Prayer Not Despair (Shabbat Toldot)

Growing up, my paternal grandfather, Howard, of blessed memory, was a big presence in my life. My sister and I always looked forward to when our parents would leave us with them, and we would eat ice-cream and red-grapes (my grandpa’s favorite foods), play Chinese checkers, and hear my grandpa’s (often off-color) jokes.

As I grew up, and we began to talk politics, he began to tell me I was a “bleeding heart liberal”, and said he was just being realistic, that I’d snap out of it someday. Since then, a lot has caused me to feel hopeless. Our President and other leaders’ remarks at the Glasgow Summit, show how hard it is to create the change our world needs.

This week’s parasha tells us about Isaac and Rebecca. After struggling with infertility they are blessed with not one, but two children! Rebecca’s joy quickly fades. Genesis tells us:

…the children struggled in her womb, and she said, “If so, why do I exist?” (Genesis 25:22).

Rebecca is in agonizing pain as she carries Jacob and Esau. The Targum, an early Aramaic translation of our text, renders the pained question Rebecca asks:  “If such be the anguish of a mother, what now is life, that children are to be mine?” (Jerusalem Targum) Rebecca’s pain is not physical, but existential: if bringing forth new life, opening to the future is so fraught with uncertainty and challenge, how am I to move into it?

In our own lives, we falter under the weight of this question. As “two separate peoples” striving against each other, we, too, are in existential pain, hindered in our ability to emerge from pandemic, or find clear ways to prevent climate catastrophe. But Rebecca, in her pain, does not despair. Rather, the Targum says, “…she went to pray before God in the House of Study...”.

Rebecca goes to her community and prays. Only as she comes face to face with her Source, allows the Blessed Holy One to hear what was on her heart, without needing them to be “reasonable” or “realistic” that Rebecca finally finds space for all the conflicting thoughts and feelings inside of her.

Rebecca, prayerfully moving through her struggle, gives birth to the future. Jacob and Esau will continue to struggle long after they are born, but they, too, eventually reconcile, having found there is space enough for both nations when they move through their own great struggles in order to greet each other with love.

So, when are in a narrow place, overwhelmed or struggling, may we, like Rebecca, reach out - call to a listening ear, Divine or human. As we speak the hopes and worries that sometimes feel too big for us to contain, may we find they are easier to bear. In prayerful connection may we sense ourselves supported to open to up, with wisdom and hope, to what is to come on the other side of these challenging times.