Yaakov took all the money he earned in the house of Lavan – a literal pile of silver and gold – and gave it to Eisav in exchange for Eisav’s plot in מערת המכפלה, the family burial cave in Hebron (Rashi to 50:5). אמר, נכסי חוץ לארץ אינן כדאי לי - Yaakov said, “Wealth from outside of Israel is unimportant to me” (Rashi to 46:6).
While there is a family tradition of paying retail for a gravesite (23:16), throwing money away is wrong. It is therefore surprising that Yaakov made such an unnecessarily excessive offer. (The alternative, that Eisav’s asking price happened to match Yaakov’s earnings in Charan, is an unlikely coincidence, to say the least.) Yaakov was not wasteful of the wealth he earned in Charan; he even went out of his way to retrieve small jugs (Rashi to 32:24). Why is he volunteering now to give it all away?
Yaakov has no issue with wealth per se; the money he earned
in Israel he keeps for himself (46:6). And to suggest that there is something wrong
with bringing foreign funds into the Holy Land is also untenable, for Avraham
happily imported Pharaoh’s gifts (13:2). There must be a deeper meaning here: a
correlation between the money Yaakov earned abroad and Eisav’s plot in Eretz
Yisroel.
As we have learned, Yaakov never made peace with Eisav’s bracha
and the mission of the איש שדה that was bound up with it. For Yaakov, success
in Haran was a source of discomfort. Despite his attempt to deny it (Rashi to
32:6), Yaakov’s שדה-based wealth was a clear indication that he had indeed usurped
Eisav’s role. (According to Eruvin 27b, cattle are considered גדולי
קרקע, and are therefore presumably also שמני ארץ.)
Eisav’s ownership of a plot in מערת המכפלה
is also discomforting. Firstly, it is piece of ארץ ישראל,
the land of קדושה that is Yaakov’s Promised Land (28:13). Worse
yet is the symbolism. The Talmud tells us that there were only eight gravesites
in the cave, for four couples: Adam and Chava, Avraham and Sara, Yitzchok and
Rivka, and Leah and her spouse. Only one plot remained, the one beside Leah (Sotah
13a; Rashi to 49:21). Interment in the family’s ancestral burial site implies
that Eisav is a member of the pantheon of forefathers. This is a disgrace
Yaakov cannot tolerate.
Yaakov said, “This Rasha is destined to enter with his sons into the מערת המכפלה?! He will have a share and a seat with the Tzaddikim buried there?!” (Shemos Rabba 31:17)
Taken together, Yaakov financial success and Eisav’s plot evoke
the original conception of a partnership between the two brothers in the
Abrahamic dynasty, but with a reversal of roles: Yaakov as גביר (cf. 27:37) and Eisav as spiritual leader. Strange as it
sounds, Eisav’s position in the family was still an open question; Hashem does
not sign off on Yaakov’s purchase of the birthright until Moshe is sent to save
the Jews from Egypt (Rashi to Shemos 4:22).
Yaakov is rightly concerned and he comes up with an elegant
solution: buying Eisav’s plot in ארץ ישראל with the wealth he made in חוץ לארץ.
For Yaakov, it is a natural trade and a win-win, as it frees him of the stigma
of the איש שדה and cements his ownership of the coveted
birthright. Eisav’s consent to the sale is yet another insult to the birthright
(cf. 25:34), supplying further justification for his removal from the family – a
key aspect of Yaakov’s intention, no doubt.
In the generation of Yaakov and Eisav, we are presented with
two options in life: to be a יושב אהלים in ישראל ארץ or an איש שדה
in חוץ לארץ. The איש שדה is not a natural צדיק, and Yaakov rejects that identity. However, the elements are
not mutually exclusive. There is another model: an איש שדה in חוץ לארץ who holds the
birthright – and is also a צדיק. This archetype is personified in the next generation by none
other than Yaakov’s own beloved son Yosef.
