Shabbat Parashat Toldot - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Toldot - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Yaakov said, "Sell, as this day, your birthright to me." [Bereishit 25:31]

In Hebrew, most of this verse is easy to understand: va'yomer yaakov

mikrah ka'yom et b'chirateicha li. The va'yomer yaakov means Yaakov

said. The et b'chirateicha means your firstborn right. The li at the end

means to me. But the ka'yom in the middle is difficult to picture here.

The kof prefix usually means like or as, and yom means day, but what

is Yaakov trying to say?

Saadiah Gaon and Ibn Kaspi say that the kaf should be read as a hey,

ha'yom, which means today. "Sell me today your birthright." Rashbam

thinks ka'yom means "like now", or immediately. Radak thinks it means

"in truth", that Yaakov did not want Eisav to sell jokingly, but as a real

transaction.

Onkelos sticks with 'like', saying it means "like that day". There is no

word 'that' in the verse, so he adds it as though implied. Both Rashi

and Ramban say, "sell as this day", Rashi to support Onkelos that it

does not mean "sell me today" rather sell to me clearly like the day is

clear. Ramban gets a little more complex in his understanding of

Onkelos that the verse is telling us Yaakov knew that the birthright

only impacted the inheritance upon Yitzchak's death thus the meaning

is "sell to me as of the day of our father's death", thus instead of ka'yom

it should be read ba'yom, on the day of.

Rav Soloveitchik says that our verse is not discussing the inheritance of

physicality and money, rather of sanctification and holiness, based on

Shemot 13:2, "Sanctify to Me every firstborn". Yaakov was willing to give

Eisav the physical, food or whatever, but wanted that sanctification in

return, the inheritance of the akeidah, the binding of their father. The Rav

holds that the theme of our parsha is kehuna, the priesthood. This was not

granted to Avraham since Malchitzedek was the kohen for that generation,

but Yitzchak earned it through the akeidah and now Yaakov was to inherit

that. Since he foresaw that he was to leave the home and land for a while,

Yaakov wanted to get this transaction completed immediately.