Toldot 5773 - English

By Rabbi Daniela Szuster
B´nei  Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

Were you branded, at some time in life, as untidy or boring, shy or selfish?  Perhaps in school, teachers labeled you as intelligent or absent-minded?  And your classmates, as clumsy or foolish?  At work, perhaps as the efficient or the lazy one in the office?  In the hospital, as the diabetic or the one with hypertension?  Perhaps you visited a psychologist who diagnosed you as neurotic or hysteric, or the school psychologist branded your child as hyperkinetic or the one with attention-deficit disorder?  And what about ethnic and discriminatory labels, such as “the Jew”, “the gypsy”, “gay”, “nigger”, etc.?

I’d like you to take a moment to think about your life and the number of labels dealt to you by society.  Which ones do you recall?  How did they make you feel?  Do you think you were really like that?

We live in a world which continuously tries to label us.  Stereotypes shut our mouths and do not let us express ourselves, do not let us show ourselves as we really are.

In this week’s parashah, we have two characters who we labeled even before their birth, and those stereotypes remained with them for their entire life.

Rebecca, our second matriarch, got pregnant and, according to the Torah, she had two babies in her womb, who moved around a lot.  Rebecca was very concerned, until God finally reassured her by saying, “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23).

Even from the womb, each one had his own destiny; one more vigorous, the other, weaker.

The Midrash sages explain the intrauterine movements saying that, when Rebecca passed near a Beit Midrash (house of study) of Shem and Ever, Jacob moved and tried to get out.  And when she passed by a house where idolatry was worshipped, Esau moved and wanted to get out.  From the very start, well-defined stereotypes.  One was the Torah scholar; the other, the idolater.  Then, the Torah recounts that “When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed in camp” (Gen. 25:27).

The sages explain that they not only had different occupations, but different personal characteristics as well.  One was rough, wild and cunning; the other was quiet, thoughtful and spiritual.

Jacob and Esau were labeled before their birth and for their entire lives.  So strongly were they labeled that they finally fulfilled, somehow, what their family and society expected from them.

When we are labeled so unequivocally – “the smart”, “the kind”, “the irresponsible”, “the lazy” or “the ambitious” – this means that whoever labels us forgets the complexity of us as human beings.  The last thing we should do is to believe in the labels that brand us, that attempt to contain us and make us uniform and homogeneous at all times no matter what we do, which is impossible in human beings.  Anyway, human beings are flexible and have the ability to change in different circumstances and at different stages in their lives. 

We should wonder about the reasons why society insists on cataloguing people and dividing them into categories.  Since we are part of society, we must not forget that just as we are catalogued, we catalogue others as well.

This week, I’d like you to take the opportunity to reflect upon the labels we put on others: to whom – our children, our parents, our friends or to foreigners? – and how –for their own good or to hurt them?, with humor or contempt, discriminating or  making others suffer?

An interesting exercise would be for us to think, every time we catch ourselves stereotyping someone, about the other positive qualities held by the person in question, which we are not taking into account.

Let us not simplify human beings and reduce them to a simple label, which only serves to make them suffer and to diminish them.

All of us, in one way or another, are or have been labeled during our life.  We should know that this is cruel and fruitless.  Let us avoid doing it to others.   Perhaps in this way, there will come a time when we can view ourselves in a more integral manner; see the positive and the negative, giving us the chance to acknowledge other qualities, beyond whatever rumors try to determine.

Stereotypes shut people in, reduce them, simplify them, and frustrate them; on the other hand, appreciating the plurality of features present in human beings can be a profoundly enriching experience.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Daniela Szuster

B´nei  Israel Congregation, Costa Rica