Toledot
Genesis 25:19-28:9
Malachi 1:1-2:7
Every day I talk with people about what it takes to live in a healthy and spiritually grounded way in the midst of these unsettling times. What does it take to feel safe, to feel rooted, to have a way to orient ourselves now that our sense of safety has been shattered, now that life is clearly so much less certain than we had come to believe? As always, the weekly Torah portion brings us guidance.
After describing the birth of the twins, Isaac and Esau, the Torah describes something about the nature of these two boys. “When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man, an “ish tam,” one “who dwelt in tents” (Genesis 25:27).
The Hebrew description of Jacob is ambiguous. The phrase “ish tam” may mean that he was mild-mannered and quiet, that he was a simple person, or that he was a person of wholeness, even spiritual perfection. Listen to what the description of Jacob’s temimut — his wholeness or perfection — evokes for one Chassidic commentator.
“The matter of the ‘garbing’ of the Torah is well-known. The power of the Creator is to be found in all things; through all things one should seek to be drawn near to God, no matter how earthly or corporeal the thing might appear…This was the way of Jacob; Esau, however, sought out luxury itself…This is ‘Jacob was a perfect man,’ a whole person, because he ‘dwelt in tents,’ because of the garbing and the hiding: Hidden within every thing he saw the clear light, and was able to raise it up and join it to its source. In this sense he lacked for nothing, for he made everything into the service of God. Surely there can be no greater wholeness than that of restoring everything to its root…” (Menachem Nahum of Chernobyl, “The Light of the Eyes,” translated by Arthur Green).
For this early Chassidic master, the secret of Jacob’s character lies in the description “he dwelt in tents.” This is taken to mean not only that he preferred to stay at home and attend to domestic tasks (while Esau was drawn to the challenges of the field), but that he understood something about “the tent,” about the garbing or dressing of Truth in the midst of life.
A core teaching of the Chassidic masters was that everything in life contains far more than what is visible to the eye. Beneath the level of superficial appearance lies the truth that God is present in all things. As the same author puts it elsewhere in his writings, “God is the fullness of the world; there is no place empty of the divine. There is nothing besides God and everything that exists comes from God. And, for this reason, the power of the Creator resides within each created thing” (Menachem Nahum, quoted in Lawrence Kushner’s “The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition”). As Kushner summarizes, “It’s not that God can be found everywhere, but that everywhere (and everyone) is a manifestation of the Divine.”
For Menachem Nahum, the description of Jacob as “a man who dwelt in tents” suggests that when Jacob sees a canvas wall of a tent, he recognizes that the wall conceals the reality behind it. That is to say, everything that we see has something behind it — and that something is the Divine Presence. Recognizing the Presence in all things, in all people, in every moment of life, is the key to Jacob’s being an ish tam, a whole or perfect being, always living in awareness of the reality that pervades and connects all things.
With this clear perception, Jacob can serve life in every moment of his days, and every moment is suffused with meaning. He is blessed with the knowledge that God is present even in the darkest times, hidden behind many layers of concealment. Knowing this, he can devote all of his actions to the service of the Holy. As Menachem Nahum puts it so beautifully, “Surely there can be no greater wholeness than that of restoring everything to its root.”
This is such a rich teaching for us in these times. What we see may move us to distrust, fear, even despair. But we are invited to look beneath the surface, look beyond the presence of danger and hatred and uncertainty. Hidden deep within the darkness of these days, in a place deeper than we can see, lies the Eternal, ever-reliable Presence of the Divine. Knowing this, we can be much more whole, much more at peace, content to know that, appearances to the contrary, the world is well cared for.
May the example of Jacob our forefather help us to find our own way to wholeness and peace.