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Bless me, Also Me
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
After discovering his brother’s great deception, Esau pleads, “Do you have a single blessing left for me, Dad? Bless me, also me, Dad.” And he raises his voice and he cries. In this heartbreaking moment, we return to the problem of scarcity. Surely, Esau thinks, surely there should be enough blessing to go around for both of Isaac’s children. Surely, having blessed Jacob, Isaac still has one little blessing left for Esau.
Isaac had denied this possibility. He claimed that he could not bless Esau, having already blessed Jacob. He said, “Look, I made him overlord to you, and all his brothers I gave him as slaves, and with grain and wine I endowed him. For you, then, what can I do, my son?” His original mistaken blessing of Jacob was a cursing of Esau. By elevating Jacob, he made Esau a slave. And now he sees no way out. But Esau pleads with him, cries in front of him, begs him to find another solution.
Isaac tries. He offers Esau another blessing, saying, “Look, from the fat of the earth be your dwelling and from the dew of the heavens above. By your sword shall you live and your brother shall you serve. And when you rebel you shall break off his yoke from your neck.”
This blessing reflects the same worldview that Isaac’s blessing to Jacob had shown. Isaac had told Jacob, “May God grant you from the dew of the heavens and the fat of the earth, and abundance of grain and drink. May peoples serve you, and nations bow before you. Be overlord to your brothers, may your mother’s sons bow before you. Those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you, blessed.”
It is unclear whether Isaac is granting Esau the fat and the dew, much as he had offered them to Jacob, or whether he is dooming Esau to a lack thereof, to living at a remove from the fat and the dew. In any case, Esau’s relationship with the earth and the heavens will not be managed by God, the way that Jacob’s relationship will be. Moreover, Isaac reinforces to Esau that he will be his brother’s slave. Even in the moment of blessing, Esau is given something of a curse.
The curse continues, ominously, “And when you rebel you shall break off his yoke from your neck.” It is perhaps these words that put murder into Esau’s heart. Immediately upon hearing these words, Esau plans to kill his brother. The way Rebecca, his mother, understands Esau’s motivations and explains them to Jacob is “Look, Esau, your brother, is consoling himself with the idea he will kill you.” These are bone-chilling words. Isaac had urged Esau to rebel, to claim a place for himself despite the unfortunate circumstances that Isaac had blindly created for him. Esau will understand this as a call to murder, as legitimizing fratricide for the sake of dominating a limited resource. Esau, who was sure his father must have one small blessing leftover even after having given the blessing to Jacob, cannot fathom how to live together with Jacob, to share from his fat and his dew.
In the face of this murderous intention, Jacob flees and does not come back until he has amassed a strong following, a reasonable camp of people. But by the time we reach the moment in which Jacob and Esau next meet, Esau will have taken the second half of the blessing given to Jacob to heart: “those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you, blessed.” Esau will choose to stop cursing Jacob. Esau will finally recognize that cursing his brother can only rebound harmfully onto him. So Esau and Jacob will bless each other and be blessed through each other. The next time they meet, Esau will weep once again. But this time he will weep together with his brother, locked in an embrace.
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