Rebekah said to her son Jacob, …Now, my son, listen carefully as I instruct you. Go to the flock… B’reysheet/Genesis 27:6, 8-9
In reflecting upon our passage, Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik(1) explains our matriarch Rebekah’s concern as follows:
Rebekah commands Jacob to go out to the flocks, to the field. Why is she so adamant and insistent in this regard? Rebekah had observed how her other son Esau was by nature, a man of the field, a hunter a man who went abroad in the world and taking charge while Jacob was content to sit in the tent and study Torah. This gave Rebekah pause and concern, that Esau alone would be the only one operating in the fields, the greater world, the marketplace, the only one taking charge in matters of government, in making economic decisions affecting the entire nation, that Esau would come to rule over all worldly matters.
Were Esau to be allowed to be the only one to be in the fields, to be out in the world, engaging in everyday activity, Esau would not be content to leave Jacob alone but would eventually banish Jacob from the safe haven of his tent of study, perceiving him as an obstacle. Therefore, Rebekah orders Jacob to go out to the flocks, to go to the fields, to go to the streets, to take all that he has learned, all the Torah he has acquired, and apply it to the lived experiences of people so as to benefit the world.
Rebekah tasks Jacob with holding a plow in one hand and a volume of Gemara representing his studies in his other. While it would be easier and more comfortable for Jacob to hold his sacred volume in both hands, to sequester himself in the house of study, Rebekah asserts an ultimate and enduring truth that one is obligated to go out into the fields, to be actively engaged in the world, to help in its growth and development. One is prohibited from withdrawing from doing this difficult work out of fear or a desire to take the easier path. Rebekah’s lesson to Jacob, and to us his descendants, is that by going into the fields; by engaging with the real world, we can bring the holiness of sacred teaching to bear on societal problems, apply the teachings gleaned from Torah to help build communities that reflect divine expectations of humanity. Only by doing so, Rebekah insists, can Jacob become an equal, and valuable, participant in the field, in society, and in modern life.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993) was a major figure in Modern orthodox Judaism in America as a Talmudic scholar, modern Jewish philosopher, and religious leader. A scion of the Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty from Lithuania, The Rav, as he came to be known, ordained close to 2,000 rabbis over the course of almost half a century while serving as Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University.
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