Sidrah
Parashah of the week: Toldot
“He ate, he drank, he rose, he left. Esau spurned the birthright” Genesis 25:29-34
November 20, 2025 12:28
“He ate, he drank, he rose, he left. Esau spurned the birthright” Genesis 25:29-34
November 20, 2025 12:28A recent NatWest study reveals that a quarter of people under 35have saved £500 or less, embracing what researchers call a "spend now, save later" mindset.
It raises the question: are we living for today, or planning for tomorrow?
This is precisely the contrast posed by Esau and Jacob. Jacob is a shepherd who tends his flocks, who cooks for the family. Esau is a hunter who runs out of food and only then will hunt his next meal.
When Esau enters, famished from the hunt, announcing that he is "at the point of death," Jacob offers food in exchange for the birthright. "I'm going to die," Esau responds. "What do I need this birthright for?"
The commentators debate what the birthright represented – for Rashi, spiritual leadership, for Ibn Ezra family wealth, for Ramban the status of figurehead, the leadership of the ancestral home. But all agree on one crucial point: whatever it was, it would matter only years hence, after Isaac's death. This was a tomorrow thing, not a today thing.
And that was precisely why Esau spurned it.
Two brothers, two sensibilities, two mindsets. Esau valued the present, only what he could eat and enjoy in the moment. In contrast, Jacob demonstrated that he was focused upon the long-term, with its covenantal legacy, though it would be realised only in the distant future.
This remains our challenge. We live in a fast-moving world. The "important but not urgent" is so easily neglected because it doesn't demand immediate attention. Our family relationships, our spiritual needs, our peoplehood, our deeper purpose – these are our birthrights—inheritances of meaning and connection. Will we claim or discard our birthright?
Image: Esau trades his birthright with Jacob for a mess of pottage by Jan Victors, 1653 (Wikimedia Commons)
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