Toldot: Free Will
Toldot: Free Will

These are the generations of Isaac, son of Abraham: Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan Aram, sister of Laban the Aramean, as his wife. Isaac prayed to G-d in his wife’s presence, for she was barren. HaShem heard his prayers, and Rebecca his wife became pregnant. The children struggled within her, and she said: If so, then why am I like this? HaShem said to her: Two nations are in your womb, and two kingdoms will separate from your innards; one kingdom will inherit power from the other kingdom, and the greater will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:19-23).

 A superficial reading of our parashah suggests that the futures of Isaac and Rebecca’s sons were pre-determined. Neither could live a life of uneventful obscurity – each one would grow into a complete nation, each one would bring forth a kingdom (following Rashi on v.23), the first-born was predestined to be subservient to his younger twin.

More than this: “one kingdom will inherit power from the other kingdom” irrevocably places the two nations in eternal conflict – or, at the very least, in eternal rivalry:

“If anyone tells you that Caesarea [the epitome of Rome, the descendant of Esau] and Jerusalem [the crown of Israel, descendant of Jacob] are both destroyed – do not believe him; if he tells you that both are flourishing – do not believe him. But if he tells you that Caesarea is destroyed and Jerusalem is flourishing, or that Jerusalem is destroyed and Caesarea is flourishing – believe him” (Megillah 6a).

Or, more tersely, “if one is inhabited, the other is desolate” (Pesachim 42b).

Esau and Jacob are at opposite ends of the balance: as one rises, the other falls. And this rivalry began while they were yet in their mother’s womb: “The children struggled within her” – “they were each trying to kill the other… Whenever [Rebecca] would pass a synagogue or a yeshivah, Jacob would struggle to emerge…; whenever she would pass a place of idol-worship, Esau would struggle to emerge” (Genesis Rabbah 63:6).

The Radak explains “one kingdom will inherit power from the other kingdom” to mean: “They will never be equal in ability; rather, one will always be dominant over the other”.

The Ramban explains: “Two nations who hate and fight against each other; their fight from the very beginning already portended what would happen between them at the end”. And S’forno says: “‘Two nations’ – separated by different ideologies; and ‘two kingdoms’ – they will also be separated politically”.

With a start like this in life, what chance did Esau ever have?!

Well, the two twin brothers actually had the same chances, the same opportunities, to achieve holiness and their connection with G-d. For sure, their ways of serving Him, their paths to holiness, were to be distinct from each other. But while both were predestined for greatness, each had free will to choose to become great in holiness and good, or great in wickedness.

The difference in the destinies of these two brothers is particularly emphatic. Isaac and Ishmael likewise chose very different paths, but this is hardly surprising – after all, while they came from the same father, they had different mothers. We would expect a son of Sarah to be far holier and more righteous than a son of Hagar, even though they are both sons of Abraham. Even two full brothers born several years apart will experience different upbringing from their parents and different influences from society.

The Pachad Yitzchak (Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, Poland, Lithuania, Israel, and USA, 1906-1980), in his commentary on Purim, relates Jacob and Esau to the two he-goats slaughtered by the High Priest on Yom Kippur: “Aaron shall cast lots on the two he-goats – one lot to HaShem, and one lot to Azazel” (Leviticus 16:8). These two he-goats had to be identical, and it is this that emphasizes the difference in their destinies. Had one been black and one white for example, then their different destinies might have seemed expected; but the fact of their being identical makes their different destinies more striking. The same with Jacob and Esau: born simultaneously to the same parents – they had identical opportunities, identical environments, identical challenges – yet see what each one did with his life, where each of them led his descendants!

This brings us back to how the Torah introduces us to Rebecca here – “Rebecca daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan Aram, sister of Laban the Aramean”.

Rashi picks up on this seemingly unnecessary phrase: “Has it not already been written that she was the daughter of Bethuel and sister of Laban and from Paddan Aram? This is only to recount her praises – even though she was the daughter of an evil man and the sister of an evil man, and she was from a place of evil people, she did not learn from their deeds”.

The corollary, of course, is that Jacob and Esau, both born of two tzaddikim, were nevertheless free to choose their own directions in life. In Rabbi Elazar’s words, “a tzaddik who dwells between two evil people does not learn from their ways; an evil person who dwells between two tzaddikim does not learn from their ways” (Yoma 38b).

Esau could have chosen to use his rivalry with his twin to elevate them both: he could have used his cunning and his physical strength for holiness rather than evil.

Everyone who ever learned in Yeshivah has experienced a “chavrutah” – the study-partner with whom one battles over understanding Talmud, crosses verbal swords with over interpretation of texts. One of the partners must always vanquish his chavrutah – they must inevitably be rivals, fighting each other to discover the truth that both love and yearn for. And as anyone who ever learned in Yeshivah knows, one’s “chavrutah” usually becomes his best friend.



“A tzaddik who dwells between two evil people does not learn from their ways; an evil person who dwells between two tzaddikim does not learn from their ways” (Yoma 38b).

Esau could have chosen to become his twin brother’s rival in seeking for truth and fighting for holiness. He chose instead to become Jacob’s eternal enemy.

We all have this same free will, the same freedom to choose good or evil (or anywhere in between). No one is pre-destined for good or for evil. A fundamental principle of Judaism is that “everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven” (Brachot 33b, Megillah 25a et. al.).

That is to say, even though a person’s desires, intelligence, strengths, weaknesses, abilities – all may be predetermined (in modern scientific terms, encoded in his DNA), nevertheless every one of has the free choice to use all our traits for G-d or against Him, for good or for evil, to make this world a more evil place or a holier place.