the strength of Rebecca passionately to pursue our values and the wisdom to enact them with care. 

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* For a different perspective on whether Rebecca and Jacob acted appropriately, see Rabbi Jonathan Sack's essay, "Was Jacob Right to Take Esau's Blessing": "What we have here, and there are other examples in Genesis, is a story we understand one way the first time we hear it, and a different way once we have discovered and reflected on all that happened later. It is only after we have read about the fate of Jacob in Laban’s house, the tension between Leah and Rachel, and the animosity between Joseph and his brothers that we can go back and read Genesis 27, the chapter of the blessing, in a new light and with greater depth."