“Why display yourselves when you are satiated, before the children of Esav and Yishmael?” (Rashi, Beraishis 42:1).

That is the Gemara’s (Taanis 10b) understanding of Yaakov Avinu’s exhortation to his sons, lama tisra’u (understood, apparently, as “why be conspicuous?”). His rhetorical question was posed to ensure that “they will [the children of Esav and Yishmael] will not be jealous of you….” as they journey to Mitzrayim to garner food during the famine. 

Chazal say that, in general, “a person should not indulge in luxury” [ibid]. But especially when it might generate jealousy and resultant animosity.

It is a lesson for the ages, and needed throughout the ages. Among others, the Kli Yakar, who died in 1619, lamented the fact that some Jews’ homes and possessions in his time proclaimed their material success. The problem has hardly disappeared today.

(One of the things that attracted me to the community where I live was the basic uniformity of the homes there. There are no mansions here, not even McMansions.)

Several commentaries wonder at the Gemara’s reference, in the opening quote above, to the progeny of Esav and Yishmael. Yaakov was in Cna’an. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Chazal to make their point about not standing out with regard to Yaakov’s neighbors, the Cna’anim? There’s no reason to believe that Esav and Yishmael’s people were nearby.

What occurs to me is that there is a poignant prescience in Chazal’s comment. They may have sensed, or even foreseen, a distant but long-running future of Klal Yisrael, where so many of its members would be residing, as has been the case for many centuries, amid cultures associated with Esav and Yishmael.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran