birthright and self control - then to Isaac

Torah Study 12-31 Genesis 25:30-34
Sale of birthright - summary

1. Archeological findings. Mare and uzie sites excavated found stone tablets. Established that oldest got a double portion of the inheritance.
2. Ch 21 Deuteronomy says the father cannot take away the firstborns birthright.
3. Arheological find in Newzie.. Where someone sold his birthright for sheep... Records found. Shirt term gain traded for future gains.
Trade for a mess of pottage - idiom used for immediate gain for possible future loss of more gain.

James Walden Johnson. Book used the same idiom. A black man who passed for white.
Essay by Rabbi Brad Artsen...John Wayne meets Jacob. Unfair portrayal of Esau.. He is simple and not intellectual... We distrust intellectuals.
(Study in New Yorker ..Don't. The secret of self control. Temptation study... With children.30% waited... Those people were higher achievers in the future. )

Book on will power - new popular topic. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney

Jacob defers gratification to benefit later. Is this in contrast to the current way people really are?
The story is used in literature a lot. "delayed vs immediate gratification"

Literary point of view. Narrator wants us to wait to see what happens. Next chapter switches focus to Isaac.

* Chapter 26:1-5 Only chapter where Isaac is the protagonist.

Robert Alter. Isaac ... Passive character.

Women's commentary. Parallels his father but only because of his father. Distinguished by his compliance.

David Liber.. Reenacts many events of father .... Repetition of same stories...coming to better understand his father.

V1. Famine in the land. Again. Gen 12 and Gen. 20

Goes to Avimelach... Same name as the king in Abraham's time... Not same person.


V2 God appears to him (2 times in Torah) (Abraham 3 times. Isaac 2 times. Jacob 1 time. Diminishes. )
Isaac has an relationship of fear with God.

God says don't go to Egypt... Why? Egypt is not subject to the effects of famine as much.

Goes to the land of the Philistines...

God told Issac to dwell in this land...stay here. Isaac the only one who stays in the land.

Rashi - Isaac like an offering - other places not good enough for him.
Eli Munk... Land outside is not worthy of him.

V3. Reside in this land... Ger..stranger. Make yourself a ger, live as an alien. God will be with him (don't be afraid)
Ramban - Eli Munk - man is a guest of God... Righteous feel themselves as a stranger wherever they are.

Chafetz Chaim... Story of the ‘guest’ Business man goes to his home and in was sparse of furniture... Asked where furniture is... Chafetz Chaim says he is a guest (in his own home) (find this story: A Midrash and a maaseh: an anthology of insights and commentaries on weekly ... By Hanoch Teller)
Individual should feel like a visitor to the world.

George Steiner. Celebrated the wandering status of Jews. Jews are on the outside and because of this they contributed more cultural advancement. Celebrates Jews lack of rooted-ness.

We are strangers in a strange land.