HAVING A CHILD…. OR TWO…

Parashat Toledot tells us that our second patriarch, Isaac, prayed for his wife Ribka, who was barren, to conceive. God answers Isaac’s prayers, and Ribka conceives. She prophetically learns that she is pregnant with twins and that her children will become founders of two nations: “One will prevail over the other, and the older will serve the younger.” When she gives birth, the first baby to emerge is covered in hair. They called him Esau. The second is born clinging to his brother’s heel (‘eqeb), which is why they call him Ya’aqob.

LIVE THE DIFFERENCE!

The children become adults, and their lives follow different paths: Esav becomes a hunter, and Jacob “dwells in the tent,” spending more time in his house than in the field. The personalities of these twins were very different. These differences between Jacob and Esau remind us of an essential point in parenting: sometimes children have the same father, the same mother, the same genetic background, the same education, and yet they can have a completely different character – or sometimes opposite – one from the other. The Torah also tells us that Isaac loved Esav more, while Ribka loved Jacob.

PRESENT OR FUTURE?

One day, Esav returns from hunting and is exhausted. He finds Jacob making lentil stew and asks him to give it to him. Jacob offers it to him in exchange for Esau’s birthright. Esav accepts. Before he gives him his bowl of lentils, Jacob gives Esau bread. So that? So that once Esav was satisfied with the bread, he would have the opportunity to reconsider and not sell his birthright. But Esav didn’t care about tomorrow, and he was willing to sacrifice his future to enjoy the present a little more. Unlike Esav, Jacob represents the idea of making sacrifices in the present – studying, saving, and working hard – to ensure a better future.

ISAAC IN WAR

A famine strikes the land of Canaan, and Isaac moves his family to the land of Gerar, which was ruled by the Pelishtim king Abimelech. God gives Isaac strict instructions that he not go to the land of Egypt. Isaac is the only one of our patriarchs who never left the land of Israel. Isaac settles in Gerar. When the local men ask him about his beautiful wife, Ribqa Isaac tells them she is his sister. He did this out of fear that they would kill him to stay with his wife. Unlike what happened with Abraham, Abimelech discovers that Ribka is Isaac’s wife and criticizes Isaac for deceiving him. Once this issue is resolved, Isaac prospers financially in Gerar, but the Philistines envy his success, and Abimelech asks Isaac to leave. Isaac moves in and digs several wells nearby, finding water. The Pelishtim shepherds claim those wells and destroy them. Eventually, Isaac settles in Beer Sheba, and he and Abimelech make a non-aggression treaty.

TELL ME WHO YOU WILL MARRY, AND I WILL TELL YOU…. WHO WILL YOU BE…

We return to the children of Isaac and Ribka. Esau, going against everything his parents and grandparents wanted, marries two Hittite women, which would be the equivalent of marrying a non-Jewish woman in our day. His parents suffer greatly from Esav’s decision.

When Isaac was old, the time came to bless his children, which in those times was also the way of assigning who was going to be the spiritual leader to continue the path of Abraham. Isaac calls Esav and asks him to go hunting and prepare a meal for him so that Isaac can grant him this blessing and privilege before he dies. Ribka overhears this conversation and establishes a plan for Jacob to obtain this blessing: she will prepare the food, and Jacob brings it to Isaac and receives it in her place. Jacob dressed in Esav’s clothes and thus managed to prevent his father, Isaac, who was already blind, from being able to identify him. When Esav returns, he discovers that his brother has received his blessing, and he vows to kill him. Ribka makes a new plan to save Jacob: her son will move to her family’s home in Haran, Syria until Esav’s anger calms down.

Isaac bids farewell to Jacob, and, this time, consciously blesses him with the blessing of the land of Israel and the continuation of Abraham’s legacy.

ANOTHER SUMMARY

1. Isaac marries Rivka at age 40. The couple had to wait twenty years for HaShem to answer their prayers. Rivka conceives twins. Pregnancy is difficult. Because babies fight each other in her womb. God tells her that these 2 children in her womb are going to produce 2 nations. Esav is born first. And Jacob came out clinging to his heel. Over the years, Esav becomes “a skilled hunter, a man of the field”; while Jacob is “a man of his house”, a man of integrity. 

2. Isaac favors Esav; But Rivka loves Jacob. One day Esav returns exhausted and hungry from the field and exchanges his birthright for a plate of lentils. The Tora tells us that Esav did not care about the birthright. 

