We know the Torah is not simply stories, but a discussion and explanation of great Lights being revealed and great supernal battles being fought.

Why was Jacob frightened by Esau?

This week we find something very interesting. Jacob was very scared. Jacob says, “I’m so afraid of Esau,” and he begs for assistance. It says Jacob was very worried. Time and again in his meetings with Esau, Jacob was very frightened.

We know Jacob was not scared of anything physical. What is it about the energy of Esau that truly frightened Jacob?

First we need to understand the essence of the person, but, more importantly, we need to understand the energy of Esau.Was Esau a righteous person?

Isaac had two sons. One was righteous, Jacob, and the other was negative, Esau. Each of us paints pictures in our mind of what righteous and negative look like. The kabbalists teach that these pictures are not true. The kabbalists teach that if any one of us would come in contact with Esau, we would see one of the most spiritual, one of the wisest people we have ever met in our lives. In Esau’s mind, at least, he was terribly connected to the Light of the Creator.

We know the three meals of Shabbat are very important, and that the third meal is the highest meal. The great kabbalists revealed the secrets at the time of the third meal. Esau would reveal secrets at the third meal. If you looked at him externally, you would see a very spiritual, very wise, and very connected person. Or so it would seem.

What was the problem with Esau?

What takes somebody from what seemingly would be a great spiritual height to the lowest of the low? Not only is Esau so disconnected, so dark, so negative, he is the only essence, the only energy, that Jacob feared.

We know Jacob spent many years with Laban, a very negative person, and he wasn’t scared. What was it about Esau that took all that was right and made it dark and wrong?The answer is so simple that unfortunately many of us can miss it. Worse than that, many of us won’t be awakened to the lesson.

The answer is simple. The problem with Esau was not that he didn’t make his connections. He did. The problem was not that he didn’t use spiritual tools. He did. The problem was not that he did not study. He did. The problem was one simple problem: he had a very large ego.

The ego literally ate away all that was right with Esau. His ego, meaning an appreciation of how great he was and the spiritual heights he had achieved, literally ate away at all that was right with Esau. Ninety-five percent of what he was doing was perfect, but he allowed the five percent of ego to grow within him. He allowed his ego to act in his mind, in his words, and in his actions in a negative way. He was a very unique soul that allowed himself to act in ways of the ego.

The stronger our ego, the greater our blindness to it. And that point that scared Jacob. The stronger the hold our ego, our selfishness, has on us, the greater our blindness to it. Jacob could handle any level of negativity, any level of darkness, but what terrified Jacob was the knowledge that if he came in contact with ego, it could overcome him and make him blind to its existence. To the extent we allow our ego to be maintained, to that extent we are blinded.

The gift given to us on this Sabbath is the gift of fear. We can be doing everything right, studying, making the connections, doing the prayers and mediations properly. But are we uprooting the ego in how we talk to another person? The ego is very smart. There are overt and covert ways he operates within us. If we are not scared of the darkness the ego can create within every single one of us, we will remain blind to it. We will be connected, and do everything right, but we can wind up as dark and as blind as Esau.

When we have a vision of Esau, we have a vision of a person who accomplished everything we want to accomplish in a spiritual way. Any connection, any level of knowledge, he achieved all of that. There is nothing we can hope to achieve in the way of connection to the Light of the Creator that Esau did not achieve.

The one thing that made all of that tremendous work dark and hollow and rotten is the fact he allowed his ego to remain, and he was blind to it.

If Esau was sitting here as we are about to read this reading, and we said “Do you know how important it is to remove the ego?” he would say “yes.” But the worst thing of the ego that is we are blind to it.