Navigating the Internal Struggle: Unearthing Life Lessons from the Epic Tale of Yaakov and Esav

I always love this time of the year when Parshah's Toldos and the epic saga and narrative of Yakov and Asav is told, because it's very fun to hear how the younger twin proves triumphant over his older twin, his older brother. So shout out, isaac. But truthfully, this legendary story of Yakov and Asav begins long before they're even born. So when we hear these famous words of Aisrait to Abonimbe Kirba really when Rivko was pregnant, going through a pregnancy from Gehenim, when the Pasek tells us that these two fetuses, these cosmic forces, the forces of good and the forces of evil in the world, were jostling and forcefully fighting against each other in the womb, that Rivko was unconsolable. She didn't know what was going on. The whole thing isn't worth it for me. I don't even want it. She's been struggling to have a child and all of a sudden she has it and the whole thing. She doesn't want why? Because, as she explains, every time she'd walk past the study halls of the synagogues in the Yeshivos, the baby was tussling to try to get out and start learning and doing mitzvos. But then, when she would walk past the next block where the casinos and bars and idolatrous temples and totems poles were, the baby also wanted out and she couldn't understand this. So she goes to the Yeshiva. She gets up, socked from the chamber. Ava says no, it's two separate kids, it's twins. And all of a sudden she's fine, but the Hela get base out. Levi, the grandfather of the Briskard dynasty, gives us such a provocative and powerful ripping off of the band, a type of idea. Listen here. He brings back that classic story of Elio on Har Carmo, when the Jewish people were dancing at two separate weddings, when they were trying to follow the ways of God but they were also showing following the ways of Baal. And Elio shows up and making a strong statement and he tells the Jewish people, rebuking them. That Jewish people, how long will you continue to dance between two separate ideas? Take a side, kenneth Mitanza. That's why you can't be at two different casinos at once. It's just the base of Levi. Riftgo was unable to tolerate how this fetus was going to be half in Casinos and bars and hunting the whole day, but then also just learning. She didn't want it. That wasn't good for her. But when she heard that one would be totally wicked, she was okay with that because she was going to have one total saddika of a kid. It's a hard idea for us to digest in modern times, but the idea is that dancing at two casinos at the same time is impossible and dancing back and forth between two separate ideas perhaps going half in on something is never the right move. It's our job to give champion efforts entirely to go all in. But you're straight into al-Banaikirba that every single time that we walk past the show and we want to go into the show and we want to learn because going half in is not really going in. So in every place in our lives that we are pretty good, at least in our own levels, we can take another step closer, trying to push ourselves to become more and more dedicated to the task at hand of becoming God-fearing Jews and following the ways of Yaakov of Inu.