Parshas Toldos – Show your |Absolute Value|

 Parshas Toldos – Show your |Absolute Value| 

The Torah relates (Beraishis 25:23) that even before Yaakov and Eisav were born, it was clear that that the only thing these twins would have in common would be their birthday. From what they were attracted to even while still in the womb, to their appearance at birth, to the activities they grew up spending their time doing, they were clearly two people who could not be further apart. One was an ish yodeah tzayid ish sadeh (a dishonest ‘man of the field'), and the other an ish tam yosheiv ohalim (wholesome man who studied Torah).  

It is important to note that the Torah does not merely describe Yaakov as someone who was not evil; nor does it describe Eisav as someone who just was not a good yeshiva boy. Rather, the Torah stresses that they each deliberately chose a distinct path, each one being the polar opposite of the other. To put it numerically, if you were to plot Yaakov and Eisav on a number line, one of them would not be “0” relative to the other. Instead, they would be equidistant from the origin on either side. As deliberate as Eisav was to be evil, Yaakov was to be good, and vice versa.  

It is hard to imagine what could possibly drive someone to be so consciously evil, and yet generation after generation such a category of people exists. The amount of disinformation that we have seen sharply increasing in the world over the past few decades with the advent of the internet and further accelerating more recently with social media and AI, has become even more vicious and personal to us as a nation over the last six weeks. The remnants of Eisav and Lavan seeking to destroy with words of deceit and utter falsehood has clearly shown its face in people deliberately dismissing reality and twisting facts, even to the point of people broadcasting the opposite of what they saw with their own eyes! It is nothing more than a promotion of hatred and falsehood into the world. This is darkness in its darkest sense being perpetuated by parasites in human form deliberately distorting reality and looking for host bodies to download their corrupt and destructive views. They purposely seek to change the next generation into a group of blind men in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.  

How do we counter such intentional evil? The only way to do so is to double down on intentional good, shalom, and emes. The ish yodeah tzayid needs to be countered, with its absolute value, at the other end of the number line, with ish tam yoshev ohalim.  

 

The primary limitations of this world, being confined to time and space, create a bias for comparisons by relativity. When we pause to reflect on who we are, we naturally turn to compare ourselves to those around us and analyze our comparative actions. There is a further bias which tends to lean us towards a “confirmation” of what we may be feeling about ourselves at a given moment. Sometimes, when we feel down and unaccomplished, we tend to look at everyone around us who seems so happy and successful, and only cause ourselves to feel more depressed. Other times, when we feel like we are on a high, we may tend to look around at those we may deem “less” than us and think “well at least I don’t do that...”. However, nothing could be further from the truth on multiple levels. First, of course it is completely inappropriate and unbalanced to compare oneself to someone else who has a totally different and unique purpose for being in this world. Every aspect of a person’s “life settings” is set by Hashem to provide the perfect environment to fulfill their potential. Comparing your actions to someone elses’ would be akin to asking: “What is faster, to Toronto or by train?” Second, relatedly, it is important to recall that you only bring value if it is your absolute value. Meaning, just not doing something that someone else is not necessarily an accomplishment. What makes you special is when you deliberately put in your effort to bring goodness into the world.  

We just entered the month of Kislev, the month that Chanukah is in. In our history, and by extension not only bayamim haheim, but also b’zman hazeh, this was and is a time that light overcomes darkness. Not just simply not adding to darkness, but defeating it deliberately by lighting the menorah, making a chanukas hamizbeach, and deliberately increasing kedusha into the word.  May we all capitalize on this time, especially in face of the pure darkness all around us, to grab onto our absolute values as a nation, as communities, and uniquely as individuals, to counter and overcome the deliberate darkness with an actual force of light.