Shlomo opens Toldos with the offspring of Yitzchak and Rivka’s barrenness. Both daven; Rivka conceives and feels the babies kicking at opposite places—one at a shul, one at a place of idolatry. She goes to the yeshiva of Shem and Ever and is told she is carrying twins who will become two nations, the older serving the younger. Esav is born first, red and hairy (named for that), with Yaakov gripping his heel. They grow into opposites: Esav the hunter, Yaakov the tent-dweller who learns. Yitzchak loves Esav because Esav asks him questions about taking maaser and terumah from salt, looking like a tzaddik; Rivka loves Yaakov. On the day Avraham dies (Hashem having taken him so he would not see Esav’s first murder), Yaakov is cooking red lentil soup. Esav returns hungry, sells the bechorah for the soup—unwilling to risk the service in the Beis HaMikdash that would kill a man of his habits—and is named Edom. A famine drives the family to Gerar. Yitzchak uses the “she is my sister” line; Avimelech later sees the truth through a window (or by prophecy) and lets them stay. Yitzchak’s crops yield a hundredfold. He reopens the wells stopped up in Avraham’s time, is driven from Gerar for becoming too powerful, digs new wells in the valleys, and fights the Pelishtim over two of them. At Be’er Sheva Hashem reaffirms the blessing; a mizbeach is built. Avimelech comes to renew the old treaty. Esav marries two idolatrous Hittite women who make life bitter for Yitzchak and Rivka; he is compared to a pig that shows its kosher-looking hooves while remaining treif. He marries at forty, the age Yitzchak married.
Yitzchak goes blind (some say from the smoke of the idolatrous offerings Esav’s wives made). He asks Esav to hunt and prepare food so he can bless him. Rivka overhears, has Yaakov bring two goats, cooks them, dresses him in Esav’s clothes, and covers his arms with the goat skins. Yitzchak notes that the voice is Yaakov’s but the hands feel like Esav’s, then gives the fat blessing. Esav returns, learns what happened, and demands a second blessing; when he mentions that Yaakov also took the bechorah, Yitzchak realizes the first blessing went to the right son and gives Esav a lesser one. Esav plans to kill Yaakov after Yitzchak’s death. Rivka sends Yaakov to Lavan in Haran. Before he leaves, Yitzchak charges him not to marry a Canaanite but to take a wife from Paddan Aram. Esav, seeing this, marries a daughter of Yishmael. The episode ends with Yaakov on his way (passing, according to some, the yeshiva of Shem and Ever).
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