Toldot

One of the great images of the divine o ered by Kabbalah is that of a God who steps
back from the universe to make space for crea on. Too much divine energy threatens to
break the world and so God’s very rst act, in this cosmology, is self-restraint, tzimtzum.
God enters into the world by exi ng it, so to speak. In place of a sha ering blast of
intensity, we are o ered a “s ll small voice”1— so er, gentler, less drama c, and more
constant.

How might this founda onal idea shape our experience of God and how might it inform
our rela onships more broadly? What might we learn about ourselves when God, or
overwhelming forces, steps back? When a presence is both reliably “s ll” and relatably
“small,” what room opens up for mutuality? Toldot, read through the eyes of the Sefat
Emet, surprisingly addresses these ques ons.

***

Mother and son drama cally conspire in this week’s Torah por on to deceive their
husband/father. Overhearing Isaac’s inten ons to bless his beloved son Esau, Rebecca
urges her more beloved son Jacob to steal the blessing by pretending to be his twin
brother. Isaac, who su ered from blindness, was suspicious of the ruse, but not
suspicious enough. Though Jacob’s voice sounded like his own, his body (disguised in
sheepskin) felt like Esau’s. So Isaac blessed Jacob, thinking him to be Esau, o ering the
following blessing:

‫ כט יַעַבְדּוָ עַּמִים‬:‫כח וְיִּתֶן־לְָ הָאֱֹלהִים מִּטַל הַׁשָּמַיִם ּומִׁשְמַּנֵי הָאֶָרץ וְֹרב ּדָגָן וְתִירׁש‬
ָ‫וישתחו ]וְיִׁשְּתַחֲוּו[ לְָ לְאֻּמִים הֱוֵה גְבִיר לְאַחֶיָ וְיִׁשְּתַחֲוּו לְָ ּבְנֵי אִּמֶָ אֲֹרֶריָ אָרּור ּומְבֲָרכֶי‬
(‫כט‬-‫ כח‬:‫ )בראשית פרק כז‬:ְ‫ּבָרּו‬
And may God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth,
abundance of new grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and na ons bow to
you; Be master over your brothers, And let your mother’s sons bow to you.
Cursed be they who curse you. Blessed be they who bless you. (Genesis
27:28-29)

1 1 Kings 19:12

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 The very rst word of this blessing piques the interest of biblical commentators. V’yiten--
And may God…” Why does the blessing seemingly start mid-sentence?

The midrash (cited by Rashi) responds:

(‫ יִּתֵן וְיַחֲזֹר וְיִּתֵן )בראשית רבה‬.‫ויתן לך‬.

AND MAY GOD GIVE YOU — May God give you and give you repeatedly
(Genesis Rabbah 66:3).

The gramma cal conjunc on (“And”) indicates a con nuity of blessing. Isaac blessed
Jacob that goodness come to him not once, but over and over again.

For the Sefat Emet, this rhythm of receiving and then receiving some more is itself a kind
of blessing:

‫ רק‬.‫ פי' שכן דרך הצדיק שאינו חפץ למלאות ביתו כסף וזהב‬.‫בפסוק ויתן לך ויחזור ויתן‬
‫ לכן מארי דמהימנותא מתפללין בכל‬.‫זאת הברכה שהשי"ת יתן לו בכל עת הצריך לו‬
‫ אבל‬.'‫ ובברכת עשו כתיב משמני הארץ יהי' מושבך כו‬.‫יומא על מזונא כמ"ש בזוה"ק‬
‫ביעקב כתיב ויתן שיש לו התחדשות השפעה בכל יום כמ"ש מחדש בטובו בכל יום‬
‫ וכ"כ עיני כל אליך כו' נותן להם‬.'‫ ומזה ההתחדשות נוטל הבוטח בה‬.‫מעשה בראשית‬
(‫)תולדות תרמ"ב‬.‫את אכלם בעתו‬
In the verse [in Gen. 27:28, regarding Isaac’s blessing], “And May God give you
[of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth]”, [Rashi cites Genesis Rabbah
66:3] “May God give you and give you repeatedly.” Meaning: This is the way of
the righteous, who do not desire to ll their home with silver and gold. This is
the blessing [given]: that God should give to him [Jacob] in every moment that
which he needs. Therefore masters of faith pray for their food every day, as it
says in the holy Zohar. Regarding the blessing of Esau, it is wri en, “See, your
abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth...” [Gen. 27:39]. But, regarding Jacob, it
is wri en “And may God give you (v’yiten)...[the fat of the earth]” so that he
would have renewal of bounty every day. As the verse says [in the blessing
before Shema], “[God] in God’s goodness renews every day the work of
crea on.” The one who has faith in God draws from [lit. takes] this renewal.
Such it is wri en: “The eyes of all look to You [expectantly], and You give them
their food when it is due [or in its me].” (Psalms 145:15). (Sefat Emet, Toldot
1881)