3. There is famine in the land of Canaan, Isaac heads south and reaches Gerar, the land of the Philistines. Isaac presents Rikva as his sister, fearing he will be killed by someone who lusts after her. Isaac works the land, rebuilds the wells dug by his father Abraham and reaps 100 times more than he planted. The Philistines envy him and destroy the water wells. But in the end Isaac enjoys some quiet years. 

4. Esav marries two Hittite women. Isaac is growing old and blind and everything indicates that he is in his last days. Isaac expresses his desire to bless Esav, that is, to declare him his heir, before dying. Esav goes hunting to prepare his father’s favorite food. In the meantime Rivka dresses Jacob in Esav’s clothing, covering him with skin so that Isaac would think that he is his brother and Jacob receives his father’s blessings: material abundance and dominion over his brother. When Esav returns and realizes the deception, he cries and declares that when his father dies, he will kill Jacob. 

5. Rivka fears for the life of Jacob and he flees from his parents’ house and goes to Haran with the purpose of finding a wife from the family of his mother Rivka, the extended family of Abraham. Esav marries a third wife to try ingratiating himself with his mother: Machalat, Ishmael’s daughter.

THE NEW GENERATION
In this week’s Parasha, we meet the second generation of the Jewish people: Isaac, Ribqa, and their children. At the center of this Parasha, we find the famous episode of the blessing that Isaac wanted to grant to Esav, but thanks to the intervention of Ribqa, he ended up giving to Yaaqob.

Let’s start from the beginning.
Isaac and Ribqa had two sons. Jacob and Esav. Jacob was a man of his house, docile, upright, and studious. Esav was the complete opposite. Pure adrenaline. A man of battle. A fighter. A great hunter.

When Isaac grows old, the time comes to choose his heir. It is not about who would inherit Isaac’s material wealth but about something much more important: Who would continue, lead, and promote the path and values of Abraham Abinu? Which of the two sons was the most suitable to be the future patriarch of the Jewish people? Isaac and Ribqa had different opinions. For Isaac, the undisputed candidate was Esav. But for Ribqa, the most suitable was Jacob.
We will try to understand why they thought this way in the following few lines.

THE CASE FOR ESAV
Isaac knew that Abraham’s faith would inevitably be attacked by idolatrous peoples, who would surely try to eradicate his descendants. Why? In the polytheistic world, each person had and served their local gods. They accepted that other civilizations had their gods, and they believed that the powers of those gods were true. The pagan gods could coexist with each other. Sometimes, people exchanged their gods or even forged alliances among them.
But Abraham’s faith, monotheism, is different. Monotheism “excludes” all other faiths. By affirming that there is only one “and only” God, monotheism expresses directly or indirectly that the other gods are fake. With this ideologically and politically revolutionary message, Isaac knew that for his descendants to remain firm in the faith of Abraham, they would have to fight and defend themselves against countless enemies, and he was not wrong!

Based on a famous Midrash that describes Esav’s hunting tactics, we realize that Isaac saw that Esav was an expert at identifying his adversaries’ weaknesses. He was a cunning warrior who knew the enemy’s language, a critical talent in warfare. Isaac knew that his son Esav possessed the ideal virtues to defend Abraham’s faith and that he could organize and lead an army. And Isaac was not wrong! In two weeks (Vayishlach) we will see Esav leading an army of 400 men. Isaac wants to choose Esav because he knows that Esav will be able to conquer the land of Israel and militarily defend his descendants from multiple enemies.

THE VISION OF A MOTHER
But for Ribqa, all the military qualities of Esav were incompatible with Abraham’s human values. Could Esav, a man dedicated to warfare, be as kind to foreigners as Abraham was? Could he be as diplomatic with his neighbors as Abraham was with the Hittites? Ribqa thought Abraham’s future successor had to be kind, sensitive, and generous like Abraham. Smart, rather than aggressive. Abraham’s successor had to differentiate himself from all other men by prioritizing study, not war! And these were the characteristics of Yaakob. According to Ribqa, Ya’aqob and not Esav should be chosen to lead Abraham’s nation.
In the end (no surprises here), the wife prevailed, and Yaaqob was Isaac’s successor.

However, we must recognize that, in theory, the ideal would have been an alliance of the two brothers: the spirituality of Jacob combined with the strength of Esav. For Ribqa, this alliance was impossible because, as the Tora mentions in the paragraph preceding this episode, Esav crossed a red line and distanced himself from his family by marrying two Hittite women.

