This parsha is a study in contrasts: Jacob on the one hand, and Esau on the other.

Jacob, of course, is one of the patriarchs, along with Abraham and Isaac. Esau is the father of the Edomites, who became enemies of the Jewish people in the Tanakh.

The first significant part of the parsha concerns the struggle of the two boys within Rebekah’s womb, about whom the Lord says:

Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger. (Genesis 25:23)

The twins, as the text describes them, could not be more un-twinlike. Esau is red and hairy. Jacob emerges grabbing Esau’s heel. When they’re grown—as the text skips over many years—Esau is a hunter, while Jacob is … an accountant? He was “quiet,” or “mild” as stated in the JPS translation. Esau was a wanderer, a man of the field, someone who would possibly be on the cover of Men’s Health magazine in the present day. Jacob stayed in tents, a homebody, someone you could easily overlook. Isaac favored Esau because he loved to eat the meat that Esau caught; Rebekah favored Jacob, no reason given.

Very un-twinlike.

One passage in particular focuses on the characters of both Esau and Jacob.

Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:29–34)

The Hebrew of Esau’s first remark is closer to: “Let me chow down on this red stuff, this red stuff here, I’m tired!” Jacob’s response is along the lines of “Sell me your birthright right now!”

Esau, exaggerating about his hunger, says, “I’m going to die, so the birthright means nothing to me.” Esau comes across as very Jewish here: is he literally going to die from hunger!? It reminds me of an old joke: A Jewish guy is hungry, so he says, “Oy, am I hungry! Oy, am I hungry!” He finally eats, after which he says, “Oy, was I hungry! Oy, was I hungry!”

Jacob then asks Esau to swear that he will sell his birthright, and after he does so, Jacob gives him bread and lentil soup in payment. Suddenly taciturn, Esau “ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright” (v. 34).

In the story of Jacob and Esau, neither brother comes across well.

The birthright was not a physical object. It was the right of the firstborn to inherit a double portion from his father. In essence, Esau gave his firstborn status to Jacob in return for lunch. The midrash Genesis Rabbah tries to underscore Esau’s wickedness and Jacob’s righteousness:

“The children were agitated within her” – when she would stand adjacent to synagogues and study halls, Jacob would convulse to emerge. That is what is written: “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). When she would pass houses of idol worship, Esau would run and convulse to emerge. That is what is written: “The wicked are corrupt from the womb.”¹

Yet neither brother comes across well here. Yes, Esau is shown to be unconcerned with his inheritance, his privileges, his status, or the covenant with God that made all these possible. But Jacob is shown to be no better in his own way. In the words of one commentator,  “Jacob’s curt three-word reply, ‘Swear/to me/at once,’ confirms that he is cold and calculating …”²

Is he cold and calculating? In an article entitled, “Jacob and Antisemitism,”³ Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz notes that Jacob’s character flaws were used especially in medieval times to promote antisemitic agendas that vilified not just Jacob but the Jewish people as a whole.

How did Jews respond? According to Steinmetz, in different ways, as two interpretive trends developed. One trend glossed over the flaws of biblical characters, rationalizing their behavior and resolving the complexity of someone’s character into either black or white. Writes Steinmetz:

Rashi’s comment to the verse where Jacob lies to his father Isaac and says “I am Esau, your firstborn son” is an excellent example of this type of interpretation. Rashi explains that Jacob actually didn’t lie; he had a different type of punctuation in mind, and intended it to mean “I am he that brings food to you, and (aside from that,) Esau is your first-born.”

The second trend is to take the biblical text at face value and own up to the flaws of biblical personages. About this, Steinmetz writes:

Similarly, multiple commentaries, from the Midrashim onward, point out how Jacob is punished, measure for measure, by the deceptions of others. He wants to marry Rachel, but his father-in-law Laban switches sisters on him, much like Jacob did with his father. Later, Jacob’s own sons will deceive him, (also, while using a goat,) when they fake Joseph’s death. One Midrash, (Bereishit Rabba 67:4,) goes so far as to say that the frightening decree of Haman in Megilat Esther is punishment for the pain that Jacob caused Esau. The Tanakh itself emphasizes Jacob’s culpability…. Jacob ultimately is a wrestler, whose character continues to develop as he struggles with his circumstances and choices.⁴

Yes, Jacob is a wrestler. In fact, a few chapters later, in Genesis 32, he wrestles with a “man” who turns out to apparently be God.

What does this parsha teach us? If we learn at least one thing from the “red stew” story, it’s that all of us need to have our characters transformed, shaped and molded to reflect godliness and maturity. Being a patriarch of Israel does not exempt someone from that; it does not mean they are a perfectly righteous person. Likewise Esau had his character flaws; Scripture explicitly comments that he “despised his birthright.” This is unusual, for the Bible does not usually render verdicts on character, and certainly not in such explicit words.

God saw to it that Jacob would wrestle.

But Jacob was in the chosen line. He was the progenitor of the Jewish people, and for that reason God saw to it that he would wrestle with the Lord. Esau never struggled, though he could have. And therein lies the difference.

Faith in God requires wrestling, and so does considering who Jesus is for Jews. As we think about his identity in relation to the Jewish people, we sometimes find ourselves wrestling like Jacob. Jesus is one of us; he is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Yet he is also the one who challenged us, and belief in him divides us sometimes even today. We can’t always understand his teachings—and even beginning to understand requires some amount of wrestling. Have you wrestled with who Jesus is, and what have your thoughts been?

Endnotes

¹ “Bereshit Rabbah,” Sefaria, accessed November 8, 2026.

² Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 16–50 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 178, vol. 2.

³ Chaim Steinmetz, “Jacob and Antisemitism,” Jewish Journal, November 25, 2022.

⁴ Ibid.