Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Toledot 2

time when Abraham dies and when Abraham died Yak is now 75 years old this is 15 years after um Yakov and ASV were born and therefore Yakov and ASV are 15year old teenagers isak is sing Shiva he's mourning for abah his father and therefore like the custom now he has to have someone else preparing food for him and that's what Yakov is doing Yakov simmered as two as we will later learn it was a lentil soup and that's why there's a custom to give MERS lentils to eat some people have custom to give lentils for the mner some have accustom to give hardboiled eggs but the idea for both is the same we give a mner some something that is round so that the mner is reminded life is not a stick where it starts and it ends forever rather life is a circle you are born you go through the circle of life you die and then your soul goes again into someone else's Soul uh body and lives again and then by the final cycle you exit this world and you enter the next world so life doesn't finish just like Circle doesn't have um an end so Yakov simmered a lentil stew and ASF came in from the field and he was exhausted he was running around the whole day hunting and our sages say that the expression exhausted refers in Tor to people who just did sins aot sins weaken a person MIT strengthen a person so ASV was just involved in three great cardinal sins idol worship uh adultery with a married woman and murder that is why he was exhausted he was spiritually exhausted so esav saw that yob is cooking and asav is hungry and tired asav says to yov pour into me now some of that very red stuff for I'm exhausted these were red lentils and asav didn't try to figure out what it was he just said just pour it into me I don't care what it was I can just call it by the colar and because he used the word red which means adom in Hebrew he therefore called his name adom that is why God proclaimed that a person who is insensitive his grandfather died his father is uh sting Shiva he just In Cold Blood killed somebody raped somebody served Idol he's has bloody hands he is called the red one and uh by the way just as an aside this should remind you who are the red ones we have the red Russia and the red China Communists so just just be careful with anyone who is proclaiming that they are red because they might be from esav now yakob said so ASA is asking him for food and yakob says sure I'll give you food but sell as this day as clear as day your Birthright to me they are 15 years old now and this is not the first time that they uh are speaking about this topic yes I Sayes say that asav served Idols doesn't mean that he was an idol worshipper which means doesn't mean that he denied God he still believed in God but out of convenience in searching for shortcuts people used to serve Idols just like nowadays people don't want to work on themselves change themselves so they go to gadala they go to capitalist they try to predict the future they try to change the future instead of changing who they are and gaining greater Merit they tried to go around so to asab he wanted easy way out so he went to serve an idol so Yakov multiple times through their childhood spoke to ASA and asked him you know there was only one minute between us in our birth not only that I was holding to you we were connected so it's like we were born together why do you need to be the first was born you are haunting you're not learning Torah you're not thinking about God you're not serving God what do you care let me be the firstborn and ASA would say no no no just in case I want to have it but now that ASV is so tired and he just did so many sins against God and His fellow men that he says you know what I think I'm okay selling it and ASA said look I'm going to die because of my sins so of what use to me is a Birthright it's not going to help me because I'm a sinner and that was a mistake that asav made even though he sinned he shouldn't have given up there's always T and in fact many of asa's descendants in the future did convert to Judaism and RAB AKA The Great RAB AKA was one of the descendants of esav so esav had opportunity to change himself and Hashem would forgive him we see that Hashem does not judge us harshly for our mistakes he judges us harshly when we deny our mistakes or when we refuse to fix them just like Adar when he ate from the forbidden fruit Hashem didn't punish him right away he entered into conversation trying to give him opportunity to admit and ask forgiveness he asked him where are you why are you hiding hoping that Adam Aron will say I'm sorry I disobeyed and Hashem would say okay it happened you're only human that's the first mistake it's okay I forgive you but Adam said I'm hiding and he forgot to mention about the sin he said I'm hiding because I'm embarrassed so why are you embarrassed Hashem asked did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat and instead of saying yes I'm sorry Adam shifted the blame it's not it's not my fault is the woman that you created for me she did it she convinced me so it's your fault God if you didn't create her for me I wouldn't sin so Hashem says oh in this case since you're not admitting you're mistake and you're not willing to change I have no choice I have to punish you and when Hashem came to Ken after he killed his brother heav Hashem said where's your brother and heav said he could have said I'm sorry I killed him please forgive me I'm not going to do it again cuz I don't have another brother instead he said how do I know am I My Brother's Keeper and Hashem said oh since you're not admitting your mistake that's a second mistake two strikes and you're out I have no choice I have to punish you and now the same with asav asav went and did three sins three great sins specifically on the day that Abraham died the spiritual power of Abraham protected as and even though he had evil Tendencies but he never actually did Evil things and now that Abraham is not there as doesn't have that boost of spiritual energy anymore and he goes he cannot handle his uh in evil inclination and he does three cardinal sins and now Yakov is inviting him to do toua no you did so bad you think you want to sell me your firstborn right and if ASA would say no no I'm not giving up I can still do T I can still become better I still want to keep my firstborn right because I still have hope but instead asov gave up and he said I'm going to die that's it no going back for me I don't need the birthright now page 129 so Yakov said swear to me that you are willing to sell and he swore to me and sold his Birthright to Yakov now many ask a question how is it the right thing to do for yov to sell the birthright for a pot of soup and how is it right for yov to take advantage of a hungry exhausted person and here we see that that's not the case all Yakov said is swear that you will sell it to me and he swore to him and in fact later he sold it to him and by the way Yakov gave him bread first and he satisfied himself