INSIGHT 5768 - #08 RISK Esav, in responding to Yaakov Avinu’s
request of him to sell the bechora, the rights of
the first born, states that he goes to die so why does he
need it. This explanation for why Esav sold the bechora
demands further contemplation. Why does Esav refer to the
fact that he will eventually die in his reason for not
wishing to maintain the bechora? Rashi,
Bereishit 25:31 points out that the issue for Yaakov
was the impropriety of having someone, such as Esav,
maintaining the right of service to God that was vested
in the bechora. Thus he approached Esav to sell
him the bechora and thus that right.1
It is not surprising that Esav would be amenable to such
a transaction as we would expect him not to be interested
in performing the service before God in bringing
sacrifices – but why would Esav make mention of his
eventual death? If anything, death usually turns someone
towards the spiritual and not the momentary concerns of
life. Strangely, in contemplating death, Esav does
exactly the opposite of what would be expected and is
further motivated to sell the bechora to Yaakov.
This problem may actually be the reason why T.B.
Baba Batra 16b states that Esav committed five sins
on the day that he sold the birthright. 2 One
of the sins that Esav committed was to deny the
resurrection of the dead. If this was so, then in stating
that he was going to die, Esav meant it in a final sense,
that there was no life after this one and thus of what
purpose would be the service of God. The gemara is
actually informing us that the rejection of the bechora
was simply Esav’s final act in the rejection of the
realm of Divine. If there is no God, if there is no
afterlife, what purpose is there for the sacrificial
service; thus Esav is very happy to sell it to Yaakov.
The Torah text is informing us that Esav did more that
just simply sell the bechora; he rejected God. In
saying that he was going to die anyway, Esav was really
stating that he absolutely saw no value in being the one
to serve God.
The approach found in Rashi, Bereishit 25:32
is profoundly different. Rashi does not see Esav as one
who rejects God and/or the realm of the Divine. Seeing
Esav as someone who rejects the Divine realm is actually
most problematic. Why would someone who does not believe
in God be so grieved over not receiving a blessing from
his father?3According to Rashi, Esav’s
reason for rejecting the bechora is not that he,
eventually, will die but rather that the acceptance of
the responsibility to serve God could lead to death.
Yaakov informs Esav that certain mistakes in the bringing
of the sacrifices are punishable by death. It is in
response to this information that Esav states that he is
going to die and questions why he needs it. He is thus
happy to pass on this responsibility and sell the bechora,
with its rights and obligations in the service of God, to
Yaakov. According to Rashi, Esav’s statement that he
is going to die means that he was questioning why he
should keep this obligation which included the potential
for death if he made a mistake.
On the surface, Esav’s response may actually
seem reasonable. The Torah, however, dismisses it
outright. Involvement in the sacrificial service does
present a challenge; a mistake can lead to punishment,
even a punishment of death. Is it not acceptable to be
cautious and not confront the possibility of error and
its consequences? In critiquing Esav’s response, the
Torah is obviously disagreeing, strongly disagreeing,
with this position. In any position of risk, there is the
possibility of success and the possibility of loss. To
avoid the risk, and thereby not strive for the
possibility of success because of the possibility of the
loss, is an alternative. It is sometimes an alternative
that prudence would demand of us to choose. In this case,
though, the potential benefit of success far outweighed
the potential loss; it was not a time to choose to avoid
the risk. This was Esav’s mistake. He did not
correctly value the right to serve God so that he would
take this risk; he did not correctly recognize that the
potential value of success far outweighed the chance that
he would be punished for a mistake.
This question of risk-taking is a fundamental issue
within Torah thought. Many times the question emerges
whether we should undertake certain behaviours, or enter
into certain situations, where there is a potential for
spiritual success yet also a potential for spiritual
harm. Life itself represents such a question. God created
us in this world -- and did not put us directly into the
Future World -- so we would have the potential to earn
our reward of the Future World, for it is better to have
earned the benefits of the Future World than to have them
simply given to us.4 But is there not also,
thereby, the potential for the reward, chas
v’shalom, not be earned? In creating us in this
world, God’s answer must have been that it was worth
the risk. That, though, is not always the case. Kohelet
5:4 states that it is better to not make an oath than
make one and not fulfill it; essentially it is better to
not take a risk in making an oath. T.B. Chullin 2a
presents the opinion of Rabbi Meir that is even more
emphatic: it is simply better to never make an oath. Even
if one fulfills an oath, it is better never to have taken
the risk of non-fulfillment by taking the oath in the
first place.5 Sometimes, we must take the risk
and sometimes we should not
In this case, though, we see a case where the
avoidance of the risk was wrong. Esav did not want to
take the risk of having to do the service before God
which included a potential for a punishment of death if
it was done incorrectly. This was a case for taking the
risk; after all is was a responsibility that came with
the bechora; this honoured position should not
have been dismissed, especially not out of fear of not
doing it properly. To do so meant that Esav did not
recognize this honour. To do so meant that Esav did not
recognize the potential benefits of taking the risk and
serving God properly. He tried to side-step the
responsibility and the honour. This could not be an
attribute of a potential father of the Jewish nation. Rabbi Benjamin Hecht e-mail Notes (1)
Of course, subsequent
to Sinai and the vesting of the right to bring the
sacrifices in the kehuna, the priesthood, (rather
than the first born as it was before Sinai), it is not
possible for a kohain to sell this right. A simple
answer for how the right could be sold from Esav to
Yaakov is that prior to Sinai this right was not fully
vested in the first born so that he could sell it. See,
however, Mizrachi. Return to top |
© 2006 NISHMA