Toldoth: power lunch

Toldoth: power lunch

The value of a meal in Toldoth is remarkably high.  Yaakov buys  the birthright  for lentils.  Yitzchok sells the dominion  for a roasted kid.  A meal with Avimelech leads to a Palestinian peace treaty.

Yaakov's sale of the lentils  for the birthright could be price gouging.  It depends upon how objectively,  literally one takes Esau's statement: (25:32) "I am going to die, so what is ( the value of ) my birthright to me?" If this is an immediate, literal statement, and  Esau thought he would die imminently if he was not fed (the lentils), then this is a gouge.  If Esau was making a general statement, that the fact that all people die makes remote, vague rewards - like the (double portion of the ) firstborn - worthless, then the price is fair. 

However, it is clear ( 27:36) that Esau felt cheated by the sale of the right of the first born.  He describes the transaction as: vayaakveni, he Jewed me out of it. He  uses that word to describe his relationship to both the bechorah and the brachah. 

Yitzchok's "brahca" is similar to Noach's curse.  Both are associated with wine. Noach establishes one child as the slave, another as the master. Yitchok's blessing is also one of dominion, and the partial retraction, when Esau appears, is a blessing of rebellion and war.    Is that a joke?

It seems that the intention overcame  the facts on the ground.  Yitzchok actually gave the blessing to  Yaakov, but he made it clear that he had intended the blessing for Esau.  It is interesting to see how this ambivalence has payed out over the last 3500 years.

It is a good time to invoke the peace treaty with Avimelech, but given how the other promises in the parsha worked out, I am not sure.