COMMENTARY ON TOLEDOT:  The Story of Jacob and Esau

"Behold, the smell of my son is like the fragrance of a
field...."--Genesis, XXVII:27

        We are willing to make excuses for any murderer.  "Oh, he's not so
bad!" Yet when we hear about Jacob and Esau, we say, "Oh, it's so terrible!
He stole a blessing from his brother!" Empty your heart of whatever you
think you have learned about this story before.

        When it was time for Yitzhak to give his blessing to his son, our
mother Rivka knew that Esau did not have the vessels to properly receive
Yitzhak's blessings.  Not only did he have no vessels, but if, G-d forbid,
Yitzhak had blessed Esau, it would have been the end of the world.  Even
without the blessings, Esau almost destroyed the world.  Imagine, if the
Other Side had all the blessings, too, where would we be?

        In the story, Jacob comes in and Yitzhak says, "This is strange.
This is the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau!?" Then Yitzhak says,
"Come closer to me.  Let me touch you."  He says, "R'eh rayach b'ni
k'rayach sadeh--Look, behold, the smell of my son is like the fragrance of
a field."

        First of all, have you ever heard anyone say, "Look at the smell?"
Can you see a smell? So why does it say, "Look"? It also says, "V'yarach et
rayach b'gadav--And he smelled the smell of his garments."  Beged means
garment, but it also means those who are against you.  Yitzhak
prophetically saw all history until the end of creation at that moment.  He
also saw the lowest of all the Jews, the Jew who was against his own
people.  Even that lowest Jew smelled good to him.

        The Gemara says an unbelievable thing.  It says, "Who did Yitzhak
see? He saw Yosef Meshicha."  I'll tell you who Yosef Meshicha was.  When
the Romans destroyed the Holy Temple, they wanted to clean out all the gold
and silver in the Holy of Holiest.  But they were afraid to walk in.  So
they said to this one Jew, Yosef, who was working for them, "Listen, we
don't want to go in the Holy of Holiest.  You go in, and whatever valuables
you bring out, we'll give you a share of."

        You have to realize that the Holy of Holiest was only entered once
a year, when the High Priest went in on Yom Kippur.  There was a long
story...without going into details:  the last time a person was in that
room, that High Priest knew it was the last time he would be going in.  Can
you imagine the level he was on when he went in for his last Yom Kippur?
The next one to walk in, after him, was this low rotten Jew who was working
for the Romans against his own people.  Even if you forget about the fact
that he was anti-religious, he was an outright traitor.

        Anyway, he came out of the Holy of Holiest with one of the holy
vessels, a big piece of gold.  The Romans said to him, "Go back in and get
some more gold and silver for us."  He answered, "No, I can't go in there
anymore."  I won't go into the gruesome details.  They began to torture him
in a way that caused unbelievable pain.  The whole time he cried out,
"Because I did wrong once, I should do it again?"

        The Talmud says that after he died there was a voice in heaven
saying, "Yosef Meshicha has a place in paradise, next to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob."  This is what Yitzhak saw.

        Yitzhak blessed Ya'akov and said, "The smell of my son"--meaning
"my great-great-grandchild"--the lowest one--"is like a field which is
blessed by G-d."

        Yitzhak said, "R'eh rayach--Look, behold the smell."  There is a
oneness of the body and a oneness of the soul.  The difference between them
is very simple.  With my body, my foot is absolutely a foot and my hand is
a hand.  If my hand would say to my foot, "I feel so united with you that I
would like to have the same shape that you do," I'd be a cripple, G-d
forbid.  If my heart said to my kishkes, "I love you so much, kishke, I
want to get so close to you, that I'd like to do the same things you do."
That is very cute.  But if, G-d forbid, my heart became a kishke, I'd be
dead.  So the oneness of the body expresses itself when my heart and my
kishke, and my hand and my foot, all get together.  But each one continues
to do exactly the job it has to do.  On the body level, hearing and seeing
and smelling and feeling are all different departments, yet they all work
together.

        The oneness of the soul is different.  You cannot say that the soul
has a special place for seeing and the soul has a special place for hearing
and the soul has a special place for feeling.  Within the soul, it is all
absolutely one.

        The Talmud says when we stood on Mt. Sinai, the revelation was so
high that we saw what could be heard and heard what could be seen.  When
the Meshiach comes, when our souls and the world are completely repaired,
the soul level of oneness will be so strong that we will be able to see
smells.  It says that when Meshiach comes, he will not judge people by
eyesight or by what he sees.  He will judge people by d'marayach
hadarim--by his sense of smell, by his nose.

        It was like that at Zydichoiv.  When a person came to see the
Rebbe, the Rebbe would not look at the person.  He would keep his eyes
closed.  The person would get close to the Rebbe's table and stand there.
Then the Holy Zydichoiver would inhale the air.  He would know exactly who
this person was.

        Many times somebody looks sweet and talks sweet but your soul's
nose tells you that there is something wrong.  Sometimes it is the other
way around.  A person walks in looking dirty and filthy, and his speech is
disgusting, and yet your nose tells you that he's so holy inside and so
special.