וישלח יצחק את יעקב וילך פדנה ארם אל ל בן בן בתואל הארמי אחי רבקה אם יעקב ועשו
“And Yitzchak sent off Yaakov, and he went toward Padan Aram, to Lavan the son of Besuel the Aramean, the brother of Rivkah, the mother of Yaakov and Eisav.” (Bereishis 28:5)
In the above pasuk, the Torah not only mentions Lavan’s relationship to Rivkah, but also that Rivkah is the mother of Yaakov and Eisav. Why does this obvious fact have to be repeated over here?
Instead of answering the question, Rashi writes: “I do not know what it teaches us.” According to the Sifsei Chachamim, Rashi did, in fact, have many ways to explain the text. However, he did not know which explanation conveyed the pshuto shel mikra, the plain, straightforward meaning of the text.
R’ Avraham Bukspan suggests the following explanation:
We know that Eisav greatly honored his father. “Rav Shimon ben Gamliel said, ‘All my life I served my father, and yet I never served him one-hundredth of the amount that the wicked Eisav served his father’” (Yalkut Shimoni 115). Beyond his personal service, Eisav was also careful not to cause his father any emotional pain. Rashi (25:27) says that Eisav asked his father halachic questions, in order to maintain a ruse that he was an observant member of the family. His father would have been devastated knowing the truth about his elder son’s character. Additionally, though he wanted to take revenge on Yaakov for snatching the berachos, Eisav resolved not to kill his brother until after his father’s death. Rashi (27:41) tells us that he did not want to inflict pain upon his father by killing Yaakov. Clearly, Eisav was careful to honor his father and not upset him.
Now let’s see how he treated his mother, Rivkah. We find no mention in Chazal about how he honored his mother or tried not to hurt her. In fact, while delaying his revenge until after his father’s death, there is no mention of any concern about whether this would cause his mother pain. As we see in the Ohr HaChaim (25:28), all of Eisav’s pious deeds were directed only toward his father, but not his mother. His actions of honor were not for the sake of the mitzvah, rather to ensure that his father would not curse him, or that he would receive the blessings. Whereas when it came to his mother, he was not afraid of any curse she may deliver and was not interested in any blessing she may bestow. And that is why he said he will wait for his father’s death, but not his mother’s.
But how did Rivkah treat or feel about her son Eisav? We see no actions on her part to distance Eisav from herself or from the family. While the pasuk tells us that Rivkah loved Yaakov (25:28), this does not mean that she did not love Eisav. Because then the first part of the pasuk, where it says that Yitzchak loved Eisav, would likewise imply that he did not love Yaakov. Rather, he loved Eisav more than Yaakov. Ergo, she loved Yaakov more than Eisav. But there was still some love.
When Rivkah begged Yaakov to leave home for his own safety, she added (27:45), “Why should I lose both of you on one day?” The Targum Yonasan explains that Rivkah surmised that on the day Eisav would go to kill Yaakov, he would be deserving of death and therefore have to go into exile, like Kayin when he killed his brother Hevel and his parents had no contact with him. We see the love Rivkah had for Eisav. Even if Eisav would kill his brother and thus be deserving of death himself, she could not bear the thought of her remaining son having to go into exile. She was willing to send Yaakov away, so that at least now he would be safe and Eisav would stay home. But were he to stay home and then be killed by Eisav, Rivkah would be bereft of both of her sons.
Now we can understand why the Torah notes that she was the mother of both Yaakov and Eisav. She cared for both. She did not want to lose either of them, and certainly not both.
The Torah is showing us that although Eisav did not care enough about his mother to be concerned with causing her emotional distress, Rivkah still remained his mother in her love and her concern.
No matter what, a mother is still a mother.
Using this concept perhaps we can explain something else in this week’s parsha.
Both Sorah and Rivkah had difficult children, however, they both dealt with it very differently. When Sorah noticed the evil ways of Yishmael, she directly confronted Avraham and ordered Yishmael’s immediate expulsion (Bereishis 21:9-10). In this week’s parsha, however, although Rivkah was clearly aware of the difference between her sons, she never directly told Yitzchak the truth about Eisav. Instead, she resorted to a backhanded scheme to ensure that the righteous Yaakov would receive his father’s blessings. Why didn’t she confront Yitzchak in the same manner that her mother-in-law had previously employed?
The Netziv explains that when Rivkah first encountered Yitzchak, she was returning with Eliezer and his servants and observed Yitzchak in the field davening Mincha. When he prayed, he was so removed from this world that he appeared angelic and spiritual. Hence, she slipped off her donkey and covered herself out of awe and reverence for this holy man (24:64-65).
This initial encounter made such a deep impression on Rivkah that she found herself unable to directly confront him for the rest of their married life due to the deeply ingrained respect she had for her husband. As a result, when she realized that Yitzchak erred in his judgment about which son to bless, she had no choice but to indirectly circumvent his intentions to bring about the proper outcome in which Yaakov received the blessings that he deserved.
However, based on the principal we mentioned above that a mother is always a mother we can suggest a different explanation. Sorah did not give birth to Yishmael as Rivkah did to Eisav. Yishmael was the son of Avraham and Hagar, Sorah’s maidservant. No matter how bad a child may behave, a mother is still a mother. The natural love that Rivkah felt toward her biological son Eisav prevented her from confronting Yitzchok and insisting that he be sent away in the manner that Sorah was able to insist that Yishmael, who was not her son, be banished.
