A Thought on Parshas Toldos

"...va'yigdalu ha'na'arim..." "...and the young boys grew up..." (25:27) After introducing us to Esav and Yaakov, the Torah soon relates that they developed and went after their respective interests. It may seem a bit curious that the Torah even mentions that these two boys eventually matured. That is what everyone does. People grow up and take on adult identities. It is the way of the world and a fact of life. Why does the Torah tell us the obvious? Rashi may be attempting to address this question by bringing in a midrashic interpretation that the Torah is hinting to us that the transformations of Yaakov and Esav from young boys into well-defined personalities - one very righteous and one very nihilistic - were evident as soon as they entered adolescence. When the Torah writes that "they grew up", it means to tell us that they chose their life paths as soon as they stopped being children. That is not so common. In fact, it is rather discouraging. To think that any child, even way back then, and perhaps especially the sons and grandsons of our patriarchs had pretty much outgrown the influence of their parents and were poised to develop on their own so early in life! Rabbeinu Avigdor draws on another midrashic approach. He cites a view that sees our verse as an allusion to "growing up" in the religious or legalistic sense. The medrash teaches that the maturing of Yaakov and Esav entailed their entry into the age of personal responsibility. This turning point was the day in which those twin brothers turned 13. On that day, writes Rabbeinu Avigdor in the name of the medrash, their father Yitzchak Avinu stood up and recited the blessing "Baruch shep'tarani mae'onsho shel zeh" (Blessed is HaShem who has absolved me of liability for him). Rabbeinu Avigdor contends that the objective of our verse is to impress upon us something more than the development of a child's character and a parent's limited time to shape his or her personality. The Torah is telling us that a parent has a responsibility to build a child's religious and moral character as well. A parent bears some liability for a son or daughter, yet in our tradition, that liability closes once a child enters halachic majority. From that point on, we have already seen to it that our descendants know clearly that HaShem expects them on their own to walk in His ways. From his illuminating interpretation of our verse's message, Rabbeinu Avigdor codifies that a father is commanded to pronounce this blessing over his son at his bar mitzvah once he has read from the Torah. He rules that the father must stand aside his son and place his hand on the boy's head to display that this son is the subject of that bracha. He adds that this is the custom followed by the Jews of France. Good Shabbos. D Fox