Parshas Toldos 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
ויגדלו הנערים ויהי עשו איש ידע ציד איש שדה ויעקב איש תם ישב אהלים ... (כה-כז)
I heard the following powerful insight from R’ Chaim Kaufman zt”l. Why, regarding Esav, does it say the word "איש" two times, while when describing Yaakov it just says "איש" once? He explained based on an incident that happened to him. Years ago when people were dreaming about going to the moon, R’ Sholom M’Shatz zt”l, said it will never happen, because the posuk states: "השמים שמים לה' והארץ נתן לבני אדם". The heaven is exclusively for Hashem, while the earth is given to humans. However, after a few years, the impossible actually happened and the dream became a reality. People landed on the moon. R’ Chaim was troubled. How do we reconcile the tzaddik’s words with the hard facts?
Shortly thereafter, he met a choshuva Yid who offered him the following resolution to his problem: “When astronauts and their spaceships ascend out of the earth’s orbit, they take a great deal of gear along with them. This includes food, space suits, and even oxygen. Now, we see that they can reach outer space, but they cannot live there. Only in a place in which one can function fully, using the gifts Hashem graciously supplied, can we call it “living.” That was what the Rebbe meant.
Based on this, said R’ Chaim, we can explain the posuk. Esav led a double life. One, was "איש שדה" - hunting and killing; the other of "איש ציד" - he was "אחד בפה ואחד בלב", trapping and tricking his father Yitzchok into believing that he was pious. Yaakov, on the other hand, led one solid, uniform and consistent life of "יושב אהלים" - 24/7. That is the ideal life.
R’ Yitzchok Hutner zt”l commented on the words of Chazal: "כל המאריך באחד מאריכין לו ימיו ושנותיו". If one lives a life of אחד - with one central theme, where every facet of their lives isלה' ולתורתו , he will be zoche to arichas yomim v’shanim. יה"ר that we will all be zoche to lead such productive lives b’siyata d’shmaya.