Unlike other ancient books and stories, the Hebrew Bible does not offer any "perfect" characters. All of the Bible's great and pious heroes have at least one instance in which they are shown to be deeply flawed. Moses flies into rages and David sleeps with other men's wives. In the Hebrew Bible there is nothing like a Jesus, Buddha, or Mohammed who exhibits godlike perfection. Jews seem to like the realism in the way the Hebrew Bible presents its heroes as humanly flawed.

But there is another way of looking at the Bible's imperfect heroes. We might ask, "Even if a human being could be perfect, would it be possible to behave perfectly in such an imperfect world as ours? What would flawlessness even look like in a reality that sometimes leaves us with no good choices?" We may actually come to the conclusion that to be a truly righteous person in this flawed world, one must adopt behaviors that appear to be unrighteous.

In this week's Torah portion (Toledot), for example, we see the patriarch Jacob behaving in ways that seem morally questionable. He deceived his father Isaac and cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright. Yet, it can be argued that Jacob's deceit served a higher purpose and was actually righteous. His father Isaac, after all, was blinded by his fears and his carnal appetites. If left to his own devices, he would have made a terrible decision. Esau, Jacob's brother, was manifestly unfit to be a leader of God's people. Jacob stole the birthright from him because it was what was necessary to secure the future of his people and to allow God's will to be realized.

So then, why does Isaac say that Jacob acted "with guile" (b'mirmah, Gen. 27:35) in deceiving his father and stealing from his brother? It does not sound like a word you would use to describe the behavior of a righteous person. It is the same Hebrew word that Amos used to describe the dishonest scales and weights that the wicked use to cheat the poor (Amos 8:5). Not very nice.

But, in the case of Jacob deceiving his father and stealing from his brother, Rashi says (following the translation of Onkolos) that the word "guile" actually means "wisdom." Sometimes, in this world, to act with guile – even with treachery – is the path of wisdom.

A story about Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt (the great-great-grandfather of the 20th century rabbi of the same name) illustrates this point. The story (told in Aharon Yaakov Greenberg's Itturei Torah, 1:240), says that there was once a dispute in the town of Apta between two esteemed families. The families brought the dispute to Rabbi Heschel and he ruled in favor of one of the two families. After that, the family that lost the dispute began spreading gossip saying that the rabbi was corrupt. The gossiping got so bad that some said that the integrity of the whole town was questionable because of the corruption of its rabbi.

Rabbi Heschel did not defend himself or argue against the charge of corruption. Rather, he stated plainly, "Truly, this is a place of error." However, he said, the real test of truth is not in the way things seem on the surface.

"The real vision of truthfulness," said Heschel, "is the vision demonstrated by the patriarchs – but not that of Abraham, the man of faith, and not that of Isaac, who was willing to sacrifice his own life. It cannot be them. Rather, it is the vision of Jacob who stole the birthright from Esau for a pot of lentils, who tricked his father into blessing him, and who outwitted Laban. It is precisely he who is praised for truthfulness by the prophet who said, 'You shall give truth to Jacob' (Micah 7:20). We must be blessed with the most subtle discernment to understand where truth is."

What was Rabbi Heschel trying to say? It seems that to be able to see the truth in this confusing and muddled world requires all the cleverness of a con man, the guile of a trickster. It is Jacob who is the paradigm of truth because it is he who has the craft to cut to the essence of impossible situations in which there are never black and white answers, only shades of gray.  It requires skill to discern where, amongst the gray choices of reality, the truth is best to be found.

Rabbi Heschel began his answer by saying, “Truly, this is a place of error.”  It was not just a clever rhetorical flourish to answer a false charge of corruption. He was talking about something bigger than just the town of Apta. In Heschel's response, “this place” is really the world. Our reality is not a place where the truth is obvious to any person of simple faith and earnest devotion (like Abraham and Isaac). Rather, in “this place,” filled with error, we are forever searching to find the best answer to life’s tests without ever being able to be certain that we have hit upon “the truth.”

