Tears and Kisses (Va-yishlach)

"And Esau ran to him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they cried" (Genesis 33:4)

I have never liked the Midrashim to Genesis which explain away Yaakov’s trickstery against his twin brother, or the ones that explain that Esau deserved to loose his birthright because of some behavioural fault. I equally dislike the ones that tell us that Esau really did mean to harm Yaakov during their brief reunion. I particularly can’t stand the ancient Midrash, which is repeated in Rashi’s commentary, according to which Esau sought to bite, not kiss Yaakov. According to Midrash Bereishit Rabbah and Midrash Tanhuma, Yaakov’s neck miraculously turned to marble, thus thwarting the fratricidal elder brother’s ploy and occasioning his tears (his teeth hurt). It is a very clever Midrash, which hinges on the similarity between the words kiss (neshikah) and bite (neshichah).

But the Midrash assumes and argues that Esau is somehow not Jewish. The Bible does tell us that Esau, having been robbed of his birthright, moved to the mountains of Se’ir and became the progenitor of the Edomites, in today’s Jordan. The Rabbis extended the meaning of Edom: in every generation, Edom comes to stand for the Jews’ archenemeny. Therefore during Roman times, Edom was a Jewish codeword for the Romans; in medieval Christendom, Edom was a Jewish code word for “the Christians”; Maimonides understood Islam to be a continuation of Edom. Recent commentators have sometimes affirmed these Midrashim concerning Esau’s hatred against Yaakov, to devastating political effect.

I think it is time to lay to rest this antagonistic thinking, and to stop blackening Esau in order to whitewash Yaakov. In rejecting the anti-Esau / Edom Midrashim, I am undoubtedly guided by a political agenda: I do not think that whitewashing your own ancestors and blacken those of your opponents is conducive to peace.

If the antagonism between the brothers prevailed, then how could they, near the end of the Parasha, come together and jointly bury their father Isaac? The Torah clearly states that they buried their father together. Why then could the embrace of the brothers not also be genuine?

I would like to think that in our rabbinic tradition there is a constructive voice of those not invested in putting Esau down. Although he transmits the Midrash about the kiss that was really a bite, Rashi also cites another ancient Midrash, Sifre Rabbah (other versions exist, i.e. Yalkut Shimoni). Here R. Shimon bar Yohai, the great mystical scholar of antiquity, argues that despite his old enmity (hence the retinue of 400 soldiers), Esau was moved by brotherly compassion; his kiss was sincere, a moment of overwhelming memory of a shared childhood. Another version of this line of interpretation was taken up by the Provencal Bible commentator David Kimchi (aka Radak, 1160 – 1235). Other Sephardi commentators also dismissed midrashic attempts to interpret away Esau’s kiss. Although a minority oppinion, there were certainly rabbis who showed an insight into the complexity of sibling relations and the possibility for love to survive the ravages of conflict and betrayal.