JACOB, ESAV, AND MEDINAT ISRAEL
This interpretation, which I wrote a couple of years ago about the virtues that Isaac and Ribqa were looking for in the future leader of Israel, is very relevant today to understand our present.

After 2,000 years of persecution and being unable to defend ourselves by our own means, we have achieved today the perfect balance between the strength of Esav and the virtues of Jacob. I am referring to Medinat Israel’s people, spirit, and army.

Israel, on the one hand, is a spiritual paradise where millions of Jews pray and study Tora daily. The voice of Tora has never been heard as much as it is heard today in the State of Israel. Jews in Israel practice unlimited Chesed (kindness), generosity, and compassion at incredible levels. Israelis are also extremely intelligent and highly educated in all areas, with infinite intellectual creativity.

And on the other side, Israel has a very strong army, the IDF, which is showing the world that whoever messes with the Jews is going to pay a heavy price and that it will not be other nations that defend us, but ourselves. Our own army. Our new strong hands will pursue justice.

Medinat Israel represents the perfect balance that our patriarchs were looking for: the sweet voice of Yaaqob’s Tora that Ribqa wanted, combined with the strong hands of a warrior that Isaac was looking for. Which, when necessary, would dissuade, deter, and punish the enemy. All in one at the same entity: Yaaqob / Israel.

הַקֹּל קוֹל יַעֲקֹב וְהַיָּדַיִם יְדֵי עֵשָׂו
Jacob kept his spiritual voice, and he learned to use his hands.
“The voice is the voice of Jacob, and the hands are [like] the hands of Esav.”

EFFORT AND BLESSING
In this week’s Parsha, Genesis chapter 26, we read that Isaac had to leave his land due to famine and came to Gerar, a city between Gaza and Beer Sheba, the land of the Pelishtim (Philistines). Isaac temporarily settled there and began to work hard. v:12-14 “Isaac sowed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold [a hundred times more than he had planted]: HaShem had blessed him! Isaac enjoyed prosperity and continued to grow until he became wealthy: he had sheep, cows, and many servants…

Although HaShem blessed him, Isaac’s wealth did not rain from heaven; Abraham’s son was a very hard worker. He had to work very hard to plant in that arid area, and as the Torah tells us a little later, he had to dig again and again – without laziness and without giving up – to obtain the most scarce and precious element in the Middle East: water.

But now, the same verse that mentions Isaac’s wealth describes the feeling and reaction of the Pelishtim to Isaac’s success.

וַיְקַנְא֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ פְּלִשְׁתִּֽים
וְכׇל־הַבְּאֵרֹ֗ת אֲשֶׁ֤ר חָֽפְרוּ֙ עַבְדֵ֣י אָבִ֔יו בִּימֵ֖י א ַבְרָהָ֣ם אָבִ֑יו סִתְּמ֣וּם פְּלִשְׁתִּ֔ים וַיְמַלְא֖וּם עָפָֽר ׃
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל־יִצְחָ֑ק לֵ֚ךְ מֵֽעִמָּ֔נוּ כִּֽי־ע ָצַ֥מְתָּ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מְאֹֽד׃

The Pelishtim were envious of Isaac.
And all the wells [of water] that the servants of his father [Abraham] had dug… they made useless, filling them with earth.”

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JEALOUSY AND ENVY
The Pelishtim received a refugee, Isaac, weak and poor. And they sympathized with that Isaac. But once Isaac recovered, his success did not make them happy; quite the opposite: he bothered them. The Torah uses here for the first time in biblical history the word quin’a, which means: “envy” (ויקנאו אותו פלשתים “The Pelishtim were envious of Isaac.”

There are two possible reactions one can have to a successful person. The first, the best, is to learn from those who do things well and imitate them. The Pelishtim could have imitated Isaac’s efforts: working more, getting up earlier, getting drunk less, saving more, not spending as much, etc. But that didn’t happen! The reaction of the Pelishtim consisted of destructive envy that led them to do something inconceivable: covering with earth the water wells that Isaac had dug!

