ONE of my favourite biblical references in literature is based on this week’s Torah reading and it helps to highlight a unique aspect of Jewish morality. The reference occurs in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The duplicitous Dr Jekyll laments the difficulty that arises from needing to constantly control the contradictory natures of man’s personality, one which strives to do good and the other to do bad. He decries the fact “that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling”.

For his analogy Stevenson borrowed the biblical language used to describe Rebecca’s difficult pregnancy: “And the children struggled within her.” Therefore, according to Stevenson’s reading of the biblical account, Jacob and Esau represent polar opposites, good and bad, the Jekyll and Hyde of Judaism. 

Such a dualistic conception of the twins may be implied by the Torah when it states, “and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a simple man, dwelling in tents (Genesis 25:27). Based on this, the rabbis saw Esau as a murderer and Jacob as a scholar (Genesis Rabbah 63). 

However, the ensuing narrative implies a more complex reality. Esau is not always bad (he honoured his father), and Jacob is not always good (he misled his father). 

Therefore, if like Stevenson we see Jacob and Esau as a metaphor for man’s inclinations, they cannot be divided into neat categories. Rather, each of man’s attributes has the capacity to be used for good or for bad. They are not inherently one or another. 

This attitude is expressed in the Talmud through a mystical teaching which says that “He who is born under Mars will be a shedder of blood. Rabbi Ashi observed: Either a surgeon, a thief, a slaughterer, or a circumciser” (Shabbat 156a).

In other words, a person, or an inclination, is neither a Jekyll nor a Hyde. Rather, it is how a person directs their impulses which determines their ultimate moral value.