Parashat Toldot - The Voice, the Hands, and the Heart

There are moments in the Torah that feel as if they were written to be watched like a scene on a stage. Parashat Toldot is one of them.

We are not only witnesses to the birth of Esav and Yaakov, nor merely to the passing down of blessings; the Torah invites us into that “in–between” moment —that unsettling stretch of time when Rivkah feels the turmoil inside her womb, the struggling of the children within her— and she utters a question that still echoes through the generations: “Im ken, lama zeh anochi?” “If this is so… what am I supposed to do? What becomes of me in all this?”

It is the question of someone who refuses to accept life as something predetermined, sealed, with no room left to search for meaning. Rivkah seeks counsel, challenges, refuses to resign herself. And at the same time —and here the Torah reveals its most human dimension— even as she acts according to a deep intuition about the future of her children, she ends up triggering a painful rupture between them; a fracture that ripples across generations, nations, and family histories.

It doesn’t take much to see our own times reflected in this biblical drama: tensions within the Jewish people, burning disputes, a global antisemitism disguised as absolute certainty, and fundamentalisms convinced they alone speak the ultimate truth. And many of us, in a whisper or sometimes in a weary sigh, repeat Rivkah’s ancient question: “If this is the world as it is… what are we supposed to do with it?”

But Toldot is not a portion confined to conflict. It also shows how blindness —literal or metaphorical— can cloud our ability to truly see another human being. As Yitzhak ages, the Torah describes his blindness with the words “vatikhena einav mer’ot.” It does not simply say that he lost his sight; it says his eyes “dimmed from seeing.” As if he had seen too much… or perhaps had stopped seeing what he needed to see.

The midrashim offer moving interpretations: the tears of angels falling upon his eyes at the moment of the Akedah, that near-sacrifice in which his father Abraham bound him for God; or the idea that his blindness was necessary so that Yaakov could receive the blessing, even through a hidden complicity. But whatever the cause, his blindness becomes an uncomfortable mirror: Yitzhak is unable to perceive his sons fully —their complexities, their differences, the tension already brewing around him.

And maybe that touches a very contemporary nerve. How often do we also see only a part and convince ourselves we are seeing the whole picture? How often do we, as a society, get caught in black-and-white narratives in which one is chosen and the other dismissed? The story of these twins —two children of the same womb, different and yet complementary— was used for centuries to justify polarizations, reinforcing the idea that life is a contest where one wins only if the other loses.

But the Torah never claimed they were enemies by essence. Those absolute images came later, shaped by interpretations that idealized one brother and demonized the other, as if humanity could only be divided into angels and villains.

And truth be told… that’s something we still do all the time...

Yet the most surprising moment in Toldot comes later: the brothers meet again. They look at each other. They recognize one another. They embrace. They choose to disobey a prophecy misunderstood as a fixed destiny and open the door to a different story. It is one of the boldest affirmations of the Torah: no destiny is sealed, no identity is unchangeable, no rupture is final.

A fable by Aesop casts light on this truth through a simple image:

The sun and the wind argued about who was stronger. “See that old man wrapped in a cloak?” said the wind. “I bet I can make him remove it faster than you.”

The sun slipped behind a cloud while the wind began to blow, each gust stronger than the last, almost a storm. But the harder it blew, the tighter the man wrapped himself in his cloak.

At last the wind gave up, defeated. Then the sun emerged and smiled warmly upon the man. It didn’t take long before he, overheated by the gentle warmth, took off his cloak. And thus the sun showed the wind that gentleness —the warmth of an embrace— can be more powerful than fury and force.

Strength can impose, but warmth can transform.

This is a paradox our Jewish tradition knows well: Hakol kol Yaakov veha-yadayim yedei Esav —the voice of Yaakov and the hands of Esav. This was the thought that the Torah tells us Yitzhak had when Yaakov presented himself, deceitfully taking the place of his brother Esav.

The Torah acknowledges that force has its place —sometimes necessary, sometimes unavoidable— but teaches that the deepest identity of the Jewish people is rooted in the voice: in words, in teaching, in dialogue, in the ability to draw light out of situations that could have remained in shadow. And perhaps, like those brothers who eventually learn to live close in heart and affection, complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we too must sometimes pair strength with the power of the word.

Today Israel is strong —it must be strong— and it has hands capable of defending themselves. But those hands do not define who we are. They are tools we use to protect what we truly inherited: the voice. The word. Ethics. The responsibility to choose new paths even when our hands —and our voice— tremble.

Toldot invites us to examine our own daily blindness: the places where we fail to see another person, where we label before listening, where we convince ourselves that the story has already been written and that we have no room left to shape it. It invites us back symbolically into Rivkah’s womb, to an origin where two different beings could coexist without erasing each other, without competing, without needing to be one against the other.

And it invites us to become parents, teachers, community members capable of sustaining difference without turning it into a battlefield.

Because if the final reunion of Yaakov and Esav teaches anything —that tearful, emotional embrace— it is that reconciliation is possible; that even identities forged in tension can look one another in the eye again; that there are embraces capable of undoing centuries of hardened interpretations.

This may well be the most urgent message for our time: to stop playing the game of angels and demons, to recover trust in the gaze, to hear both our own voice and another’s, and to remember that gentleness —yes, gentleness— can sometimes wield more power than any clash of forces.

May this Shabbat gift us the courage to question like Rivkah, the clarity to avoid Yitzhak’s blindness, and the humanity to embrace as Yaakov and Esav once did.

And may we bring a measure of light —that warm, steady light of Aesop’s sun— to dwell in uncertainty without fear, with responsibility, with humility, and with hope.

Shabbat Shalom u-mevorach.

Rabbi Gustavo Geier