Holy Roots Surprising Fruits

At times we may see that a wicked person comes from a tzadik. However, at a later point, we see that descendants of that wicked person return to Hashem and become great in their own right. We see this with Esav who had holy descendants like R' Meir.

How does such a thing come to be? The Chida explains because that wicked person was from a tzadik. Had Esav not been carried by the righteous Rivka in pregnancy, his descendants wouldn’t have become who they were. Yishmael, in contrast, didn’t have such descendants like Esav, because his mother was Hagar, not Sarah.

We can translate this today where one may see a great person who doesn’t descend from such great people. This may due to the fact that an ancestor of his was righteous.