With Toldot, like every Parasha of Torah, there are many questions raised and many levels on which each issue can be explored. I would like to focus on the word B'choratechah, translated by both the 1917 and current JPS versions of the TaNaKH as your birthright. In doing so I would like to explore the nature of this birthright as well as to ask what was it in Esau’s nature that caused him to value it so little that he virtually gave it away. I would suggest that we should see how this can be interpreted in light of Micha’s prophetic admonition that the Eternal requires that we do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God and question how all of this relates to us today as Progressive Jews.
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.