VOICE OF JACOB

    As a school  psychologist I find this week's Parsha, Toldot, most interesting and truly enlightening. Herein, we are dealing with twin brothers, Jacob and Esau. Both are products of the same parents, raised in the same home and apparently given the same education and yet they turned out to be opposite personalities. One needs to ask, how is this possible. What caused such a difference in their development?

   Samson Raphael Hirsch, makes a brilliant observation regarding the education of children, as reflected upon the diversity of these two brothers. He sees the cause for Esau's evil behavior - Esau who is a completely different personality than Yaakov should not have been given the same education as Yaakov.  It was the inability to raise Esau according to his tendencies and needs that turned him into the alienated, rebellious and hateful person that he became.

Remember well the dictum, 

                                            חנוך נער על פי דרכו

Every child is to be dealt with as an individual and the best educator and parent is never to group children together as all similar but rather to recognize individual needs of all our children. 

   This idea is brought home to us when Jacob disguised as his older brother Esau hoping to deceive his father unto bestowing the Blessing upon him which properly belongs to the firstborn. 

     I will not explain whether it was right what Jacob did, rather I will focus on the reaction of Father Yitzchak when faced with Jacob in his brother's garb. 

   He utters the most profound statement reflecting the essence of Yahadus, הקול קול יעקב והידים ידי עשו

The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. The allusion to the voice of Jacob is not surprising.  The voice of Torah , the voice of mercy and kindness is truly the voice that belongs to the Jewish people while the cruel hands of Esau and his ancestors  are symbolic of hatred and destruction. Thus the Blessing of Yitzchak rightfully belongs to Yaakov. 

   The educational process must become our main  agenda of Judaism in our day and age, especially when we recognize that  so many of our young people are going off the derech. It is a time to reevaluate our educational system. A time to be more individualistic and to be more attentive to every youngsters needs and less to the quantity of how much is being taught. Quality and not quantity is to become our motto in Jewish Education. With this idea in mind we will produce  more Yaakovs, young people with greater dedication and commitment to Judaism. 

   שבת שלום וחודש טוב