The incident of Yitzchak Avinu giving the berachos to Yaakov Avinu, and all the details that took place therein, is something that endless bottles of ink have been used to explain, and at least to try to understand. With all that said, there is still endless more to be understood....
Understanding that there is so much more than we can understand is the preface to our learning about it... with the recognition that we are not even touching the surface....
My choshuv chavrusa, Rav Yehuda Horowitz shlita, shared a most incredible idea from his Rebbi, Rav Moshe Wolfson zt”l: The Torah tells us that Yitzchak loved Esav, but why? The pasuk states, כִּי צַיִּד בְפִּיו — for game was in his mouth (Bereishis 25:28); Rashi explains in his first interpretation, that this refers to the food that Esav would bring his father.
In his second elucidation Rashi explains that Esav would fool Yitzchak with his sharp questions and words, and that is what the pasuk refers to with the phrase “the game was in his mouth.”
The obvious question is, how do we understand these two explanations in Rashi, and how do they fit together? Rav Wolfson explained: Esav would bring food to his father Yitzchak, but he did not follow the halacha fully, so how could Yitzchak eat it? Rivkah got wind of it, and she would prepare the food for Yitzchok in the place of Esav’s, and that is what Yitzchak actually would eat.
When Yitzchak tasted this food, he felt the holiness within it, and thus he thought that Esav must be a tzaddik! Therefore, Rashi is teaching us, in the first explanation, simply that Yitzchok literally loved Esav because of the food that he served him! The food itself was what caused him to perceive his son as a tzaddik.
Then Rashi’s second explanation comes to teach us that even though Esav shared things on the outside that revealed how he was trying to fool his father, Yitzchak thought that perhaps his son was really a hidden tzaddik who was trying to cover up his righteousness. For the food that he served clearly emanated kedushah, and thus the talk that he talked was just a cover up to the true tzidkus within him.
Explained Rav Wolfson, in a certain sense the Torah itself whispers that Esav was not really bringing his own food to his father, but rather it was the food of Esav’s holy mother that was served to him instead; for the Torah writes these words וְצוּדָה לִּי [צָיִּד] (צידה) — And hunt game for me... (ibid. 27:3). Although the word is read צָיִּד, which means “game,” (i.e., food that was hunted), it is actually written as צידה — which literally means “her game,” alluding incredibly to the fact that the food Yitzchak was eating was really not from Esav’s hand, rather it was from his mother!
The very last time, when Yitzchak had already eaten the food that Rivka made and Esav really brought his own meat, Yitzchak was then able to feel clearly that Esav’s food was not holy at all. The reality that Esav was really not a hidden tzaddik at all was so clearly revealed.
And at that very great and powerful moment, Yitzchak saw the truth of truths in front of his eyes....
There are many lessons to be learned from this incredible explanation, but perhaps one of the greatest is that really there is so much more than meets the eye, both in regard to people, and also, as we explained above, in regard to the profundity and depth in every pasuk of Chumash. The Torah, in its most precise and exact way, has within every letter a bottomless well of wisdom, and each revelation is an eternal revelation of truth....
B’Siyata DiShmaya.
