Toldos

Esavs head - Keeping head and body together

Rabbi Elchanan Shoff
And Yitzchak loved Esav since there was a trap in his mouth Bereshis 25:28 Rashi1 cited the Midrash2 that Esav would entrap Yitzchak and mislead him with his words. He explains3 that Esav would pose impressive questions to his father, attempting to show him that he indeed was careful about his Mitzvah observance. He would ask his father how does one go about tithing straw. That Esavs big display of spiritual prowess was his question about how to tithe straw surely begs us to explore further. The Zohar4 teaches that in everything that grows, there is a part that is not connected to holiness. This says the Zohar is the chaff and the straw, and therefore, one does not tithe chaff or straw. Fascinatingly we find a very deep connection between Esav and his connection to straw and chaff. The Midrash,5 teaches, Yaakov said, I am a smooth man, 6 Rabbi Levi said that this is like a hairy person, with many curls, and a bald person, who found themselves next to a silo. When the chaff is blown on to the hairy fellow, it sticks tightly in his hair; whereas, when it touches the bald person, he just brushes his head and it falls right off of him. Esav the wicked one (who is also the hairy one7), makes himself filthy all year, and has no way to atone for his sins; whereas for Yaakov, things are different. Yom Kippur comes and wipes his sins away. The Midrash teaches that chaff represents the dirt that comes from sin, and Yom Kippur washes that all off, as long as a person is not hairy. Yaakov, who was like the smooth, bald man, was able to wash his sins away, while the hairy Esav and his descendants could not. There is another layer that we must uncover here to really get things clear. Kabbalistic tradition8 has taught us that Rabbi Akiva was the archenemy of Esav. As one who came
25:28 s.v. bifiv Tanchuma Toldos 8 3 25:27 s.v. yodeah tzayid 4 Vol. 3, 189a, see also the comments of Toras Chaim to Sanhedrin 100a s.v. lo yibol 5 Bereishis Rabbah 65:15. See also Maharals drush to Shabbos Shuva, and his treatment of this Midrash. 6 Bereishis 27:11 7 Bereshis 25:25, and 27:11 8 Arizal (Shaar Hagilgulim 5). See also Dvash Lifi of the Chida (ayin, 23) and Dvash Lifi (ayin, 24) quoting the
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from a family of converts,9 he came from Esav, but left that way of life behind. As the Arizal puts it,10 when Yaakov grabbed the ankle of Esav11 on the way out of the womb, he grabbed Rabbi Akiva, who was there in the ankle of Esav, and took his soul to the Yaakov side.12 He was even called kareach13 and karcha,14 meaning the bald one!15 Straw, we are taught, also represents sins and non-essential things, much like chaff. They are used by the Zohar16 in the same context to describe the negative things in this world. Esav would ask his father, How does one take maaser from straw? even though one does not tithe straw. The reason that one does not tithe straw is that it cannot be made holy it stands for the things in the world that we are to distance ourselves from, spiritually. Esav wanted to show that he had the ability to bring those things into a holy context but it was just a game to fool his father. Conversely, we are told about Rabbi Akiva picking out the straw from his wifes hair.17 The straw represents foreign distractions and negative things in this world that try to stick to us, and the hair represents the parts of us that tend to cling to those negative things. Rabbi Akiva removed all that, while Esav embraced it. By embracing the bad, Esav remained with it. It simply could never just be brushed off from him, as the Midrash describes it for Yaakov and his descendants. When one identifies with his mistakes and sins, he winds up having to be ripped apart to find the good in him. Esav

Shaarei Shomayim, which uses the expression sitno archenemy of Esav. 9 Rambam, in his introduction to Mishnah Torah, tells us that Rabbi Akivas father, Yosef, was a convert. He was a descendant of Sisera, according to one version (see Menorah Hamaor, ner 5, klal 3, ch. 3, 304) of Sanhedrin 96b: grandchildren of Sisera studied Torah in Yerushalyim. Who were they? R. Akiva [This version can already by found in R. Nissim Gaons commentary to Brachos 27b, where t he Talmud says that R. Akiva did not have zechus avos, and in Dikdukei Sofrim to Sanhedrin there, 142:100. See also Arizal (Shaar Hagilgulim 36, 38, 39); Megaleh Amukos, Matos Maasei and Megaleh Amukos, Renav Ofanim on Veeschanan, ofen 88, and Risisei Layla (of R. Tzadok), 52. See R. Tzadoks Tzidkas Hatzaddik 77, explaining why R. Akiva had to come from such a background. See the note of Radal to Pirkei Dirabbi Eliezer (ch. 2, Hosafas Haradal 4, p. 12, in Zichron Aharon ed.), quoting Maaseh R. Chaim Vital that R. Akiva, himself, was a convert. 10 Shaar Hagilgulim, 5 11 Bereishis 25:26 12 See also Seder Hadoros, Tannaim Viamoraim, s.v. Akiva, quoting the Kavannas Haari that R. Akiva was a reincarnation of Yaakov. He goes on to point out that just as Yaakov was his father-in-law Lavans shepherd, so was R. Akiva the shepherd for his father-in-law, Kalba Savua. Just as Yaakov had two wives, Rachel and Leah, so did R. Akiva marry Rachel, and later, the beautiful ex-wife of Turnus Rufus. 13 Bechoros 58a 14 Tosafos to Shabbos 150a, s.v. virabbi Yehoshua, explains that R. Yehoshua ben Karcha was the son of Rabbi Akiva, who is called Karcha. 15 See Kodshei Yechezkel (vol. 3 to Sukkos 275, printed together with his fathers Meir Einei Chachamin, vol. 3) of R. Yechezkel, the son of R. Meir Yechiel of Ostrovtza, where he explains that the reason that R. Akiva is called bald is because the Talmud (Menachos 29b) teaches that he derived fundamental principles from the crowns of the letters. He explains that the crown atop the letters in the Torah are like the hair of the Torah, and he showed that there is nothing at all extra in Torah, essentially making it bald. We are discovering that removing the hair is what Rabbi Akiva was all about. 16 Zohar, vol. 3, 189a 17 Nedarim 50a