There is a big difference between the Hebrew words “jealousy” (jemda or ta’avá לא תתאוה), and “envy” (quin’a). “Jealousy” always refers to an object: I am jealous of what you have, and I would like to have it myself. I want to have your house, your money, your car. And in theory, once I have what you have, my jealousy disappears or should decrease. “Envy,” on the other hand, is a deep, toxic, and complicated feeling. It’s not about my desire to have what the other person has but about listening to the person who has it. When I envy you, I resent your success. I can not stand. I’m going to try to take away what you have. And if I can’t take it away from you, I will destroy it. Because what impresses me the most is that YOU don’t have it! Envy is destructive and, by nature, self-destructive. Envy/hatred led the Pelishtim to do the most irrational thing a Middle Easterner can do: destroy water wells in the desert. Which would hurt them, too.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Ramban, Nachmanides, says that the Tora goes out of its way to describe the details of this event to teach us that מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, “what happened to our ancestors is not just history,” but marks a pattern of behavior that will be repeated with their descendants. This story repeats itself in our days.

HaShem’s blessing and Israel’s success in the areas of education, innovation, technology, and economy arouse admiration in the world but also a lot of envy, resentment, and hatred, especially from Isarel’s neighbors, who aim to destroy the “water wells” that could benefit their citizens, to harm Israel.

Gaza’s history makes it clear.
On August 15, 2005, 8,000 Israeli Jews were displaced from their homes in Gush Qatif, Israel. That land, which had been conquered militarily by Israel in response to the war started by the Egyptians, was “gifted” to the Palestinians, who had democratic elections in 2006 in which the Hamas party was elected. The population of Palestine that elected Hamas knew—and knows perfectly well—the objectives of Hamas since they are explicit in its founding charter: in that charter, Hamas does not mention the desire to provide prosperity, human rights or social services to the inhabitants of Gaza to improve their lives. ALL THE LETTER SAYS IS THAT HAMAS WILL DEDICATE FULLY TO JIHAD, that is, to the armed struggle against the State of Israel until its destruction, and clarifies that it will reject all diplomatic negotiations and management. Just as the Pelishtim did with Isaac, Hamas is willing to impoverish its population and pursue self-destruction (immolate itself = jihad) to destroy Israel or, at least, to kill as many Jews as possible.

Gaza does not engage in terror because they are poor; Gaza is poor because it chooses to engage in terror. This idea is so mind-blowing to normal people that they refuse to believe it. And in some ways, those with a Western mentality, even Israel, forcibly “overimpose” their own ideals and try to help Gaza out of its poverty. The Palestinians of Gaza have received more money than any other population in the entire world. From the European Union, United Nations, and the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars. All this money that should have been dedicated to building schools and hospitals and providing clean water to the population has been dedicated to building war tunnels, buying weapons, developing more weapons, and all to destroy Israel.

It is challenging for an ordinary person to understand that envy transformed into hatred makes human beings lose their desire for prosperity and self-preservation to dedicate themselves to eliminating those who work and prosper. But the Torah already warned about it in the story of Isaac with the Pelishtim. And today, we see more clearly than ever that there is nothing new under the sun of Gaza.

שמענו אדני נשיא אלקים אתה בתוכנו
In this week’s Parasha, Chaye Sara, we meet Abraham, our first patriarch, in a long conversation with the Hittites, one of the peoples who inhabited the land of Canaan in those days. Abraham wants to acquire a piece of land from them in Qiryat Arba, Hebron, to bury his recently deceased wife, Sara.
MONOTHEISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Abraham negotiates with the Hittites. And as the negotiation progressed, we saw that the Hittites leaders – men famous for their violent conquests – treated Abraham with great respect and addressed him as “nesí Eloqim”, “A representative of God among us.” This is a very uncommon gesture since pagans people did not have an open mind about other gods or cults. The mythological gods competed with each other to prove their supremacy. And Abraham not only practiced a different religion, but his religion was “monotheism,”: which means that while the idea of other cults implied that “Our gods are more powerful than your gods”, the religion of Abraham held that: ” Your gods are fake”. The Hittites should have considered Abraham’s beliefs a great challenge, a threat, and an insult to their belief system. And they surely knew that Abraham did not keep monotheism for himself: Abraham was an activist, an iconoclast (“a destroyer of idols”), and the Hittites were idol-worshippers. And yet they respected him superlatively.… In those days, there was no religious tolerance. We saw, for example, in the story of Yosef and his brothers, that the Egyptians did not even sit down to eat at the same table with a Hebrew because they considered our menu – in this case: meat – abominable, offensive to their beliefs. How was it then that Abraham, being so different from the Hittites, was respected by them as he was by other peoples of the region?
In my opinion, the Hittites respected and admired Abraham not because but rather despite his beliefs (which the Hittites probably never fully understood) because of Abraham’s extraordinary human virtues.
Here are a few examples.

