(Un)Conditional Love

Yitzchak and Rivkah provide us with two models of parenting—love dependent on a specific interaction and love that is unconditional.

By Rabbi Shimon Felix

The following article is reprinted with permission from The Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel.

 

This week's portion, Toldot, contains the difficult story of the sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau (Yaakov and Esav), seen by Jewish tradition as emblematic of the difficult relationship between Israel and the nations of the world--specifically Rome and Christianity--and the problematic handling of their rivalry by their parents, Isaac and Rebecca (Yizchak and Rivkah).

Early on, the Torah takes the poor parents somewhat off the hook, in that it describes the rivalry between the two brothers as something that began in the womb--can't blame faulty parenting here!

 

However, once they are born, after we are told of their apparently innate, natural differences (Esav is described as a hairy hunter, a man of the great outdoors, whereas Yaakov is a smooth dweller of tents, which probably means he was a shepherd but is also understood to mean he was the contemplative, studious, brainy, indoor type), we are told that "Yizchak loved Esav, for he ate of the food which he had hunted, and Rivkah loved Yaakov." What a recipe for disaster!

 

Again and again, we are told of Yitzchak's love for the game that Esav hunted and brought to him. It seems clear that Yizchak's love for Esav stems from, and is perhaps dependent on, this behavior on the part of Esav; he loves him because he respectfully and lovingly feeds him the food which he loves. Rivkah's love for Yaakov, on the other hand, remains unexplained; she just loves him.

Ultimately, Yaakov, egged on by his loving mother, steals his father's death-bed blessing, which was intended for Esav, by pretending to be Esav, even to the extent of, Esav-like, bringing Yizchak some of the food he so loved. When Esav discovers that he has been robbed of his father's blessing, his hatred for Yaakov is complete, and Yaakov must skip the country to avoid being killed by him.

It is clear that Yizchak's love for Esav and Rivkah's love for Yaakov are central to the story, and it is these relationships which I would like to examine.

Why do parents love their kids? First of all, they don't always love them. More and more, we hear about neglectful, abusive parents, parents who clearly do not love their children. A good deal of recent academic thinking on the topic seems to be aimed at undercutting the traditional assumption of the naturalness and universality of parents' (and especially mothers') love for the child.

 

I recently read an article in the London Review of Books whose thesis, predictably enough, was that the concepts of motherhood and mothering were far from being universal, but were in fact (you guessed it) constructs, which were culturally and societally determined. Where love can be shown to exist, we are told that such love is self-serving, the product of a societal arrangement--a 'deal'--wherein I lovingly take care of my kids now, in the hope that they will take care of me in my old age. Some explain parents' love for their children as really the work of selfish genes. All this loving is simply a genetic strategy, a Darwinian attempt to encourage me to take care of my kids, thereby insuring the survival of my little piece of the species.

With this in mind, it is interesting to note the difference between the love of Yizchak for Esav, which is presented to us as being triggered by and dependent upon a certain kind of interaction which is profitable for Yizchak, and Rivkah's love for Yaakov, which is presented simply as the way Rivkah was. Her love for Yaakov is just there, a fact, not contingent on any specific behavior on Yaakov's part, nor on any interaction with his parents.

We are presented here with two ways of loving. Yizchak's love for Esav is very common, and understandable. It is easy to love a competent, helpful, successful son, who does what we want him to do. A son who actively and lovingly cares for his parents. Esav is often presented by the rabbis of the Midrash and Talmud as a model of respect and love for one's parent. His caring for the aged Yizchak is seen by the Rabbis as sincere, and heartfelt, and is reciprocated by Yizchak's preferential love for him.

We are not given a reason for Rivkah's love for Yaakov. It seems to be a classic, traditional 'mother's love." In fact, Rivkah is so true to that model that she is even willing to sacrifice herself for her beloved son. When he expresses doubt as to the wisdom of trying to trick Yizchak into blessing him by pretending to be Esav, and wonders what will happen if he is found out, Rivkah reassures him that, if his father discovers the ruse and curses, rather than blesses, him, "your curse will be on me, my son." It is interesting to note that Rivkah, apparently, has no such unconditional love for her son Esav.

I would like to introduce here an idea that I was taught by Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld. One of the themes that Sharon really hits hard when she is talking about inter-personal relations (something which, thank God, she does a lot), is the way we are often forced into a mode of behavior by the way others perceive us.

 

If I am consistently seen as being a certain type, if I am related to, over and over, as a certain kind of person, I will be affected by that perception. I am in danger of being locked into, and even overemphasizing the personality traits which others perceive me as having. I may rebel against this perception, and push myself towards the opposite kind of behavior patterns, but, however I respond to it, I am deeply affected by the way I am perceived, especially by those closest to me.

Yizchak, apparently very early on, was locked into a certain way of perceiving Esav. It was a positive perception--he loved and enjoyed him--but it was a very specific perception. Esav is the one who goes out and hunts, the one who skillfully and lovingly brings me the food I need and love. The absence of a report about Yizchak's love for his other son, Yaakov, may indicate that Yizchak was unable to find in Yaakov's activities or talents something to latch on to and love. There was nothing Yaakov did which got Yizchak to love him.

We are told that Rivkah, on the other hand, loved Yaakov unconditionally. There is no reason, no specific action, behavior or character trait attached to the emotion. She apparently loved him simply because he was her son, and therefore she found him lovable.

Might this have been Esav's tragedy, and Yaakov's salvation? The kind of love that Esav experienced from his father may well have locked him into a certain way of behaving. He was loved for his persona of hunter, the man of action, the man who brings home the venison, and so that is who he must be. Is it not a straight line from this narrow perception of who Esav is and what he can do to Yizchak's death-bed blessing to Esav--"you shall live by your sword," which locks Esav, forever, into a very specific way of being in the world?

 

And is it not Rivkah's unconditional love for Yaakov, the love that some contemporary thinkers would have us believe does not really exist, which frees him to be whatever he must be, to be whoever he wants to be, and which even gives him, at his father's deathbed, the ability, at his mother's urging, to "be" Esav, and wrest his blessing--the blessing of the first born--away from him, and take it for himself?

All Esav can be is Esav; Rivkah's unconditional love for Yaakov enables him to be anything, and to thereby gain ascendancy over his poor, limited brother. The fact that all Esav ever got was his father's appreciation of a certain kind of behavior, and was denied the kind of unconditional, unlimited love that his mother gave to Yaakov, made him who he was.

 

The fact that Yaakov was loved unconditionally by his mother gives him the strength to be many things, as we see in the climactic moments of this week's parsha, and as we will see in the stories we will read in the weeks to come about the rest of Yaakov's life.

 

Rabbi Shimon Felix is the Israel Director of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel. He lives with his family in Jerusalem, and has taught in a wide variety of educational frameworks in Israel and abroad.