According to the Rebbe, God will bless Jacob incrementally. Jacob will not be showered
with over-abundant gi s. He will, instead, experience need and, only then, the
ful llment of that need. God’s generosity will be a response, not an act of an cipatory
grace. It will ll the holes of the moment.

The Rebbe likens this to a righteous person who does not want a house full of riches.
Such a person wants to want, wants to experience lack. Gold and silver are not bad, per

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 se, but their accumula on is to be avoided. The implica on is that it is somehow good
for the soul to be in touch with its own insu ciency.

But why? In what way does consciousness of scarcity serve the righteous life? What does
need-awareness do to the spirit? Surely depriva on impedes the pursuit of higher
consciousness, but can tuning into lower-order needs--hunger, thirst, loneliness, for
example--serve consciousness?

The Sefat Emet o ers some direc on when he states, in the name of the Zohar, that
“masters of faith pray for their food every day.” One might have thought that the faithful
trust that they will be fed. God will provide, as the saying goes. But the inverse, it seems,
is true. For the Zohar, the “masters of faith” are those elevated few who deeply
understand Kabbalis c mysteries. And it is they who make no assump ons about God;
they who do not presume that blessing is coming their way. To be faithful is not to be
trus ng so much as it to be aware of dependence, to see each and every day as wide
open with possibility and vulnerability. Every day thus requires its own prayer. They (and
we) must ask “the One who feeds all,” ‫הזן את הכל‬, to indeed nourish.2

Interes ngly, according to the Talmud, the blessing of “the One who feeds all” was itself
composed under condi ons of anxiety.

(:‫ )ברכות מח‬...‫ משה תקן לישראל ברכת הזן בשעה שירד להם מן‬:‫אמר רב נחמן‬
Rav Naḥman said: Moses ins tuted for Israel the [ rst] blessing of [the Grace
a er Meals]: “Who feeds [all],” when the manna descended for them…
(Berakhot 48b)

The manna that fell from heaven to feed the Israelites in the desert was, on the one
hand, a miraculous event that served as a daily announcement of God’s care. On the
other hand, it was a daily exercise in need-awareness. It had very speci c rules for
collec on that limited the me, amount, and dura on of consump on.3 Le overs were
not allowed, which meant that every night people would have to go to sleep not
knowing if their bellies, and the bellies of their loved ones, would be lled the next day. I
wonder if this was an a empt to train a na on into expectant dependency; to no ce all
the ways that they cannot feed themselves; to literally turn their eyes heavenward for
sustenance. In this way, their need for God would be part of their consciousness daily.
And God’s shefa, ow of goodness, could be keenly felt daily.

In the eyes of the Gerrer Rebbe, there is a blessing in the experience of need, for it
shrinks our own sense of solipsis c su ciency. Need compels us to reach outside of
ourselves for others and the Other. It opens us to rela onships. It brings us to prayer. It
allows us renewed experiences of divine benevolence.

2 From the opening blessing of Grace After Meals.

3 See Exodus 16:16-32

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 The blessing to Jacob, in contrast to Esau, was not for plenty and not for abundance, but
for just the right amount in just the right me to repeatedly yield awareness of lack met
again and again and again by divine kindness. ‫יִּתֵן וְיַחֲזֹר וְיִּתֵן‬. God will give and then give
once more. What are the blessings in that cycle of insecurity and security? Perhaps the
centering gi of humility, the joyful gi of gra tude, and, most importantly, the
soul enlivening gi of constant contact with the divine.

