The examples are endless and each one of us can find the examples in our own challenges.
But let us take a look at the Parsha and see who we are following.
Yitzchak asked Eisav to go and bring him some hunted meat to have a dinner on Pesach night. Eisav had the special clothing of Adam Harishon which reached Nimrod and then Eisav took after killing Nimrod. It was a cloak that whoever would wear it, all the animals were scared of him and would bow down.
But Eisav never wore it on this mission. He left it in his mother’s care. He went out to hunt because he listened to his father and took his bow and arrow. His Kibbud Av was unique.
But the Passuk and the Midrash tell us that he went to hunt, but had in mind that if he doesn’t manage to hunt he would just steal an animal. The Targum Yonathan ben Uziel tells us that Eisav never managed to catch or steal any animal so he just went and killed a dog, roasted it’s meat and brought it to his father.
Dog’s meat for Yitzchak Avinu?! That is someone who exemplifies in Kibbud av?
But we all know the answer. He had good intentions but things never quite worked out and he had to give up on his pure dreams.
That is the way of Eisav, but Yaakov is Ikvi – consistent, doesn’t buckle from his original plan and stays steadfast.
The question is who are we like?
