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ב"ה
וַיִּתְרֹצֲצוּ הַבָּנִים בְּקִרְבָּהּ (בראשית כה, כב)
AND THE CHILDREN STRUGGLED WITHIN HER. (BEREISHIS 25:22)
The Fighter
Our patriarchs and matriarchs were perfectly righteous. In the words of the Tanya (Chapter 23), “Throughout their lives they sanctified their every limb to serve exclusively as a ‘chariot’ for the implementation of G-d’s will.”
Yet, when our matriarch Rivka was pregnant with twins, “The children struggled within her” (Bereishis 25:22). Rashi explains, “When she passed the Torah study hall of Shem and Ever, Yaakov struggled to emerge, and when she passed places of idolatry, Eisav struggled to emerge.” How was Eisav, the child of the saintly Yitzchak and Rivka, already so innately attracted to idol-worship when he was buta fetus in his mother’s womb, causing him to stir each time she passed a house of idolatry?
Our sages tell us that the deeds and lives of our patriarchs and matriarchs paved the way for their descendants, the Jewish people, to fulfill their destiny (see Ramban on Bereishis 12:6; Bereishis Rabbah 40:6). One aspect of this legacy is that through their unassailable commitment to G-d, our forefathers endowed every Jew with an inner strength of devotion to G-d. With this strength, a Jew can overcome any challenge to his Jewishness—be it adversity from the outside, or his personal struggles from within.
Accordingly, though Yitzchak and Rivka themselves were perfectly righteous, being that the path to G-dliness for some of their descendants would involve struggling with temptation, the legacy of Yitzchak and Rivka also includes a natural inclination towards sin—in order to overcome it.They thus bore not only Yaakov, whose passions were entirely holy and pure, but also Eisav, who was born with an allure to sin and the inner strength to overcome it.
In fact, the Zohar (vol. 1, p. 138b) states that as a child, Eisav, like Yaakov, excelled in the education he received from his grandfather Avraham—“Avraham’s merit assisted and caused them to thrive, training them in the observance of mitzvos.” Undeniably, Eisav made the wrong choices as an adult. But until he went off on his own path, Eisav’s attraction to idolatry was simply a natural part of being Yitzchak’s childand Avraham’s disciple: he exemplified the Jew who is born to struggle and is naturally endowed with the strength it takes to win.
—Likutei Sichos vol. 20, pp. 109-113
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