Parashat Toldot: Alone Together

 I have a strong affiliation with this week’s Parasha of Toldot as it is my Bar Mitzvah Sedra.

My Hebrew birthday was last Monday, 13^th November which tallies with 29^th (Mar)Cheshvan in the Hebrew calendar.  It is also known as Erev Rosh Chodesh Kislev.

This year, the commemoration of my birthday has been somewhat muted as it is the first one in my life that I haven’t had my father by my side, physically or metaphorically, to mark the day.  I used to tease my parents by telephoning them and asking them to wish me a ‘Happy Birthday’.  As an only child, you’d expect them to remember the date of their son’s birthday!  We always laughed about this.

In 2023, neither my mother nor father were there to join me in marking the anniversary of my entering the world.

I regard Parashat Toldot (which is always recited in the week of my birthday) as being ‘my Sedra’.  It has always had a significant impact on my thought process; all the more so this year.

From an early age, Mum and Dad promised me that I would celebrate my Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel (Western Wall).

The time approached for me to start preparing to lein (read from the Torah).  When I was eleven years old, my father told me that he would like to teach me the trope, or Taamim as it is called in Hebrew.  This meant a great deal to both him and me.  As he was American, he taught me the notation that he had learned nearly forty years previously and the tune is markedly different to the one we Ashkenazim sing in the UK.  I was so excited.  Together, we worked hard to ensure that I knew every single word and corresponding note.  Being a perfectionist, my father’s exacting standards were not easy to attain but I hoped that I would ‘do him proud’ on the day.

And then out of the blue, tragedy struck.  My beloved grandfather, my Bonpapa, who lived in New York and who I adored, suffered a severe heart attack during Chol Hamoed Sukkot and another one which proved to be fatal on erev Shabbat Bereishit, shortly before candle-lighting time.  It was just over a year before my Bar Mitzvah was due to take place.

If that wasn’t heartbreaking enough, he had not even had the chance to see me laying the tefillin he had bought for me.  I was devastated in tandem with the rest of my family.

On 6^th November 980, I stood before the Kotel bedecked in my new tefillin and recited my portion without making a single mistake.  I still remember the look of pride on my father’s face as I demonstrated the result of his sterling efforts.  My mother was beaming on the other side of the mechitza.

The word ‘Toldot’ in Hebrew means ‘Generations’.  It describes the birth of Yaakov and Eisav to Yitzchak and Rivka after a wait of twenty years as Rivka was unable to conceive.  It is also the only Parasha that unites our three patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov although this is not readily apparent on a peshat (simple) level.

Yaakov and Eisav were fifteen years old (Avraham was 100 when Yitzchak was born and he was 60 when the twins were born) when the Torah tells us that Yaakov made some lentil soup which his brother saw and desired upon returning from hunting in a field.  Exhausted from all of the killing that he had enacted (according to Rashi), he wanted the lentil soup so much that he agreed to give up his precious birthright in return for the pottage.  The ‘sale’ went ahead and Eisav left satiated.

The whole story seems rather strange until you understand the reason why Yaakov was cooking the soup in the first place.  Rashi tells us that, on that very day their grandfather, Avraham, had died at the age of 175 (hence the calculation regarding Yaakov and Eisav being 15) and Yaakov prepared the lentil soup to give to his father, Yitzchak who was mourning Avraham’s passing.

At that time, this was the traditional first dish given to an avel (mourner) as the round shape of lentils symbolised the cycle of life, in the same manner ascribed to an egg which constitutes an avel’s first meal after the funeral.  Avraham’s impact on Yitzchak, which in turn led to his influence on his youngest son, resulted in Yaakov knowing how to appropriately mark both the death of his grandfather at the same time as honouring and caring for his father.  This was through providing him with an appropriate meal at this very painful time in his life.  Yaakov was reinforcing the middot (positive character traits) and mesorah (tradition) that he’d inherited from both his father and grandfather.  This symbolism was wasted on Eisav who was more interested in filling his stomach than considering the impact of the loss of his extraordinary grandfather.

This element of the Parasha is one that I readily identify with and not only because my father’s name was also Yitzchak.  His influence, particularly in my Jewish education inspired me to take the path of life that led me to becoming a Rabbi.  As well as teaching me my Bar Mitzvah portion, we also used to learn Chumash and Mishna together on Shabbat afternoons when I was growing up.  I didn’t appreciate how extremely learned he was until I was much older and it gave me a great deal of pleasure sharing my knowledge with both my parents as I acquired it, particularly during my Semicha studies.  In educating me through our texts, he was carrying on the tradition that he’d learned from his father and going back through the generations – the Toldot – to Yaakov, Yitzchak and Avraham.

That my grandfather was unable to see me attain my Bar Mitzvah and my father passed away shortly before he could see his son officiating at his granddaughter’s chuppah, has been extremely difficult.  I do however derive a great deal of comfort from the fact that he was able to attend Hadassah and Rodion’s Engagement (or ‘vort’) and witness me conducting the service of the future mothers-in-law breaking of the plates!  He really enjoyed that.

I relate to Toldot because it represents the strong bond that unites our generations.  Avraham through Yitzchak, Yaakov and the twelve sons that would flower into the 14 million Jews that exist today, of which two members were my father and grandfather.  In respecting the traditions that have been imbued in me, I pray that my children and grandchildren will continue the Jewish chain long into the future when I am no longer around.

In this most difficult of years, it gives me great comfort to know that although he is no longer with me in body, he and my mother accompany me in spirit so that although I am alone, in truth, they are and will always be together with me, guiding me along the correct path in whichever direction my life takes me.

It’s quite remarkable how much one can learn from a simple pot of lentil soup isn’t it?

Shabbat Shalom