Toldoth: contracts

Toldoth: contracts

The climax of the parsha is when Esau realizes that the blessing had been given to Jacob, He pleads, he curses, he plans murder.  Esau feels that he has been duped. But early in the parsha we hear about  the crucial moment: Esau  sells his primogeniture to Jacob.  Did that sale give Jacob  the right to claim the blessing ...by any means? What had been sold? Should Esau have told Isaac that he had sold his status to his brother?  Did Isaac already know that? 

Esau sold a concept for immediate gratification. Ironically, he was returning from doing what his father loved, hunting.  He was returning from killing animals, recognizing the transient nature of life. Recognizing his mortality. Esau sells something he may never use or need.  When he senses what he has lost, he is demonstrating the Prospect Theory of Kahneman and Tversky, loss is valued far more than gain.

The youth does not recognize the value of his birthright.

Today is the Yahrzeit for my mother (A"H).  When  I had an aliya and  gave her name: Esther Breindel bath Shlomo Zalman,  the gabai gave me a look.  Was I mistakenly giving my name instead of my grandfather's?  Then he realized that  I am named after that grandfather, who was murdered in the Holocaust ( by the descendants of angry,[ cheated?] Esau). Then,  I could feel my birthright, my birth-obligation, and I shed a tear.  I can never honor that name enough.

And I could imagine myriads of Germans and Poles who all had signed contracts with Jews
 ( or people they imagined to be Jews),
 and did not realize what those contracts meant
 until they had to struggle to pay the stipulation,
until they felt the crushing loss.
 And they were angry,
a justified anger,
 at the people of the contract,
the Jews.
 Angry enough to ...

The blessing that Isaac finally gives Esau in consolation goads him to throw off the yoke of his brother, to break the contract. What's that?