And, there is an important lesson here, also, about the nature of forgiveness and self-forgiveness. We often are quick to judge others and, even more, ourselves, for failures in judgment. We imagine that there is some ideal solution to any given problem we may face in life. The real truth is that this is an illusion.  Most of life’s most important challenges – how to deal with the conflicts within families, communities, friends and foes – don’t have any black and white answers. 

Often, the best we can hope to do is to use all of our skill to come up with clever solutions that do the most good and the least harm. It is good to be good, but sometimes it is just as important to be clever. As Rashi taught, guile really can be wisdom in another form.

Instead of criticizing others and ourselves for not dealing with life’s difficulties in the “perfect” way, we should practice forgiveness and recognize that we are all just doing the best we can in an a world filled with uncertainty and imperfection. 


Other Posts on this Topic:
Noah: The Redemption of God
​Vayakhel-Pekudei: Being a Dwelling for God

This is an insight on this week's Torah portion that I learned from one of my bar mitzvah students. (It is always wonderful when a teacher learns from the student; good work, Jake.) In the opening chapter of Toldot, we read how the twin boys, Esau and Jacob, fought with each other while they were still in their mother's womb (Genesis 25:22), and how Jacob, the second-born, was pulling at his brother's ankle during birth, trying to get ahead of him (verse 26). 

One day, Esau came home from hunting, exhausted and famished. He saw that his brother was cooking lentils and he asked for some. Jacob, always looking for an opportunity to take advantage of his brother, said, "First sell me your birthright" (verse 31). Esau, rather than protest, gave in and sold his birthright. Why?

Isn't it possible that, after putting up with Jacob's challenges and struggles for power for so many years, Esau just decided that he would be happier without the birthright of the firstborn? Esau may have wanted to say to Jacob, "If you want the birthright so much that you're willing to treat me so unkindly, take it. If keeping the birthright means that I have to put up with this behavior for the rest of my life, I would rather not have it."

This story was not the end of the struggles between Esau and Jacob. Later in this week's Torah portion, Jacob also tricked their father out of the blessing due to Esau. Esau was so enraged by this insult that Jacob had to run away from home in fear for his life (Genesis 27:41-45). The two brothers did not see each other again for more than twenty years. When they did, Jacob was terrified that Esau still would want to kill him. He was genuinely surprised to find that Esau bore no grudge and seemed happy with what he had in life (Genesis 33:4-11). 

What happened? It seems that Esau discovered he could be happy without the birthright and his father's blessing. Maybe he was even happier without them than he would have been with them. Maybe, Esau learned, as the saying goes, "The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat!"

In my experience, this can happen when people realize that they don't need (or can't have) something that they previously had struggled to attain or keep. Whether it is wealth, power, or status, letting go of the struggle often brings more happiness than the object of desire ever could have brought. Maybe you'll recognize yourself in these examples from my experience:

• A businessman was caught in a shady deal that cost him his business and most of his wealth. After the crisis, he found new meaning in life by pursuing his first love as an artist and discovered that it brought him greater joy than the money and prestige of his old job.

• A couple anguished over their failure to conceive a child and went to great expense to have one they "could call their own." After they gave up fighting infertility, they adopted a child and discovered such great happiness that they wished they had chosen to adopt from the beginning.

• A mother who had high ambitions for her son's career as an athlete was able to reconnect with her child in a more meaningful and healthy way after he failed to make it to the top of his sport. Both mother and child discovered that they were much happier without the constant pressure to compete.

I am in no way suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with striving for business success, conceiving and birthing a child, or pursuing athletic ambition. In the right context, those are things that can bring great happiness in life. (Your mileage may vary). For many of us, though, the blinders we can put onto our souls when we pursue goals unrelentingly can hide true happiness from us. 

That might describe what happened to Jacob. He was so driven by his ambition that he failed to see how he hurt his brother, his parents, his father-in-law, his wives, and, ultimately, himself. It took a wrestling match with an angel (we'll get there in a few weeks) for him to let go of the drive to compete and to accept his life as it was. For better or for worse, Esau may have gotten there before he did.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Counting from Freedom to Covenant: Eternity
Sukkot: To Everything There is a Season
Letting Go