GENEROSITY:
In the pagan world, “the representatives of the gods on earth” would make their livelihood from gifts and offerings from idol worshippers. When MalqiTsedeq, a priest, “blessed Abraham, Abraham gifted him generously. These offerings to pagan religious leaders (priests, wizards, witches, magicians) were prevalent at that time. But Abraham, whom everyone saw as an ambassador of God, far from expecting others to support him materially because of his “spiritual role”, devoted himself to materially assisting others out of his own pocket. Abraham had a literally “open house” to welcome any foreigner who needed shade, water, or food, and Abraham did not ask for or accept any compensation for that service. In light of the above-mentioned common practice, this behavior of Abraham must have inspired the respect and admiration of all those who knew him.
RESPECT:
God spoke to Abraham and promised that he and his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. But Abraham never behaved arrogantly in front of other Canaanites. His unconditional faith in the Divine promise could have led him to say to the pagans who inhabited the earth: “This land will be mine. And therefore, I can take possession of it without your permission.” Abraham dealt with the Hittites with dignity and honor and paid a very high price for the burial place. Abraham represented the epitome of the nobility of those observant Yehudim who know very well that “the closer one is to God, the more he must respect and behave with integrity towards others”, and especially towards those who profess another religion or are less observant than them (Qiddush HaShem).
HUMILITY:
Abraham’s humility becomes much more evident when we compare him, as our Sages did, to Bil’am. Bil’am was a pagan prophet and a representative of God among gentiles. HaShem communicated with Bil’am, as he did with Abraham and Moshe. But this privilege, instead of making Bil’am more humble, caused Bil’am to look down at other people and deal with them with disdain. Bil’am said to himself:” If God speaks to me, no one can be compared to me!” Bil’am’s behave with arrogance and contempt. He was unwilling to help anyone unless he obtained a substantial material benefit and retribution “for the services rendered.” Bil’am represents those gentiles or Jews who “misrepresent” religion. Abraham was precisely the opposite of Bil’am.
FIRST INFLUENCER
Although Abraham held different theological beliefs, which “he” was aware were superior to the ideas of the pagans who lived around him, he behaved with generosity and respect. He was always willing to help anyone in need, even those who did not share his creed and values. In his boundless humanity, Abraham asked God to spare the lives of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, the most corrupt cities in history.
And this is why even though Abraham’s ideas were very different, Abraham never had enemies. He was never judged negatively on account of his “radical” beliefs. Why? Because of his integrity, his humbleness, and generosity toward other human beings. And this is why Abraham is the Father of most world religions: the most impactful INFLUENCER in human history.

This week’s Parasha is about the last days of Abraham Abinu. After taking care of the burial of his wife Sarah, Abraham has a critical mission: to get a wife for his son Isaac (Ytshaq). Much is at stake. Finding a woman worthy of Isaac will allow Abraham’s legacy, his covenant with HaShem, to continue for posterity. But if the wife does not accompany Isaac in Abraham’s way, everything will be lost. At that time, as today, the children’s education and Jewish continuity depended primarily on the wife. For this challenging mission, Abraham sends his most loyal servant, Eliezer. He arrives in Haran, the land where Abraham comes from, and where he still has some relatives. Eliezer begs HaShem to guide his steps. And he proposes to do a “test” to find the future wife of Isaac. Eliezer heads towards the well. And he tells himself that when he arrives, he will ask one of the young women for some water to drink. If the woman agrees and also offers water for his camels, this would be a sign that she is a suitable wife for Isaac.

The rabbis are divided in their opinion regarding this event: Some, like Maimonides, say that Eliezer showed a lack of judgment: we cannot “put God to the test” (לא תנסו). A Jews should never say, for example, “HaShem, You are Almighty, and it is within your power to determine which way the coin will fall. I am not sure whether I should buy this house. Therefore, HaShem, I am going to toss a coin so that You reveal Your will to me: if it is Your will that I buy this house, make the coin fall ‘heads’. And if it is not Your will, let it be ‘tails’. “Maimonides indicates that this seemingly impeccable reasoning was part of the rhetoric used by idolaters to “force their gods to reveal their will”, which they then manipulated at will, claiming that they were following their god’s instructions.

Other Rabbis, while agreeing in principle with Maimonides’ opinion, say that in this case, Eliezer did not try to test God but to test the character and personality of the girl. After all, Eliezer didn’t ask for an arbitrary identifying sign: he did not say, for example, “if I see a young woman wearing a dress with flowers, she will be the one HaShem wants for Isaac,” or something like that. Eliezer set out to identify “qualities” that would test the girl’s good character.

