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Jewish World Review
Dec. 18, 2008
/ 21 Kislev 5769
The Final Battlefield
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
Jewish tradition's prophetic tale of a flax merchant, a blacksmith, and the fall of Western Civilization
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Last week's Torah portion concluded by listing the progeny of Esau, the wicked brother of Jacob, together with the generals, the rulers, and the empires that would descend from him. Most notable among them is the kingdom of Edom, the ideological descendants of which would ultimately produce the Roman Empire.
Our Torah portion this week begins with the words: And Jacob settled in the land of his father's wanderings, in the land of Canaan (Genesis 37:1). This seemingly innocuous verse acquires a wholly unexpected and enigmatic significance based upon an interpretation by the 11th Century Talmudic genius Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi), the most authoritative of all classical commentators.
Says Rashi: Jacob foresaw [prophetically] all the generals listed in the previous verses and stood in awe, saying, "Who will be able to defeat all of these?" Recognizing that the contention between him and his brother would continue throughout future generations, Jacob despaired at the mighty armies and nations that would one day rise up against his offspring.
Rashi prefaces these remarks with a curious parable: A merchant [enters town] leading camels laden with flax. A blacksmith wonders in astonishment, "Where will he unload all of this flax?" A clever fellow answers him: "One spark going out from your bellows will burn all of it up."
The message of the parable seems reasonably clear — that within Jacob's children there will reside a spark of spiritual power sufficient to send all of Esau's might up in flames. But the parable itself appears nonsensical. Why does the blacksmith care where the merchant will store his flax? And what kind of answer is it to suggest that setting fire to the entire load of merchandise will solve the problem?
THE BATTLEFIELD OF FREE ENTERPRISE
It is an axiom in the world of commerce that businesses either expand or contract. By expanding, they continue to succeed; by contracting, they wither and die. And as successful enterprises grow ever larger, they take over more and more space, pushing out smaller businesses that are in competition for the same property.
The blacksmith in the parable recognizes the precariousness of his circumstances when he sees the enormous cargo of flax brought into his town. All that merchandise has to go somewhere, and if the flax merchant needs more space, it's only natural that he will overrun smaller enterprises — quite possibly the blacksmith himself.
If this is the blacksmith's concern, what is the meaning of the clever fellow's answer? Rabbi Zev Leff explains his meaning as follows: The blacksmith ought not be impressed by the enormity of the flax dealer's merchandise. In order to acquire it, the flax merchant has had to borrow against everything he owns, and only if he sells it all will he be able to pay off his debts, after which he will start over again, each time making only a modest profit. If, in the meantime, anything happens to his merchandise, he loses everything he owns and is out of business.
The blacksmith, however, has something of intrinsic value. His anvil and his tradecraft make his business solid and secure. Nothing can happen to them, so his livelihood is not in danger. In contrast to the flex dealer who may appear large and wealthy, the blacksmith is not threatened by the whims of fate, for possesses something that will certainly endure.
Similarly Jacob, momentarily awed by the future might of Esau, came to recognize that the grandeur of the Kingdom of Edom and the vast power of the future Roman Empire were in fact nothing but the fleeting illusion of greatness that would cast a giant shadow upon the world for a time and then vanish from the earth. Rome itself would fall, and in its place would rise up Western Civilization's culture of superficiality and self-indulgence, the twilight of Esau's dominion upon the earth.
A VISION OF THINGS TO COME
Understood this way, Rashi's parable provides an uncanny foreshadowing of the tremors of financial instability that have shaken the economic foundations of the western world. As markets soared and the Dow passed 5000, passed 10,000, and approached 15,000 points, few stopped to consider whether their profits represented real wealth or merely an inflated illusion of limitless bounty.
In headlong pursuit of profits, speculators literally mortgaged their futures, bundling paper money to be sold and resold for marginal profits like a Ponzi scheme on steroids. The buying and selling of stock and commodity futures generated market motion that was the source of market income, a perpetual motion machine in which short-term profits increased far beyond the value of any true capital. Businesses thrived in a service economy that was sustained by a cyclical market of rotating revenues, with nothing of any intrinsic worth being produced at all.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that such a system couldn't possibly continue. But in the frenzy of rising incomes and expanding personal wealth, no one wanted to pay attention to the telltale signs or the change in the weather. Finally, and inevitably, the winds of change fanned the sparks of reality and sent the whole grand illusion up in flames like a mound of flax.
This is the contemporary battleground — and the final battleground — of Jacob and Esau. The modern-day infatuation with everything and anything that is bigger, more powerful, and more complicated, the attraction to external grandeur at the expense of internal substance — this is the merchandise of the descendants of Esau, with which they seek to bury the spirit of mankind beneath a mountain of empty promises as worthless as a camel-load of straw.
But the resilience of the human soul is beyond measure, no matter how persistently the vanities of the material world may besiege it. A spark of spirituality always survives, waiting for the opportune moment as we approach the End of Days, when glory of Jacob will light up the world with the funeral pyre of Esau.
All that is left for us to ask ourselves is what we want to play: will we contribute to the spark, or to go up in smoke along with the dry and deceptive kindling of unprofitable dreams.
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Comment by clicking here.JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High School in St. Louis, MO, where he also writes and lectures. Visit him at http://torahideals.wordpress.com .
© 2008, Rabbi Yonason Goldson
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