Genesis 25

As with much of the book of Genesis, this week’s parsha contains a pivotal moment in history. Esau returns from a day of tracking and hunting and encounters Jacob, cooking a lentil stew, red lentils, to be specific.

Esau tells Jacob to “pour into me” the red stuff, the red stuff because Esau was tired and hungry. This idea of “pour into me” is explored in B. Shabbat 155b. Force-feeding animals on Shabbat is prohibited. However, “pouring into them” all they care to eat is allowed. Jacob responds with a condition, that Esau sell him his birthright. It is important to note that the condition here is that Esau will sell Jacob, his birthright, the condition is not the sale itself. In other words, is not implied that the price of the birthright is a bowl of red lentils. Scratch that, merely that that if Esau agrees to sell Jacob, his birthright, Jacob will feed him. The actual price of the birthright is not mentioned in the text. Midrash Rabbah explains that it is a fair price, more than the value of a bowl of lentils.

Esau’s response to the idea of selling his birthright is that he simply does not care. The birthright is not important to him. He is a Hunter, who roams over an area tracking game. It is Jacob. Who is the farmer, he is he who values a field to grow food. For Esau, ownership of a field is simply an encumbrance. Consequently, Esau does not value the land, nor Hashem’s promise of the land. This despising of the birthright is a major differentiation between Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, even today. Shabbat shalom.