As additional support for this second opinion, we should notice what virtues Eliezer hoped to see in Isaac’s future wife. 

Eliezer looked for the virtues of Abraham Abinu.

1. When Abraham welcomes guests, he offers them less than he ultimately gives them. Abraham offered them “a piece of bread and some water.” But in the end, he feasted them on tender meat, freshly baked bread, and delicious desserts. Part of the virtue of a Tsadiq (a righteous man) “is to do more than what he promises” (the opposite of politicians!).

2. Abraham served his guests with “enthusiasm” (זריזות). One of the ways to measure our enthusiasm is to see how quickly we do things. If a child or a teenager has to get up at dawn to do a task that he does not want to do, he will surely get up very slowly, dress in slow motion, with total reluctance, etc. But if he has to get up at dawn to fly to Disneyland, he will surely do that without delay, dressed up quickly and with great enthusiasm. When Abraham received his guests, the Torah tells us that Abraham “hurried” and said to his wife: “Hurry, mix the flour and prepare the cakes.” And then Abraham “ran” to his cattle and “hurried” to prepare the meat …

1. When Eliezer saw Ribqa he asked for water. Ribqa “hurried” to the fountain and said: “Drink, my Lord.” And she said, on her own initiative: “I am going to give your camels to drink, too.”

2. “And she “hurried” and “ran” to the source of water and watered the camels until they quenched their thirst”. 

This exceptional behavior is typical of people who practice chesed, acts of kindness at the highest possible level: They do more than they are asked or expected to do. They do more than they promised to do. And when they do their good deeds, they do it with enthusiasm, passion, and selflessness.

Ribqa passed the character test, reached the bar established by Abraham Abinu, and graduated with flying colors.

Our Parasha begins by recounting that Sara passes away at the age of 127. Abraham, determined to honor his wife with the highest dignity, identifies a plot of land in the city of Hebron for her burial. The land contained a cave located in the field of Makhpela, in what today is the city of Kiryat Arba and Hebron. The land belonged to Efron, a member of the Hittites, a people who formed one of the most influential civilizations of the Middle East, whose presence extended as far as Turkey.

Abraham requests to buy the cave and the adjacent field. Efron offers to let him bury Sara free of charge. Abraham insists on formally acquiring the parcel and pays about 400 shekel of silver for the land, a high sum. In doing so, Abraham establishes a legal bond with the Land promised by God, which becomes the first documented Jewish deed of ownership in history, located precisely in Hebron.

After burying Sara, Abraham entrusts his trusted servant, Eliezer, to find an appropriate wife for his son Isaac in the region of Haran, located in the southeast of modern-day Turkey, which is where Abraham originally came from. In addition, this would prevent Isaac from assimilating by marrying a local Canaanite woman. The insistence on preserving spiritual identity and avoiding assimilation becomes, from that very moment, a central theme of the legacy of Abraham and his descendants.

Eliezer arrives in Haran and prays to God for the success of his mission. He asks God for a clear sign to recognize the woman destined for Isaac: that the young woman to whom he asks for water not only offer him a drink, but also, on her own initiative, give water to his camels. This gesture would show not only the customary hospitality but also hesed, the generosity characteristic of Abraham and his family.

At the water well, a young woman appears who fulfills exactly this behavior. Her name is Ribka (Rebecca), daughter of Betuel and granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

Ribka runs home to tell the news. Her brother Laban goes out to receive the visitor and hosts him. During dinner, Eliezer explains in detail his mission, the prayer he recited, the sign he requested, and how Ribka fulfills all the requirements. The family recognizes that this encounter is not random but part of divine providence. They accept the marriage proposal and authorize Ribka to leave with Eliezer.

After an emotional farewell, the delegation begins the journey back. When Isaac sees Ribka, he takes her as his wife.

Abraham remarries Keturah and has several more sons. However, to avoid inheritance conflicts, Abraham gives some of his possessions to them during his lifetime and sends them toward “the land of the east.” To Isaac he leaves all his possessions, including his settlements in the land of Israel, consolidating the spiritual and territorial continuity of the Divine Promise.

Abraham dies at the age of 175. Isaac and Ishmael reunite to bury him together in the cave of Makhpela, next to Sara.

