ESAU, BIBLICAL PATRIOT
Patriot: Derived from the Greek word patrios; “of one’s father”
It is impossible not to see the clearest of analogies in this week’s Torah portion. Esau is strong, “Red”, bearded, ‘manly’, a hunter and avid outdoorsman with little use for philosophical education or domestic pursuits, or other people, for that matter. He is unmannered, unkind and brutish, easily swayed to idolotry, but he maintains a deep love for and admiration of his father, Isaac. It is taught that Esau’s love for Isaac is greater than Jacob’s, and it is perhaps the only area in which his character exceeds that of his brother.
When Esau’s disdain for the responsibilities of leadership causes him to be passed over for the patriarchy-in a messy transition, no less-he is filled with rage, and his attitude of grievance causes his nature to be fully revealed. As his father nears death, Esau does not mourn the loss or seek to help his family, but waits for the chance to kill his brother for taking what Esau wants: power for the sake of power.
The leaders of the family, Isaac and Rebecca, seem scared of Esau and do not confront him directly, probably because Esau is a man of violence and emotionally unstable. I am troubled by the way they handle the situation but I too have been in situations where I tried to find indirect solutions to conflict or placed responsibility for a decision I made on outside forces. It’s a cop out, but it can be a sound tactic if you don’t want to be murdered.
And Jacob: passive, clever, ever the politician, he too is not without sin; his ways will come back to bite him when he is deceived in turn, and he must undergo crippling struggles to reveal his true nature and strength; but that is next week.
Like Esau, some ‘patriots’ among us are stockpiling ammunition and coordinating communication among hundreds of white supremacist ‘militias’ while claiming to be the true lovers of this nation. They claim, as does Esau, that they have been stolen from. And the most base among them, men who worship weapons, not law, who believe that might makes right, fantasize about doing violence to those that have ‘robbed’ them of something a majority of the family has determined should pass to another. Their love for country is undeniable, for the land and their possessions upon it, but it is sadly no match for their hatred of their countrymen. They fantasize about killing their brothers and sisters. There is a deeper connection here to Esau, the traditional anthropomorphic embodiment of our most dangerous enemies, of the Roman Empire, the Crusaders and the Nazi Reich, to name a few. It seems there is a new generation of Esau, because there always is. Led by a ruddy-colored brute with distinctive hair. Imagine that.
