Parashat Toledot tells of the birth of Yaakov and Esav. The enormous difference between these two personalities can be seen in their names. The name עשו, as Rashi explains, comes from the word עשוי – “readymade.” Esav was born with hair, like a physically mature adult. The name יעקב comes from the word עקב, heel, the first part of the foot that hits the ground when a person walks.
And this is the difference between Esav and Yaakov.
Esav lived as though he was fully developed. He did not work to grow and improve himself. Yaakov, on the other hand, always lived as though he was taking his first steps, at the first stage of a journey, moving forward and progressing.
We are all born with ingrained negative characteristics. We are naturally drawn to selfishness, arrogance, anger, irritability, negativity, and other bad tendencies and bad habits. As people grow older, they do one of two things: they work to change themselves, or they work to look like they changed themselves.
The way the world works, people need to at least give the appearance of being courteous, kind, respectful and dignified. So those who choose not to build themselves and grow end up training themselves to appear as though they did.
This is how Esav lived. The Rabbis teach that Esav fooled his father by asking halachic questions, appearing to be religious and conscientious. In truth, he was anything but religious and conscientious. He never tried to be. So instead, he projected a fake image.
We’ve all had the experience of hearing people speak glowingly of somebody whom we know very well, and whom we know is not deserving of such praise. We hear people talk about how this person is so wonderful, so nice, so sweet, so caring, but we know the truth, that this person is anything but all this. How does that happen? It happens because people either work on themselves or work on their appearance. Either they work to make themselves good, or they work to make themselves look good.
Later in this parashah, the Torah talks about how Yitzhak became very wealthy, and it says, ויגדל האיש – “The man grew.” One commentator explained this to mean that Yitzhak not only became wealthy, but he grew as a person. He did not simply make a lot of money and look impressive. He grew internally, in the core essence of his being. Every day, he tried to get better. He didn’t just try to make money; he tried to make himself into a better person.
Some people, unfortunately, focus not on developing themselves, but on developing their image. They go through life trying to look good, instead of trying to be good. These people are, in essence, fake. They’re all about the show.
Growing means trying to be more patient, to be more humble, to be more giving, to be more understanding, to have more emunah, to be kinder, to be happier, to be more positive, to be more refined. Every night when we go to bed, we should take some time to think about our day, to reflect on something we could have done differently. This is how we make ourselves better, rather than just making ourselves look better.
As the descendants of Yaakov Avinu, let us live our lives as יעקב – as though we’re taking our first steps, striving to move forward and constantly grow.