Halloween is celebrated in the United States and many other countries around the world on the night of October 31st. People place pumpkins and candles at the entrances of their homes, and children go out to collect sweets and candies. Seemingly, there is nothing wrong with this innocent celebration. Because dressing up and receiving free candy is fun, many Jewish parents allow or even encourage their children to celebrate Halloween. That is why I decided to write about the origins of Halloween and show how its celebration is modeled after pagan rituals. It still preserves all the elements related to idolatry.

THE EXPLOITATION OF FEAR
Maimonides explains in the first chapter of Aboda Zara that the rituals of idolatry were conceived by sorcerers or pagan priests—professional demagogues—for their own benefit, by manipulating the masses and taking advantage of people’s fears and innocence. That is why pagan rituals are always associated with superstition, magic, and esoteric beliefs.

The fear of death was always the pagan priests’ favorite subject of exploitation. The deepest human vulnerability—“What happens to those who die? Where are they? Do dead people come back and affect us?”—paved the way for ordinary people to perform or submit to any rite, no matter how irrational or absurd, to protect themselves from these imaginary fears.

Halloween is no exception to this rule. In fact, it is the rule, because the word Halloween literally means “the day of all the (dead) spirits.”

THE ORIGIN OF HALLOWEEN

Halloween has its origins in Celtic culture. Celtic magicians, called “Druids,” made people believe that evil spirits and the spirits of the dead visited the world of the living on this day. According to the Druids, the dead were like Hollywood zombies—harmful and dangerous. Their spirits returned to this world with grievances, thirsty for blood and eager to take someone with them.

To appease these spirits and avoid “tragedies,” the Druids taught the people to carve pumpkins into the shape of skulls to acknowledge and welcome the dead. Candles were then lit inside the pumpkins to help the spirits find their way in the world of the living. Cats were considered essential on Halloween because, according to the Druids, these animals could sense and smell the presence of invisible hostile spirits. However, black cats were to be avoided—or even killed—because witches were believed to be reincarnated as black cats. The Druids also taught that, besides the dead, the devil himself might appear that night, arriving from hell.

THE NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES
So, what did people have to do to save themselves from zombies, witches, and the devil? They had to bribe those evil spirits. And who disguised themselves as those terrifying figures? The Celtic priests! The Druids wore masks and costumes to look like zombies and devils. At night, they went from house to house—and that’s when their business began. They demanded a human sacrifice from the homeowners. But if a family refused to offer one of their members, the “kind” Druids would allow them to redeem the sacrifice with gifts—food or money—in England and Ireland.

In short, something had to be paid to the Celtic magicians for protection so they would not curse you or your family. And people, terrified, gave the Druids whatever they demanded.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of Halloween.

HALLOWEEN AND OUR CHILDREN

All the elements that were part of the ancient pagan Halloween are still present in today’s celebration. In the modern version, children “replace” the Druids: they dress up as dead people, witches, or devils and go door to door demanding gifts. This pagan ritual is called “trick or treat,” which means: “Either you give me a ‘treat’—a gift—or I’ll play a ‘trick’ on you, a harmful prank, a curse, or something that will hurt you.” Throwing eggs at someone’s door is a very common illustration of this idea.

As you can see from this brief description, Halloween might seem fun or innocent, but it is deeply rooted in one of the most primitive forms of idolatry: the cult of death. Halloween also reminds us how corrupt pagan leaders once used the natural fear of death to exploit innocent people.

For all these reasons, we Jews should avoid participating in Halloween—actively or passively. There is nothing holy or positive about it.

LA RÉSISTANCE

Thinking as an educator—I believe that Halloween is an excellent opportunity to teach our children about the true nature of idolatry and our duty to stay away from it. How so?

By explaining to them that idolatry, the greatest offense against God, was very common in ancient times. We Jews have opposed the falsehood of idolatry since the day our patriarch Abraham destroyed the idols of his father Terach.

However, it is often difficult to explain paganism and its abuses, because the primitive ‘aboda zara’ has almost disappeared.

Halloween is an opportunity—especially related to this week’s Parasha: Lekh Lekha—for our children to recognize the superstitions of ‘aboda zara’, understand their falsehood, and become aware of the importance of staying away from them. In doing so, we will feel even more privileged to be the descendants of our heroic patriarch Abraham Abinu.

This week’s Parasha begins with a Divine call to our patriarch Abraham, “Lekh Lekha”: Leave your land and go to the land that I will show you [Canaan, Israel]. God speaks to Abraham and invites him to leave his land and settle in a new land, Israel, where HaShem will bless him with a multitude of descendants. Very nice indeed!  But the biblical text keeps its silence at a sensitive point. “Why Abraham?” What did Abraham do to deserve God’s attention?

