Q&A: Was Esau Wicked?
Was Esau Wicked?
Question
Hello Rabbi!
An innocent question that occurred to me yesterday. In the plain meaning of the Torah, it doesn’t seem that Esau was all that wicked. And also technically, all the bad things he did were actually because of the “sting” that the patriarchs (Jacob) and matriarchs (Rebecca) organized against him…
It just doesn’t feel to me that, in the plain meaning of the Torah, Esau was as wicked as the sages describe him in the midrashim…
Am I mistaken? What does the Rabbi think?
Thank you very much!
Answer
That’s a well-known and familiar impression. And it is indeed correct.
Discussion on Answer
If I’m not mistaken, it was Maharatz Chajes who spoke about how the purpose of the sages’ midrashim in aggadic literature on the Bible is to convey educational messages, and therefore the characters are described in black-and-white terms, in clear contrasts, in order to strengthen the idea or moral lesson they want to convey.
In other words—to present a normative truth in order to infer what is proper, and less a factual description of what happened in reality.
From the plain meaning of the text, Esau seems more like an impulsive person who acts on immediate emotion and decides in a jumpy, hasty way without thinking too much about things—both in selling the birthright and in expressing the desire to kill Jacob. Less a malicious murderer and more a complex person. On the contrary, the wording and description of the verses at the moment the stolen blessing is revealed create in the reader a directed identification with Esau.
He wanted to kill Jacob just because of a blessing
Someone who plans to murder his brother is still wicked, even if he’s a pitiful sort of wicked person.