By Aaron Kay

The tale of Jacob and Esau is one tormented with deceit, mistrust, and sly competition.

Last we heard from these two brothers, Jacob had stolen Esau’s blessing from their father by means of impersonation, before he fled the household to escape Esau’s rage.

Parashat Vayishlach begins with the breaking of the brothers’ twenty year silence. With seemingly sweet intentions, Jacob sends messengers to Esau, bestowing gifts of livestock and asking for forgiveness. To his terror, the messengers return to inform Jacob that Esau is now marching toward their camp with four hundred soldiers.

Upon approach, Esau bounds forward and topples his younger twin over in a loving embrace. It’s a cute time: Esau probably expresses forgiveness for Jacob’s past transgressions, Jacob awkwardly introduces his new wives and children, all four hundred of Esau’s soldiers perform Seasons of Love*. Easu insists that Jacob’s family join him in traveling onward together to build a shared future. Yet in perhaps the most heartbreaking moment of the parsha, Jacob gives the excuse that his children and flocks are too frail for travel and only agrees to trail at a slower pace behind Esau. But once Esau’s back is turned, Jacob instead leads his people in the opposite direction, evading his brother’s humility.

Pause. I want to scream in Jacob’s face: No. Turn back around, accept Esau’s apology, and be a mature father of the Jewish people. The tradition of inherited birthright that roots Jacob’s behavior is archaic to us now. It is a social hierarchy that we just don’t experience. Instead, our post-modern time is plagued with different sources of interpersonal conflict, foremostly a capitalism that is just as much social as it is economic. Capitalism pits us to measure each other’s worth in clothing and pop culture references, only to consume or dispose of friendships depending on their lucrativity.

Kvutza is our answer to this reality. We are accountable to check each other when capitalism invades our friendships and our work. But Jacob and Esau are not chevrei kvutza, so there is no one to object when Jacob slips away from their shared future.

Now the brothers remain separated again for an undisclosed period of time until they meet back up in Hebron to bury their father, Isaac. Following this final reunion, the brothers live together until their families became too prosperous for the land to support them both (Genesis 36:7) - end of story, harmony at last.

So why does the Torah give us this specific explanation? Overwhelming prosperity as an explanation for the twins’ final parting proves to us that Jacob purposefully did not use his birthright to evict Esau from the land - a command he technically held every right to impose. Rather, Jacob finally overcomes the competitive independence that kept him isolated from Esau for so many years. And when Jacob allows for the nature of this relationship to shift from competition into collaboration the outcome is boundless prosperity.

Just as Jacob eventually accepts his brother’s confrontation and forgiveness, so must we look deep into the faces of those with whom we compete to see where old conflicts have decayed into irrelevance. When Jacob and Esau finally do so, their reward is a renewed relationship, one whose fruits are literally uncontainable. On this Shabbat, may even our conflicts transcend their competitive natures, and let us all kick capitalism in the face with trust and companionship.