{"id":38112,"date":"2018-08-19T07:25:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T04:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=38112"},"modified":"2022-03-13T16:45:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T14:45:38","slug":"the-political-meaning-of-esau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-political-meaning-of-esau\/","title":{"rendered":"The Political Meaning of Esau"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[486,391,436,433,503],"acf":{"old_id":"38112","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":38025,"related_cahpter":"27","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Feeling for the persecuted Other - even a rival - is the ethical basis of being Jewish","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As literature, the Sarah-Hagar story is extraordinary\u2026 It encourages us to feel relief when [Hagar] and her child are saved from dying of thirst in the wilderness. It tells us, most emphatically, that God is &#8220;with&#8221; Ishmael.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the effect of this passage in political terms? The long shadow of the enmity between the women reaches to this moment\u2026 We may both recoil from Sarah&#8217;s cruelty, and feel for her. Yet the narrative, far from encouraging us to gloat over the expulsion of Hagar, also forces us to feel for her and with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">her<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This is what is truly uncanny.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why does the Torah engage in this digression? Aren&#8217;t we supposed to be the chosen ones? Why are we made to pity the enemy, the rival, to care about the survival of the other, the stranger, the non-chosen? Why is there a similar pattern [to the one of Sarah and Hagar] in the narrative of Jacob and Esau, when we see Esau weeping and begging his father for a blessing equal to Jacob&#8217;s stolen one? The name Esau in Jewish tradition is virtually synonymous with &#8220;enemy,&#8221; yet his repeated &#8220;great and exceeding cry\u2026 Bless me, me also, O my father\u2026 Have you only one blessing? Bless me, me also my father&#8221; (Gen 27:34-38) is the quintessence of pathos. And why is this pattern later made into a commandment, repeated a dozen times in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, where we are told never to oppress the stranger, but always to care for the stranger as ourselves, because we know the heart of the stranger, because we were strangers in Egypt?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For me, this commandment marks the core of what it means, ethically, to be a Jew. Not that it is easy to follow such a commandment. On the contrary, it seems insuperably difficult. But one thing is clear. In any situation of relative power and powerlessness, it behooves the one with more power to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">care for<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the one with less. Whoever is the more powerful should do the more listening, the more caring, the more giving\u2026 The simplest way of putting this is what Deuteronomy 16:20 requires in God&#8217;s name: &#8220;Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Excerpted and reprinted with permission from the essay &#8220;The Face of the Other: Sarah-Hagar Then and Now&#8221; in:<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Reading-Genesis-Beginnings-Beth-Kissileff\/dp\/0567251268\/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0567251268&amp;pd_rd_r=88MHCTXN3G8429HT2XDY&amp;pd_rd_w=DxhWN&amp;pd_rd_wg=ou3xK&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=88MHCTXN3G8429HT2XDY&amp;dpID=510Tqy-DuzL&amp;preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&amp;dpSrc=detail#reader_0567251268\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reading Genesis Beginnings<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Beth Kissileff, editor, Bloomsbury, 2016, p. 119-20).<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":102959,"id":102959,"title":"-622e038209334--622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png","filename":"622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-political-meaning-of-esau\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate-png\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate-png","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":38112,"date":"2022-03-13 14:45:22","modified":"2022-03-13 14:45:36","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1228,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-288x300.png","medium-width":288,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-768x801.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":801,"large":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-982x1024.png","large-width":982,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png.png","1536x1536-width":1228,"1536x1536-height":1280,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png.png","2048x2048-width":1228,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-1151x1200.png","post_full_size-width":1151,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/622e038209334-622e038209335gen27-powerlessness-desperate.png-403x420.png","home_baner-width":403,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"The Political Meaning of Esau","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Feeling for the persecuted Other - 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