***

This model of blessed connec on through regular small acts of kindness rather than
through singular grand gestures resonates with human rela onships too, no doubt.
Be er to give to a friend day in and day out--a smile, a phone call, a favor--then to
celebrate them once a year with a big present. Presence, inter-dependence, mutual
vulnerability, s ll and small voices: these are the building blocks of ongoing reciprocal
rela onships. May we all give and give again. May we all receive and receive again.

Bifnim/Personal Re ec ons
1. Can you think of mes when you’ve been “needy”? Can you think of mes when
you’ve been “need-aware”? Are these terms synonymous? If not, why not?
2. Do mes of need feed your spiritual life? Do they hurt it? If so, how, why? If not,
why not?
3. Can you remember a moment when you felt par cularly cared for? Who, i e?
anyone, helped you? What, if anything, was it about you that made that care
possible? What makes you feel most cared for?
4. Similarly for others: When, if ever, do you feel you’ve par cularly cared for
someone else? What, if anything, was it about the other person that made that
care possible? What, if anything, was it about you? How do you show care for
others?

B’Avodah/Prac ce by Rabbi Myriam Klotz

What if you were given one enormous in ux of oxygen, all the breath that you would
ever need to sustain your life force for the length of your days, at the moment of your
birth? Perhaps we humans could have been created in such a way that one giant ll up
of oxygen would last us our en re lives. But that is not the case. Air is all around us, yet
our bodies are given just enough with each inbreath to sustain us for a short period of
me. We cannot take in more oxygen than our lung capacity permits. We ll up, and that
breath then leaves our bodies. For those moments when our lungs are emp ed of
nishmat hayyim, the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), we brush against an invisible but real
nitude. Each exhala on of our lives takes us however brie y to the cusp of our
mortality. And then, with the next inbreath, we are again sustained into our next
moment. Thank God!

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 The miraculous gi of breath, like the gi of manna the Israelites were given in their
desert journey, is appor oned to us in amounts that will sustain and enliven us
temporarily. We can’t hoard it and we can’t generate it ourselves. But the breath
returns, sustaining us for yet more moments of aliveness, again and again and again.

This week then, our prac ce will focus on the gi of this breath. Included here is both a
guided breathing prac ce, and a chant. You can choose to work with both, or one or the
other.

If you have a medical condi on that makes breathing di cult or unpleasant to focus on,
or if the thought of focusing on your breath in medita on just doesn’t feel neutral or
wise for you today, you can make a di erent choice. You can chant the words from the
wonderful song, “Breath of Life,” created by a collabora ve of musicians for the IJS
community last June (h ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHKW_2br9QI).

Chant Prac ce
As you listen and perhaps sing with this chant, let your a en on be absorbed in the
rhythm of the voices and the arrangement which you may experience as itself breathing
or pulsing like the inhale and exhale of the breath.

Let yourself receive the words as a prayer to God, yet also, an a rma on that each
moment you are gi ed with another moment of aliveness.

You can listen to this song several mes. When you complete what feels like a full
prac ce for today, spend a few moments in silence as the song resonates through you.

Breathing Medita on
To prepare for the breathing medita on, you can set a mer for 10 minutes or longer.
Find a comfortable seat, and se le in. Feel the support underneath your feet and your
bo om.

With eyes open or closed, bring awareness to your breath. No need to make anything
happen. Simply allow the breath to ow through your body naturally.

No ce the slight movements of the nostrils, the rib cage, perhaps your belly as breath
moves through you. There is no right or wrong way to breathe; rather, simply be
present to the breath that is already happening through your body, just as it is.

When you are ready, bring your a en on to the outbreath. As the last of that breath
leaves your body, no ce the emp ness in this pause between breaths. Without forcing
the next inbreath, simply no ce how it happens all on its own. Let your a en on be
drawn into the rhythms and sensa ons of this breath as it enters and lls, emp es and
returns.

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 When your mind wanders, just no ce that and kindly bring your a en on back to focus
on the life cycle of the breath passing through you right now. There is nothing else you
need to do. Simply return your a en on to the present moment as you bear witness to
this recurring gi , the in ux and ebbing of the nishmat hayyim as it o ers its silent
blessing to you, again and again and again.

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