Shabbat Parashat Toldot - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Toldot - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And dwell with him for a few days until your brother's wrath subsides. [Bereishit 27:44]

What did Rivka mean, telling Yaakov to go to Lavan "for a few days"? The trip alone would take far more than that, in each direction. Most likely, Eisav would not have forgotten what Yaakov did to obtain the blessing for quite some time. When was Yaakov supposed to return, and how would he know when that was? In parashat Chaye Sarah [Bereishit 24:55] we saw Rivka's mother and brother Lavan ask Eliezer to let her remain with them for a period before taking her off to marry Yitzchak, calling that period "days or a set of ten". There we understood it to mean a year or at least ten months. Did Rivka here tell Yaakov to stay a year? A few years? Or do we read it literally as a few days?

In our verse the phrase is yamim achadim. Rashi notes that the root of achadim is echad, meaning one, thus here he understands it as "singles, meaning a few". The word can mean something related but different, such as in Bereishit 11:1 where Rashi says it means unified, referring to spoken language prior to Migdal Bavel. Onkelos and Radak agree that here it means "a few", since echad is the smallest number and here the word is in the plural, thus multiples of one. But these explanations leave us with "a few days" and our question remains.

The verse ties Yaakov's dwelling with Lavan to the subsiding of the wrath of Eisav over the selling of the birthright. Onkelos on the next verse, 45, says "until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you did to him." How long is that? Rav Hirsch would say that it is longer than just getting over some difference of opinion, calling it "a real glow of burning anger". Or HaChayim notes that although anger cools over time, in this instance Rivka knew that Eisav's anger would take more than the usual amount of time, thus in the next verse, 45, she tells Yaakov that she will send for him when the time is right. But we do not see that she ever did so, rather Yaakov left Lavan when it was clear Lavan was likely to take action against him. Thus when Yaakov and Eisav met on the road, Yaakov did not have Rivka's advice to know what point Eisav's anger was holding at, resulting in all the precautions he takes in chapter 32.

Talelei Oros asks why verse 45 repeats "until your brother's anger subsides". He answers from R'Yitzchak of Volozhin who cites Mishlei 27:19, "as water reflects a face, so is the heart of one person to another". Thus Rivka was saying to Yaakov to look into his own heart to determine when Eisav's anger will subside, for if Yaakov's anger toward Eisav has subsided, then the brothers will be able to speak to each other.

In this situation, without doubt the time period required would exceed a few days, perhaps by a great amount. Thus "a few days" here does not refer to some small number of 24-hour periods, rather to something much longer. Rivka did not know at the time exactly how long it would be, so she said she would send for Yaakov when she had determined it would be safe, but gave Yaakov the alternative of figuring it out for himself as cited in Mishlei.