had to be buried in two separate places. His head wound up in the Cave of Machpelah, 18 but his body could not be there. His head, taught the Arizal 19, was rooted in holiness, and thus it merited to be buried with his father Yitzchak. But his body the parts of him that did not listen to what his soul20 required of him was fundamental to him. He traded his spiritual potential for a bowl of food for his physical needs were to him just as a real as his spiritual ones. Thus Esavs head could return to a place of holiness, cause in there things were alright. But his body could not, because that part of him was not connected in to the holiness. There was something holy in him after all, a wicked person can not be buried alongside the righteous21. But that holy part never made the impact that it could on the rest of his life. When we learn that we are smooth people that we do not really connect to the chaff of our past mistakes and failures then we can easily shake that straw and chaff off into the breeze. Sometimes there are things that we simply must let go of. Those who do not let go of the chaff risk truly becoming a part of it, and getting parts of themselves swept along with that chaff, and separated from spirituality and meaning. Rabbi Akiva was the one who
Targum Yonason to Bereshis 50:13 records that when Chushim ben Dan killed Esav (as recorded in Sotah 13a) Esavs head rolled into the embrace of Yitzchak. I discovered a fascinating incident recorded in the Mareh Hapanim to Talmud Yerushalmi Taanis 4:2 s.v. avos derech hasev who writes when I was in Italy, I spoke with the emissary from Chevron who was a trustworth man and his name was the late Chacham Rabbi Yitzchak Zevi, and when we got to talking about the Cave of Machpelah, I expressed how we know that today it under the control of cursed ones, and no person of another nation other than Arabs is allowed to enter the courtyard around the Cave, though they enter every day to pray there. Nevertheless, I asked if he had any knowledge, even second hand that he could tell me. And he told me that the truth is that no person is allowed in there by penalty of death, even the Arab guard is put to death should he be caught letting someone in. He then said I recall when I was seven or eight years olf, I went in there with my late mother, because the guard was very very ill, and my mother was sent for, since she a popular natural medicine woman, and she was summoned to come at once, and secretly, and with the permission of the guard, she took me along and we went into the courtyard above the dome built over the Cave that was made by Queen Hilni, it was decorated and built in exquisite fashion. When we were above, I saw that on the top of the dome it was all marked off, there was a sign over the Patriarchs and Matriarchs nobody can enter the cave down there. I saw marked off Avaraham, and next to him across from him Sarah. In the middle it said Yitzchak and at his side Rivka. After that Yaakoc and next to him Leah. This man also told me, that he saw on the side a little box that rested in a pillar on the wall, and he asked the guard what it was. The guard told him that it was a sign indicating that down below is where the head of Esav was buried, but that his name was not written and instead this sign was fashioned. See however Ben Yehoyada to Eruvin 53a who writes that the signs in the Cave of Machpelah are not reflective of the true locations of the holy people buried there for the gentiles who controlled the site simply made signs according to their own assumptions. 19 Cited in Yaaros Devash Vol. 2, Drush 15, See also Megaleh Amukos to Toldos s,v, inyan shoman Antoninus lirebbi 20 Ones neshama (soul) is located in his brain, see Rabenu Yonah to Brachos 15a s.v. Harotzeh. See also Mekor Chaim (O.C. 27:5) of R. Chaim Hakohen of Aram Tzovah, student of R. Chaim Vital, where he writes that shoresh haneshama hu birosh haadam. Ein Eliyahu to Brachos 14b s.v. amar ulah, and Maggid Taalumah to Brachos 54a s.v. Haroeh. 21 Sanhedrin 47a, Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 362:5. R. Chaim Kanievsky was posed this question in Derech Sicha (Vol. 1, p. 100), How could they have left Esavs head in the Cave of Machpelah, if we know that the law is that one can not bury a wicked person near the righteous? He responded In Talmud Yerushalmi Nedaim 3:8, it tells that at the end of days, when the righteous are sitting together, Esav will arrive and sit with them until Hashem Himself will remove him. It must be, he explained that Esav has something holy about him, and that holiness is why he was in the Cave of Machpelah.
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Yaakov stole from Esav. He taught us that we are holy, and that anything else is just meaningless and can be shaken right off in the wind.