When Bias Blocks Empathy (Parashat Toldot)

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Many years ago, I spent Shabbat at the home of a rabbi and rebbetzin at a religious community in Gush Etzion, a group of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. For some years I had hesitated to spend time in such settlements, but I wanted to open my eyes and heart and see what I might learn. The rabbi was a close relative of a close friend of mine, so I felt a warm, familial connection. The family welcomed me graciously.

Shabbat dinner was deeply moving. There was soulful singing between each course of the meal, so the entire meal was literally laced with prayer.

The next morning in synagogue, we were reading Toldot, this week’s Torah portion, and the rabbi gave a sermon that expressed the view of most of the traditional commentaries that Esau was an evil character. I understood that Esau had come to be associated in the Jewish imagination with Edom and later Rome, the enemy of the Jewish people in rabbinic times. And I understood that this community had experienced Palestinian violence, so their xenophobic views were clearly born of trauma.

Still, I was horrified. Hearing a message of intolerance and Jewish superiority presented as Torah, I felt pain deep in my body. It was all I could do to resist the temptation to leave the sanctuary. That night, I could not sleep.

Toldot includes the pivotal story of Isaac stealing his brother Esau’s birthright. The story unfolds in two stages. First, Esau (at Jacob’s suggestion) voluntarily cedes his birthright for a bowl of stew in Chapter 25. Then in Chapter 27, Rebecca famously arranges for Jacob to impersonate Esau, bring his father his favorite meat (that she had prepared) and receive the blessing of the firstborn.

When Esau learned what Jacob had done (he did not know of Rebecca’s role in the deception), “he burst into wild and bitter sobbing, and said to his father, ‘Bless me too, Father!’” (Genesis 27:34) and later, “‘Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!’ And Esau wept aloud.” (27:38)

Reading this story on its own terms, one can hear the heart-wrenching cry of a young man who has lost his rightful place in his family. The Torah’s language seems intent on breaking our hearts for Esau in his pain. 

But viewed through the historical lens, according to which Esau is the ancestor of the enemies of Israel, some readers see Esau as entirely evil and are therefore unmoved by his cries.

This story reminds me of another Biblical story of an enemy’s tears. In the Book of Judges (Chapter 4-5), Sisera, an enemy of the Israelites, is cleverly lured into a trap by Yael, who entices him and kills him in his sleep. Later, the text tells us that Sisera’s mother waited at her window and cried, desperately praying for her son’s return from battle: “Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why so late the clatter of his wheels?” (Judges 5:28)

Again, the text uses language that evokes our empathy, leading us to recognize the universality of a mother’s pain over the death of her son.

Remarkably, a midrash says that the sounds of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah are structured to sound like Sisera’s mother’s sobbing. The author of that midrash clearly could recognize Sisera’s mother’s pain, and Jews everywhere are reminded of it every Rosh Hashana when we sound the shofar, feeling the cries deep in our souls. 

In our own day, it is certainly not a simple thing to open our hearts to the pain of our perceived enemies. How able are you to feel empathy for the hurt that moves someone to a political or ideological view that you find abhorrent? Do you ever wonder whether, in the wake of the pain the other has experienced, you too might have been moved in that direction?

Most difficult, many of us feel challenged to absorb the reality of the unimaginable losses suffered by the people of Gaza. Even as I write those words, I can imagine many ways to push back: Didn’t the Gazans bring it on themselves by electing Hamas? Aren’t these the people who rejoiced over the Oct. 7 massacre? And so on. 

Surely, the situation is profoundly complex and multi-faceted. At the same time, our legitimate argument for our own people’s righteousness need not cause us to shut down our normal human reaction to evidence of horrific suffering. To do so diminishes the humanity of “the enemy,” and also our own. 

I pray for the day when many more Palestinians will grieve over Jewish losses, and when many more Jews will grieve over Palestinian losses. No one will have to give up their identity or connectedness to their people. But we will all affirm our humanity.

And on that day, there will be peace.

This column first appeared in the JWeekly, at https://jweekly.com/2025/11/20/esaus-plight-encourages-us-to-see-our-enemy-as-human/