CHOICE OR DETERMINISM? 

For those who are familiar with the style of the Tora, the absence of an explanation as to why people do what they do is the rule rather than the exception. Similarly, the Tora only sometimes reveals why HaShem does what He does. The biblical text does not explain, for example, the reasons for many Divine precepts. Why certain animals are pure or impure, etc. similarly (and I believe this is the most dramatic example), the Tora never reveals why God created the world. I’m not sure what the reason for that is. Still, it is notorious that Biblical Hebrew does not have the word why (the word lama, for instance, indicates the purpose of the action, not the intention of the subject; and something similar happens with the term madua’). Perhaps, as I once heard, this has to do with the belief in the absolute freedom of choice (for God and man). Providing the “why” will suggest certain determinism and limitations in the process of making choices. 

Or perhaps, as Rabbi Menashe ben Israel explains, the Tora wants to leave the task of “why” to us. We, the readers, need to find the answers to the why. Every generation can contribute with their point of view on the text, discovering new levels of understanding of the Book of HaShem. This would not be possible if the “whys” were explicit.

Let’s go back to our initial question. Why did God choose Abraham?

ABRAHAM MADE THE FIRST MOVE

The first answer is the story that every Jewish child learns at a tender age. Terach, Abraham’s father, was manufacturing and selling idols. Statues of the mythological gods that represented the different forces of nature. I imagine that “idolatry” must have been a great business (like “art”) because all the seller needed to make a good profit was to convince the buyer that one idol had more powers than the other, and for that, the customer had to pay a higher price! Terach must have been a great salesman. But when Terach wanted to teach his business to his son Abraham, something unexpected happened. Instead of helping his dad, Abraham challenged him with an impeccable but disastrous-for-business logic: “How can you claim that these idols are our creators if they were made yesterday with our own hands? Why should we consider these statues as gods since they cannot see, listen or speak? Abraham’s father was furious with his son. He was not fit for that type of business. Eventually, God “called” Abraham and invited him to move to His land because of Abraham’s honesty. And Abraham accepted the invitation.

HASHEM CALLED FIRST

The second answer concerns a text we recite EVERY day in our Tefilla in the mornings. “You are HaShem, our God, You chose Abram, and You took him out from Ur Casdim, and You changed his name to Abraham, and You found that his heart was faithful to You” אשר בחרת באברם והוצאתו מאור כשדים … ומצאת את לבבו נאמן לפניך. According to this pasuq (Nechemia, 9: 7-8.) God first chooses Abraham, almost arbitrarily, and then He finds out that Abraham is His faithful servant. Ironically, although we recite this pasuq daily, this viewpoint is less known (or less popular) than the first one. According to this interpretation, HaShem sought Abraham, and He prepared him and trained him to become the patriarch of the nation of Israel through the challenges and difficulties (nissiyonot) that Abraham had to experience throughout his life.

ADOPTING A CHILD

Rabbi Hayim Sabato from Yeshiva Bircat Moshe in Maale Adumim (Israel) says something exciting. The text describing the past of Abraham Abinu (at the end of last week’s Parasha) is very short in detail. Except for one circumstantial but revealing point: Haran, the brother of Abram, dies, and his orphan son Lot becomes now part of Abraham’s family. Abraham adopted Lot as his son. This supreme act of kindness made Abraham worthy of the Divine call.

WHO ANSWERED HASHEM’S CALL?

My favorite, a fourth opinion, is the beautiful interpretation of Rabbi Yehuda Alter (1847-1905) in his Book Sefat Emet. There, he says that “HaShem did not speak exclusively to Abraham, HaShem was announcing permanently and to many people His call to leave the land of Casdim and go to Israel, for those who wanted His blessing (המאמר’ לך לך’ שנאמר מהשם יתברך לכל האנשים תמיד). But people rejected God’s call or ignored it. And the only one who “picked up the phone”, and responded affirmatively to God’s call, and the challenges that taking this call would imply, was Abraham Abinu. I love this response for many reasons. But especially for its relevance. HaShem is permanently calling us. He constantly invites to follow Him. To follow His ways. His Voice is in His Book. The call of HaShem is in His Tora. And if we want to follow the steps of Abraham Abinu, all we have to do is open the Book and listen to His Voice.

 We become God’s chosen when we answer His call.

The Ten Commandments.

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