and then lentil soup and he ate and he drank which means there's more than what our eye sees first of all the sale was not for the lentil soup the saale was dis was discussed before Yakov gave him lentil soup but the sale was at a later time and for money not for lentil soup and he didn't take advantage of a hungry person because yakob first gave him bread and only when he was satisfied and came back to his senses and still confirmed yes I want a salad and he promised only then Yakov gave him the soup and he got up and left and thus asav spurned the birthright asav treated the birthright without proper respect okay now this is when they are 15 years old at some other time they were in chapter 26 there was a famine in the land this is the second famine now as we said history repeats itself just like when Abraham came into the Land There was a famine and Abraham had to travel to a different country so to Yak there is a famine in the land just like it says aside from the F first famine that was in the days of Abraham and is therefore went to a king of pish Palestinians to G uh Yak decided to go to the Gaza Strip a little bit away from the main uh land of Israel however his original intention was not to go to the Palestinian territory rather because Hashem appeared to him and said do not descend to Egypt he was thinking just like my father Abraham went to Egypt maybe I will also go to Egypt to stay there temporarily until the famine is over but Hashem said to him don't go to Egypt because you are holy you brought on the altar dwell in the land that I shall indicate to you which means the land of Israel the Palestinian territory the sector Gaza was supposed to become Jewish ter teritory later the land that God gave to Abraham and therefore Hashem allowed him to go there and there was no famine there dwell in this land and I will be with you and bless you because to you and your Offspring I will give all these lands verse 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice your father listen to everything that I said and I've observed my safeguards my Commandments my degree decrees and my toras from here the sages learned that Abraham fulfilled the entire Torah even before it was given and because it says multiple uh Expressions my toras plural refers to the oral Torah and the written Torah my decrees refers to Commandments that our logic would not figure out like which food is kosher which one is not putting on tein not mixing wool and linen shes and so on and so forth uh certain forbidden marriages uh they are called they're called decrees without an obvious reason Commandments refers to uh laws that human beings can derive on their own societal laws don't steal don't kill uh honesty in business business and safeguards refers to Rabin Clause Rabin safeguards to protect the Torah law so from here I'll say just say that Abraham observed the entire Torah both written and oral and he even observed all the rabinal decrees that would eventually be established how did he know it he figured it out himself he looked into the world and he understood what he needs to do in order to improve the world and he understood what safeguards he needs to put in place in order to protect the world so verse six Yak settled in G in the Gaza Strip and just like with Abraham the men of the place asked about his wife this is the third time that our forefathers have problems with the locals who want to take away their wife and he said she's my sister he followed the example of his father Abraham Abraham used this trick twice and now Yak is using it again for he was afraid to save my wife that they shouldn't kill him because Rifka was very beautiful and sometime later a the king of Pim G down through the window and saw behold Yak was playing with his wife Rifka he was treating her unlike a brother and a sister so he figured out he realized they are husband and wife so a called Y and said look she's your wife how could you say she's my sister so is said to him because I said that I would be killed because of him so a was upset he said what is this that you have done to us one of the people has nearly laying with your wife and he meant himself because he was dreaming of the day when he can take Rifka as his wife and you would have brought guilt upon us a remembers what happened to his father if it was uh not the same a because a is a general name for the king of Pim just like par is a general name for all the kings of Egypt so to aik is a name for all the kings so it could have been the same King as uh in times of Abraham or it could be his son but he still called aik with the same title aik then warned all the people saying whoever molests this man or his wife shall surely be put to death a already remembers the punishment that he received from Hashem when he or his ancestor took Abraham's wife now a allows Yak to remain in the land and Yak planted in that land and in that year he ripped a hundredfold he gathered in 100 times more produce than a regular local farmer from the same land amazing the Jewish people are still doing that the land of Israel even though it was a desert is producing abundant crops so much that Israel such a tiny country exports their they are their fruits and vegetables as far as the United States you can even find isra produce on our Supermarket shelves and it started there all the local farmers were getting one bushel of wheat per unit of land and is got 100 bushels of wheat for the same land area thus had Hashem blessed him it was not his uh own genius but rather it was the blessing of Hashem and he became great and kept becoming greater until he was very great three times the Torah says that he was great he was greater than all the simpl tons he was greater than all the middle class and he was greater than even the richest people in the land he became on the level of the king a himself and even more Rich than the king himself he acquired flocks and herds and many Enterprises he opened many businesses and the Palestinians envied him they became jealous why he who just came to dwell in our country temporarily is so successful and we the local residents who have been here for much longer why are we still poor and this is exactly what the local population of every country that the Jewish people ever visited have said the Jews come to a country and they prosper and they build themselves and they build the country and the nation that they're among becomes jealous so what did they do all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham the pish team the Palestinians stopped up and fill them with Earth why why would they do it why not use the water this is a well you're in a desert area you have a well why do you stuff it up use it for your benefit no we are jealous that he's successful and to our own detriment we will destroy everything that he built and this reminds us of the actions of the the current policy who carry their name but they're from a different race who did the same thing the Jewish people gave them towns of