*This week we are privileged to be celebrating the Barmitzvah of our eldest child, Gavriel. His speech, which he delivered a couple of days ago, analysed the drastic deterioration of the relationship between Israel and Edom, and how the Torah’s depiction of Edom evolved through Jewish history. **The post below is based upon his speech.*
The animosity and rivalry between Yaakov and Eisav can be traced back to the opening passages of this week’s parashah, which describes Eisav returning starving from the field. Yaakov is cooking lentil soup. Eisav demands to be fed “from this red stuff” and is even willing to forgo his birth-right for the privilege. Therefore – the Torah informs us – he was called Edom.
A running theme in the book of Bereishit is that, when someone is assigned a name, this is not just a matter of convenience so that people know how to refer to a person. The Torah uses names in order to pinpoint and highlight a person’s core essence – what the Torah considers to be their spiritual identity or mission. So in what way does Edom (“red”) represent Eisav’s core identity? And in what way is that related to the soup episode?
A few years back I was warming myself up on a cold November afternoon with a bowl of lentil soup when a question struck me. The soup that I was eating – and indeed all lentil soup that I’ve had before and after – was a deep yellow colour. So why did Eisav, in his highly significant description of lentil soup, claim that it was red?!
I consulted with a friend of mine who works as a chef, and learned that, while lentil soup is indeed yellow, raw lentils are of a much more reddish hue. It occurred to me that this may provide the key to understanding what the Torah is telling us here about Eisav. He came in from the field and just had to eat straight away. He could not contain his instinctive urges; rather, - he refused to delay his instant gratification even for the sake of greater physical pleasure of consuming fully-cooked soup. Such a person certainly would find neither relevance nor meaning in the more elevated spiritual benefits conferred by being firstborn.
The Torah seizes on Eisav's grab for the uncooked red lentils – his uncontrolled "living for the moment" –as a statement of who he had become and what he represented. It was this trait that Rivkah recognised; she wanted to prevent from playing a pivotal role in the family of the Avot the building blocks of the Jewish people. This explains why she went to such lengths to prevent Eisav from receiving the blessing and legacy of Avraham.
While Eisav-Edom was not worthy to receive the blessings in this week’s parashah and was removed from the Jewish nation, Edom was not condemned as being evil in the same way as the Torah’s ultimate villains -- Amalek and the seven Canaanite nations. The Torah commanded that Amalek and the Canaanite nations be annihilated – but what do we read of Edom? The Jewish people were not permitted to attack them or even pass through their territory without permission. At this stage Edom is addressed as Israel’s “brother” (Bemidbar 20:14), being granted Har Seir as an inheritance (Devarim 2:5). There is even a specific commandment not to hate an Edomite “for he is your brother” (Devarim 23:7).
So Edom is no longer part of the Chosen People, but, as an Abrahamic cousin he still appears to bear a special protected status. As biblical history progresses the Jewish view on Edom shifts sharply. Edom has not just lost its place in the Chosen Nation by rejecting its spiritual birth-right by choosing instant gratification over deeper religious values. It has now come to oppose and attack Israel, employing extreme violence and displaying, pride and deceit.
So as a result of Edom’s pride and violence, he goes into permanent exile from his rocky fortress of Bozrah – in present day Jordan. During the Second Temple period, instead of inhabiting the Land of Edom, they now live in “Edomite cities” within Israel, – around present day Chevron. No-one is entirely sure what to make of them.
In one political-religious drama, the two sides of which are still debated in modern-day Israel, the now-secular Hasmonean government attempted to mass-convert whole cities of Edomites to Judaism in order to integrate them into the country and Jewish society. The government claimed that it was untenable to have whole cities of residents living within the Jewish state who were not Jewish and would remain separate from the majority.
The sages and religious leaders of the era fiercely opposed the legitimacy and desirability of this move. First, it is not clear that the Edomites genuinely wanted to convert, which would impact the validity of their mass -conversion. Secondly, the Torah teaches that Edomite converts can only enter the Jewish people in the third generation. This all led to an unclear status for those who emerged from such cities – such as the infamous King Herod. This in turn led to a great deal of confusion. According to one historical source:
**When John Hyrcanus conquered the region of Edom, he required all Edomim to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Edomim converted to Judaism, which meant that they had to be circumcised, and many intermarried with the Jews and adopted their customs. While Herod publicly identified himself as a Jew and was considered as such by some, this religious identification was undermined by the decadent lifestyle of the Herodians, which would have earned them the antipathy of observant Jews*.***All the worldly pomp and splendour which made Herod popular among the pagans, however, made him hated by the Jews, who could not forgive him for insulting their religious feelings by forcing upon them idolatrous games and combats with wild animals*. *(Encyclopaedia Judaica).
Herod meanwhile harboured a strong hatred of the Sages for rejecting and questioning the authenticity of his Jewishness. The Gemara describes how he slaughtered many sages and sent most of the rest into hiding.
A century later, the Tannaim identified Edom with the Romans, an apparently violent offshoot of Edom (see Rashi at the end of parashat Vayishlach. ). The Edomite Romans (represented by the pig) are now taken by Chazal to represent deceit and false piety).
A Midrash teaches:
*“*Why are the Romans – Edom - compared to a pig? For this reason: when the pig is lying down it puts out its hoofs, as if to say, "I am clean," so does this wicked State rob and oppress, yet pretend to be performing justice*..."* (Midrash Rabbah, – Bereishit 65:1)
Herod, like the fellow Edomites with whom he is allied, matches the midrashic porcine depiction. He builds beautiful structures all over Israel; the ruins of many are still visitable today. The Tannaim are openly amazed by his reconstruction of the Beit Hamikdash, saying “whoever did not see Herod’s Temple did not see a beautiful building in their life”. Yet, like the pig’s trotters, Herod’s building was also seen to represent a beautiful and impressive exterior which attempted to furnish him with a legacy which would mask his cruel and blood-stained leadership. Herod insisted on placing a semi-idolatrous Roman icon within the Temple precincts. Young Torah scholars who attempted to prevent this were captured and burned alive.
By this stage, the sages viewed Edom and Israel as irreconcilable foes, teaching as a matter of tradition that “*Eisav soneh et Yaakov*” ([“Eisav has a deeply rooted hatred for Yaakov”]). This masking of hatred and violence in high culture and the arts has continued to haunt the Jewish people – perhaps most painfully in the desolation of European Jewry at the hands of the highly-cultured “master race” of Nazi Germany. It can be argued that such Edomite hatred can be seen to continue to this very day, with universities and places of higher culture leading the way in the delegitimization of Israel’s actions – and sometimes of the very legitimacy of the Jewish return from exile to build a presence in their homeland.
First posted to Facebook 4 November 2021, here.
