And these are the children of Yitzchak son of Avraham; Avraham bore Yitzchak.
The obvious question about this verse is why the redundancy. And, as always, we need to understand the relevance of this information for every individual.
Perhaps this can be understood in light of an exposition of a famous passage in Rosh HaShanah.* ה"בר נפתחין ספרים שלשה, there are three books open [before Hashem for His judgement] on Rosh HaShanah, גמורים רשעים של אחד, one for the absolutely wicked, גמורים צדיקים של ואחד, one for the
צדיקים גמורים נכתבים ונחתמים לאלתר .average the for one and ,ואחד של בינונים ,righteous absolutely לחיים, the absolutely righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed for life, נכתבים גמורים רשעים למיתה לאלתר ונחתמים, the absolutely wicked are immediately inscribed and sealed for death, בינונים
כ"ה , יו ועד ה"מר ועומדין תלוין the average wait in limbo from Rosh HaShanah until Yom Kippur, זכו למיתה נכתבין זכו לא לחיים נכתבין, if they tilt to merit, they are inscribed for life, but if they do not tilt to merit, they are inscribed for death.
There are a number of difficulties one can raise about this passage. One is why a third book is necessary for the בינונים, as they will eventually wind up in one of the other two. And why does the בינוני for lack of a merit get inscribed with the wicked – he ought to remain a בינוני - ? Furthermore, the language מתים וספרי חיים ספרי implies that there are multiple books for each category; why are they necessary? And why is there only absolutely righteous and absolutely wicked – aren’t there also “non-absolute” people as well? And how is it possible that an average person who did not tilt himself to merit is punished along with an absolutely wicked person? Finally, why the superlative ?תלוין ועומדין of expression
In order to resolve these issues, let us turn to a lengthy and fundamental discuss in the Akeidas Yitzchak.** He raises the philosophical conundrum – treated at length by Socrates in Ethics – as to how anyone can be held accountable for sin. Being that all people acknowledge that one ought to only perform actions which will lead to one’s ultimate success, it follows that any act which strays from this objective is done out of a lapse of intellect. In other words, anyone in their right mind would never sin; perforce, all sin that exists must be the result of momentary insanity. Chazal, of sins person No ,אין אדם חוטא אלא א"כ נכנס בו רוח שטות formulation their in point this make ,course unless he is possessed by a spirit of madness.*** How, then, can one be held culpable for deeds done in such a frame of mind?
Socrates proposed a resolution by observing that there are three types of people: one whose actions are determined solely by his intellect without any interference from his desires; one whose actions are determined solely by his desires without any interference from his intellect; and one whose actions are influenced by both. When the latter faces decisions in life, both of these influencers attempt to sway the action in their direction. It is these forces that the Sages refer to as the Yetzer HaTov and the Yetzer HaRa.
To use one illustration: If a person encounters a desirable, yet forbidden food or woman, the intellect will determine that any physical indulgence is bad and demands distancing, while the desire will determine that anything pleasurable is good and deserves to be embraced. The intellect is incapable of completely discrediting the desire, for the desirous aspects of the object are real. Furthermore, the desire has something of an upper hand over the intellect in that the desirous elements are in the present, while the intellect’s objections typically relate to abstract issues that lie in the future.
It is to this that Chazal refer in their exposition of Koheles’ metaphor of the small town saved by the poor wise man from the onslaught of the great king.**** The wise man is described as poor because his currency – wisdom – was appropriated by his enemy, the king. For the only way that one’s desire manages to seduce him into sinning is through reasoning with him. As the Torah
that saw woman the ,ותרא האשה כי טוב העץ למאכל וגו' ונחמד העץ להשכיל :sin original the by describes the tree was good for food… and the tree was desirous for understanding.***** How, then, does the wise man manage to rescue the town? By informing the king that the town’s history has shown that those who conquer it eventually encounter their downfall. That is, by engaging one’s intelligence to project the indulgence’s outgrowth in the future, one can overpower the blandishments of his desire. It may be sweet now, but in the future it will be bitter.
What emerges is that when the Talmud says that sin is predicated on madness, it doesn’t mean that there is a vacuum of intelligence; rather that one ignores the reasoning of his intelligence for that of his desire.
Now, to apply this thought of the Akeidas Yitzchak to our topic. The three aforementioned interplays between the intellect and the desire are represented by the three Avos. Avraham is the intellect, while Yitzchak is desire. First comes אברהם בן יצחק, the subjugation of one’s desires to his intellect. Then יצחק את הוליד אברהם, the subjugation of the intellect to desire. When these two are combined they produce Yaakov and Eisav. The former is a symbol of intellect, as indicated by the expression of עקב, the end, for, as explained, it is in the end that the truth emerges. And the latter is a symbol of desire, as indicated by the expression of עשוי, done in the here and now. As such, Eisav traded his firstbornship, that which would come in the distant future, for his mess of stew, a pleasure of immediacy. This is why Yaakov proposed to Eisav לי בכורתך את כיום מכרה, sell to me your firstbornship like today. As the Sages say,****** daytime is symbolic of the World to Come. He was emphasizing to Eisav that his conduct demonstrated his incongruence with that future state of existence, and as such, he ought to transfer his firstbornship to Yaakov.
These three categories are represented in the Three Books of Rosh HaShanah. That of גמורים צדיקים is for those deeds which are generated by pure intellect; that of גמורים רשעים for those generated by pure desire; and that of בינונים for those under the sway of both motivations. The latter category are ועומדין תלויין, awaiting the individual to use one motivation to overcome the other. Hence, זכו,
Azaryah .b Elazar .R ,אמר ר' אלעזר בן עזריה לא זכיתי שתאמר יצי"מ בלילות וכו' .,cf (besting of sense the in said, I did not best my disputants to establish that the Exodus be mentioned at nights*******).
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* 16b.
** Naso, 73.
*** Sotah 3a.
**** Koheles 9; Nedarim 32b.
***** Bereishis 3:6.
****** Chagigah 12b.
******* Berachos 1:5.