Summary of the Parasha
Isaac marries Rebecca at 40; she is barren, and he prays for her “opposite her”. Rebecca conceives twins who struggle within her; God reveals to her: “Two nations are in your womb”, and “the elder shall serve the younger”. First comes Esau, red and hairy, then Jacob, holding his brother’s heel. Esau becomes a hunter, a man of the field; Jacob is “a simple man, dwelling in tents” of study. One day Esau comes home exhausted and sells his birthright for a bowl of lentils.
A famine strikes; God forbids Isaac to go down to Egypt, for he is a “perfect offering” who must not leave the land. In Gerar, he presents Rebecca as his sister, and Abimelech discovers the truth. Isaac sows and reaps “a hundredfold”. The jealous Philistines block Abraham’s wells; Isaac digs them again and gives them his father’s names, then digs new ones: Esek, Sitnah and Rechovot. In Beer Sheva God appears to him, and Abimelech makes a covenant with him. Esau marries two Hittite women, to his parents’ great sorrow.
Isaac, old and blind, wants to bless Esau and asks him to prepare a dish of game. Rebecca sends Jacob in his place, dressed in his brother’s clothes, his hands covered with goatskins. Isaac hesitates: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau”, then blesses him: “May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth”. Esau returns, lets out a great cry, and receives a different blessing: “By your sword you shall live”. He swears to kill Jacob. Rebecca sends Jacob to her brother Laban in Haran, and Isaac gives him the blessing of Abraham, telling him to find a wife there. To please his father, Esau marries Machalat, daughter of Ishmael.
Summary of the Haftara
“Massa D’var Hashem” (“The burden of the word of Hashem”)
Text in Malachi 1:1–2:7
Malachi, the last of the prophets, opens his book with God’s love for Israel: “I loved Jacob, and Esau I hated”; Edom may rebuild its ruins, but God will tear them down. He then rebukes the Kohanim of his time for bringing lame or sick animals to the altar: “Offer it to your governor!” The haftara ends with a portrait of the true Kohen, Aaron: “A Torah of truth was in his mouth… he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from sin.”
Parasha-Haftara Connection
The haftara takes up the pair at the heart of the parasha, Jacob and Esau, and the choice of Israel. It also recalls what makes Jacob worthy of the blessing: not cunning, but the “simple man dwelling in tents”, the one who carries a Torah of truth in his mouth.