Appropriate Alcoholic Consumption (Toldot)
Gluttony kills more than the sword. -Proverb
Blind Isaac feels old age approaching. In anticipation, he asks his son Esau to bring him food so he can bless him before he dies. Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, feels that the younger son, Esau’s twin, Jacob, should receive the blessing. She instructs Jacob to bring food to Isaac and get the blessing. Jacob masquerades as Esau and taking advantage of his father’s blindness, successfully pretends to be the older sibling.
Jacob enters Isaac’s tent with food in hand and serves his elderly father. The feast includes wine. The meal goes without a hitch. While Isaac is somewhat suspicious, he seems convinced that it is indeed Esau in front of him and proceeds to bless his son with blessings of leadership and material success. Jacob takes leave of Isaac without getting caught. Only later, when Esau arrives ready to serve his own meal, is the charade uncovered to Isaac’s dismay and Esau’s anguish.
Esau’s resulting anger and desire to kill Jacob for the affront and for stealing his blessings results in Jacob’s escape and exile to Haran, to seek refuge by his uncle Laban and eventually to marrying his cousins, Leah and Rachel.
But getting back to the meal itself and Jacob serving his father Isaac wine, the Meshech Chochma on Genesis 27:25 notices that the cantillation note (the musical notes on how to read the Torah) under the word for “wine” is a “double” note.
He connects the double note under the word wine, to the Talmudic dictum (Tractate Beitzah 25b) that whoever drinks his wine in one gulp is a glutton. The Meshech Chochma claims that the note indicates that Isaac, who was well-mannered, didn’t drink his wine in one shot, but rather split it up into the proper etiquette of two gulps, which Jacob served him each time (they probably also didn’t have the large wine glasses we have today).
May we consume our alcoholic beverages (and our food in general) for the right reasons, at the right time, in the right proportion and the right way.
Shabbat Shalom,
Ben-Tzion
Dedication
To Doni and Emily Yellin on their marriage. Mazal Tov!
