Isaac | Sharing Jewish Tradition

When Isaac gave a blessing to Jacob, why did he think there was nothing left for the other twin brother, Esau? The blessing he gave was pretty vague. He didn’t make a will with two flocks of sheep and a dozen camels; instead he promised unspecified amounts of stuff like dew and crops, which are there for the taking. He didn’t give a patch of land, he didn’t give away his favorite stick or special rock. So why did both he and Esau think there was nothing left for Esau?

Sometimes we assume that the world’s bounty is finite. We like to assign a numerical value to everything: the destruction wrought by a hurricane, the size of a country’s economy, the degree of happiness in Bhutan. Everybody knows the important things can’t be quantified–even students in business school, I suppose–but in our society it’s hard in our society to resist the temptation to think in quantities.

A brief exchange between Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s play exemplifies the point. Magnanimous Antony is oh, so different from the rest of those pettifogging Romans, as Cleopatra teases him with being just like his countrymen:

Cleo: If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Ant: There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.
Cleo: I’ll set a bourn (limit) how far to be beloved.
Ant: Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

No, love has no limit; like dew, it represents infinite bounty. A parent’s love for one child need not diminish love for another.

I once heard a sermon on Cain and Abel: Cain’s failing, said the Rabbi, was in thinking that God’s love must be limited. If God took Abel’s offering, God could not possibly accept Cain’s with equal delight. Likewise, once Isaac had wished for dew for Jacob, Esau thought there must be less for him. (If the brothers spent a night in the open air, wouldn’t they both wake up soaked with dew?)

Does happiness among the Bhutanese diminish my happiness?

Surely not, surely not. There’s happiness enough for everyone who wants it, and no limit to love and hugs and the joy of family and friends. Still, on dark and miserable days, this lesson is hard to remember, and Esau is one of the first who needed to learn it.

(And I suppose I have to add that hatred, resentment and misery are infinite, too.)

In this week’s Torah reading, The Life of Sarah, Abraham sends his servant Eliezer back home to find a wife for Isaac. Eliezer sets off with ten camels, gets to a well, and hopes some girl will offer to get water for him and his camels. His hopes are realized, and this is how he knows that the girl in question is the proper wife for Isaac.

Presumably, camels were the beast of choice for a long trip, since they had a bigger tank. Speaking of which, a camel can drink about 40 gallons at one time, so Rebeccah’s offer to water 10 camels was pretty generous. “Here’s a cup of water for you, sir, and I’ll just get another 400 gallons for the animals, no problem.”

Maybe she had help. Maybe she snapped her fingers and dozens of lackeys sprang into action, a bucket brigade to quench the thirsty mammals. If so, she was rich, and Eliezer had found a family that was not only related to Abraham’s but was also of similar social standing.

Eliezer’s prayer comes true: he imagines a woman who welcomes him with liberal and gracious–even extravagant–hospitality; and this very woman appears.

When dreams become a sort of reality, we can remember that horrible thought in King Lear–“Thoud’st shun a bear, / But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea, / Thoud’st meet the bear i’ th’ mouth.” This becomes dramatic reality in The Winter’s Tale, with the famous stage direction, “Exit pursued by a bear.”

You can dream it, and it can become real.

For those who don’t believe in angels but think that Abraham’s experience of God is some kind of message rather like a vision, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah takes place in Abraham’s inner vision before he “awakes” to see the smoke and discover that his horrible “dream” has come true.

The Hebrew root for camel has two other meanings, and perhaps they’re related. Abraham throws a party when Isaac is weaned–weaned is the word that may somehow be related to camel. And when people pay each other back, generally in a bad way though sometimes for good, the word for pay back or requite is related to camel. At the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph’s brothers are afraid he’ll pay them back for what he did to them.

The connection between these concepts may be as coincidental as the English meanings for “fine” (okay) and “fine” (not okay when you get one for speeding).

But maybe Eliezer’s camels are symbolic, as a test of Rebeccah’s hospitality. She responds appropriately, so she is paid back or rewarded with a wealthy and holy husband. The book of Genesis often shows consequence for people’s actions, and perhaps the book is supposed to illustrate that humans have free will and our choices have consequences (though the right and the wrong of the choices and the good and the bad of the consequences are often fuzzy).

If that’s so, perhaps the camels were supposed to be dream-beasts as well as or instead of real beasts, a test for the proper use of wealth. Perhaps even weaning is related, the sign of an age at which children can begin their own moral training, with consequences such as being confined to the naughty stool.

Well, I dunno, but sometimes it’s fun to find out if coincidences can yield connections.

No Limit to Love

Camel, Wean, Requite