A Home Filled with Light
In the year 2108 from Creation, twins were born to Yitzchak Avinu and his wife Rivkah: Yaakov and Eisav.
They took their first steps in a home of exceptional holiness. From their earliest days, they were raised in an atmosphere filled with Torah, fear of Heaven, and love for Hashem. The home of Yitzchak and Rivkah joined wisdom with holiness, and greatness in Torah with righteousness.
It was a home of immense spiritual wealth.
On Shabbat, this holiness was felt even more clearly. Around Yitzchak’s holy table, the atmosphere was elevated and filled with the sanctity of Shabbat, and each and every week, Yaakov and Eisav experienced the sweetness and radiance of Shabbat.
Yaakov and Eisav merited to grow up with a deep inner sense of meaning. Yitzchak and Rivkah sent them to the house of Torah study, where they learned Torah with great diligence, enthusiasm, and vitality.
For thirteen years, Yaakov and Eisav sat and engaged in Torah. But when Eisav turned thirteen, forces within him intensified and began to pull him in a different direction.
Then, one day, the dreadful news reached Yaakov and Eisav: “Your grandfather, Avraham Avinu, has passed away.”
On that dark day, Eisav fell into the trap for the first time.
As the holy Rabbi Mordechai HaKohen writes:3
When they were young, they went to school, to the beit midrash of Shem and Ever. But when Avraham died, Torah study was suspended, as Chazal say (Moed Katan 22b): “When a sage dies, his house of study ceases their learning.”
That day, Eisav went out to the field. He saw Nimrod wearing the garment of Adam HaRishon, desired it, killed him, and took the garment. When he wore it, all the animals and beasts would come on their own, because the forms of all the creatures were embedded in that garment, and he would use it to trap them.
From that day onward, Eisav went out on an evil path.4
From that dreadful day, Eisav continued to decline until he became an idolater. As Rashi writes on the verse, “The boys grew up, and Eisav became...” (Bereishit 25:27): As long as they were young, their deeds were not yet recognizable, and people did not examine their true nature. Once they became thirteen, this one turned to the houses of study, and that one turned to idolatry.
Yet although Eisav threw off the yoke of Heaven, there was one mitzvah he continued to hold onto with all his strength: The mitzvah of honoring his parents.5
Wellsprings of Wisdom
3. Siftei Kohen, Bereishit 25:27.
4. The Yalkut Shimoni (Toldot 110) teaches that on the day Avraham Avinu passed away, Eisav committed five severe transgressions: he violated a betrothed girl, murdered, denied the resurrection of the dead, denied the foundation of faith, and despised the birthright.
5. The Rambam writes in Iggeret HaShemad that although Eisav was wicked and committed severe sins, he still possessed the merit of honoring his father. Because he held onto this one mitzvah, Hashem rewarded him with enduring kingship until the coming of Moshiach, for “the Holy One, blessed be He, does not withhold the reward of any creature.”
