As the secular New Year begins we also
celebrate another beginning- the beginning of Sefer Shemot in Keriat
HaTorah. We celebrated the culmination of Sefer Bereishit in our
Parsha and Parenting class last week. For those who were unable to
be there, we highlighted new and unique perspectives on some
parenting strategies we could learn from G-d- the ultimate Parent,
and then from the Avot and Imahot. The Torah purposefully does not
portray our patriarchs as flawless, thereby allowing for us to better
relate to their experiences and learn from them.
I want to highlight one element of our
shiur last week which particularly relates to us today in 2013. The
interactions of Yitzchak with his sons Eisav and Yaakov are quite
puzzling. Didn't Yitzchak realize what Eisav had become and the evil
path he had chosen? Didn't he realize that Yitzchak was the righteous
one and through him the Jewish people would continue? How “clueless”
could he have been to love Eisav more than Yitzchak and choose to
give the blessing to Eisav? As I shared with those who attended,
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary on the Torah and in an
article he wrote, provided an unbelievably progressive answer to this
difficulty. Upon reading his article today, one might have imagined
that he lived in 2013 instead of the 1800's.
Rav Hirsch stresses that the above
story is difficult to explain. Eisav and Yaakov were born from the
same womb, raised in the same home, and yet the two grow up to be as
different and disparate as possible. He finds a hint in the pasuk in
Bereishit 25: 27, “ויגדלו
הנערים" “And, the boys grew up.” Rashi
on the pasuk comments, “While they were boys, the differences in
their behavior were not recognizable. No one paid any attention to
the differences in their tendencies. Then, when they reached the age
of thirteen, the one devoted himself to the house of study and the
other to idolatry. They may be compared to a myrtle and a thistle
that grew up intertwined. Only when they were fully grown did the
one spread its fragrance and the other bared its thorns. As long as
they were children they went to the same school, but once they were
grown the one moved into the house of study and the other into the
house of idolatry.”
Rav Hirsch takes this Rashi and
continues, “They tell us that Jacob and Esau alike could have been
preserved for their Divinely-ordained destiny as descendants of
Abraham if their parents would have noticed the difference between
them at an early age. They could then have reared and educated both
lads for the same goal by following a different approach in each
case, taking into the account the fact that these two brothers were
basically different from one another. Because, unfortunately, an
identical approach was followed in the rearing and education of these
two boys, even through they were two totally different personalities,
Jacob and Esau in manhood developed attitudes toward life that were
fundamentally opposed to each other.” Rav Hirsch speaks of the
modern concept of differentiated instruction. As it says in Mishlei
22:6, "חֲנֹ֣ךְ
לַ֭נַּעַר עַל־פִּ֣י דַרְכּ֑וֹ גַּ֥ם
כִּֽי־יַ֝זְקִ֗ין לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר מִמֶּֽנָּה"
"Train
a child according to his
way;
when he matures, he will not deviate from it." As teachers, we
design our lessons so some students can learn visually, others
auditorily etc. , and we keep the personalities of children in mind.
As parents, we need to differentiate as well.
Rav Hirsch continues to describe that
as a child Eisav's tendency was to use his physical skills and his
mental agility, and he had no interest in the sedentary and cerebral
life of Yaakov, (and Yitzchak). And, yet Eisav was educated without
utilizing his tendencies and developed “a loathing for the
Abrahamite tradition.” All that he thought entailed following that
tradition was “completely foreign to his personality...The type of
education he received could have only one effect: to make him yearn
for the moment when he would be free to escape from the confines of
the Abrahamite house of study...” I have written in the past
about the “off the derech” phenomenon and why children raised in
religious homes choose to leave the fold. Among the many possible
reasons, Rav Hirsch highlights a common one.
Had Yitzchak and Rivka raised Eisav by
showing him that traits such as physical and mental agility could be
used in the service of Hashem, he would have grown to understand that
his talents could play an important role and his traits would have
been refined in that service.
Rav Hirsch then goes on to point out
that before Yaakov's death he brings all his sons together to bless
them. They all received different berachot- all differentiated. The
Midrash Tanchuma 16 stresses, “But you must not think that because
he assigned to Judah the strength of a lion, to Benjamin the ferocity
of a wolf... that Jacob did not give them all an equal share in his
blessing. For this reason it is written he blessed them each
separately according to their individual personalities, but each of
these separate blessings was a blessing intended to benefit all of
them together.” And, we do note that Yaakov is the only patriarch
who had all his sons follow the ways of Hashem.
Differentiation is not only the job of
the school educator. It is a parent's job as well. We need to
differentiate rules, consequences for misdeeds, and parenting
styles. It is a challenge to assess what each child needs and to
reinforce that treating each child equally is actually not fair. Or,
as we coined a new word in a Parsha and Parenting shiur last year, as
parents we do not want to treat our children equally, we want to
treat them “uniqually.”
