I gave this talk at Yom Kippur in the fall of 2008, not long before the U.S. elections that year. It draws heavily on parts of our upcoming Torah portion, Toldot.
Yom Kippur D’var Torah 5769 By Rabbi Maurice Harris
A long time ago, a matriarch of our people went through an agonizing pregnancy. Her name was Rivka, or Rebecca in English, and Genesis tells us that she went through excruciating physical pain while she was carrying twins.[1] The text, written in poetic Hebrew, reads: “…the children struggled in her womb, and she said, eem ken, if it has to be like this, lammah zeh anochi, why should I exist?”
Rebecca was a decisive woman, and she went directly to God to ask for guidance or an explanation. God answered her with a prophecy:
שְׁנֵי גֹיִים בְּבִטְנֵךְ – two nations are in your womb.
וּשְׁנֵי לְאֻמִּים, מִמֵּעַיִךְ יִפָּרֵדוּ – and two separate peoples will issue out from your body. One people will be mightier than the other, and the older will serve the younger.[2]
And God’s words were fulfilled. Rebecca gave birth to twin boys, Esau, who came into the world red and hairy, and Jacob, who followed grasping onto his brother’s heel. According to tradition, Jacob went on to be the forefather of our people. Esau went on to be the founder of the ancient nation of Edom. The rabbis later told us that Esau was also the father of their arch-enemy, the Romans.
Today we are all like our ancestor, Rebecca, on two fronts. First, we are, as Americans, pregnant with twins. Two nations are within us, two competing visions of what this country should be. Similarly, as Jews who love Israel, we are also pregnant with twins. Two Israel’s are within our people’s consciousness – competing visions of what Israel should be. Each of these sets of twins have been locked in a painful struggle of wills for a long time, but we are on the verge of a birth here in the US and in the land of Israel as well. Continue reading “Toldot – my words 7 years ago – do they still apply now?”
The Accidental Rabbi 
