Esav said, "I have plenty, my brother. Let what is yours be yours.": Yaakov said, "No, please. If have found favor in your eyes, please, take my tribute from my hands, for after all, I have seen your face as one sees the face of God and you were accepting of me."
This conversation between the two brothers seems to have an underlying meaning that is not clearly expressed. Otherwise, they seem to be speaking past each other.
Esav called Yaakov ‘my brother’, even though this fact was obvious. What point was he trying to make?
Additionally, he should have preceded the word אָחִי – my brother – to the rest of his sentence, saying אָחִי יֶּשׁ לִי רָב יְהִי לְךָ אֲשֶּׁר לָךְ – my brother I have plenty, Let what is yours be yours. Why did he say the words ‘my brother’ in the middle of the sentence?
Esav’s underlying meaning here was to understand Yaakov’s true purpose. He told Yaakov, if you wish to increase my pleasure and enrich me, יֶּשׁ לִי רָב – I have plenty. I don’t need your gifts to be rich. If your purpose is to draw close to me, and I should draw close to you, אָחִי יְהִי לְךָ אֲשֶּׁר לָךְ – my brother, let what is yours be yours. Let our friendship be due to our brotherhood, the fact that we are brothers. Let it not depend on gifts that you give me. Keep the gifts and stay close to me as a brother.
Yaakov answered with his longwinded sentence, that seems to be covering an underlying agenda. אַל נָא אִם נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְעֵינֶּיךָ - No, please. If have found favor in your eyes, please. Why is Yaakov repeating the word ‘please’? What is he adding with the second ‘please’?
The Ohr Hachaim explains that Yaakov was agreeing with Esav that their friendship would be more noticeable and deeper if it was based on their brotherhood, not the gifts that he had given. However, that was only true prior to his sending the gifts. Now that he had sent the gifts, returning them would not change the connection between them.
Yaakov was saying: אַל נָא – No now (the word נָא can mean please or now), now is not the time to speak like this. If I have found favor in your eyes please do me this favor and take my gift from me. He added the ויו to וְלָקַחְתָ - to show that now is the time to take the gift, even if it would have been better if he would not have given it to him.
Yaakov then explains how the gift should be accepted. כִי עַל כֵן רָאִיתִי פָנֶּיךָ כִרְ אֹת פְנֵי א -לֹהִים וַתִרְ צֵנִי - for after all, I have seen your face as one sees the face of G-d and you were accepting of me. The gift was not an expression of brotherhood anymore, it was now a gift a person grants to an important person to find favor in their eyes and that they not send them away empty-handed. If Esav would not accept the gift, not only would he act in the opposite fashion of a brother, it would also be inappropriate for someone whose favor was solicited.
Regarding Esav’s concern that Yaakov’s possessions be decreased for Esav’s sake, Yaakov answered that it would not be a problem וְכִי יֶּשׁ לִי כֹל – for I have everything. Yaakov was telling him that even after giving away the gifts, he is still blessed without needing any more.
Another explanation of the וְכִי יֶּשׁ לִי כֹל is that the idea of holiness is expressed with the word כֹל. When a person is associated with this level of holiness which is completion, it is impossible for a person to lose anything or to be considered missing anything. Anything missing is automatically replaced, because it is connected with the source of everything, which is infinitive.
The possuk in Melachim describes the miracle that Eliyahu Hanavi performed for the lady from Tzarfas. Eliyahu Hanavi was hiding away from King Ach’av, and Hashem told him that he had commanded a lady in Tzarfas to support him. He traveled to Tzarfas and met the lady, who told him that she had a small jug of oil and a container of flour, which would be her and her son’s final meal before their supplies ran out and they would both await death.
Eliyahu told her to prepare her final cake, but separate a small cake for him first, and he declaimed that the jug of flour will never run out, until Hashem sends the rain for the new crops. This special diving Beracha that does not allow a supply to run out is due to its connection to spirituality, and Yaakov told Esav that he too had this Beracha.
When the Gemara says that Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov had the three Berachos of הכל בכל and כל, it is referring to this middah of spirituality, that made their Berachos infinitive.
