Marriage Priorities: Yaakov vs Esav's Approach to Family

Full Summary

Rabbi Zweig addresses what he considers the greatest change in family relations over the past 30-50 years: the shift from viewing women primarily as mothers to viewing them primarily as partners or companions. He draws from the encounter between Yaakov and Esav in Parshas Vayishlach to illustrate two fundamentally different approaches to family structure. When Esav asks "Who are these women and children?" Yaakov responds "These are the children that the Almighty gifted me with." The Ramban (רמב"ן) suggests Yaakov didn't feel proper mentioning the women directly, but Rabbi Zweig proposes that Yaakov's answer addresses both - the women are defined by their role as mothers. This interpretation is supported by Rashi (רש"י)'s observation that when relocating, Yaakov put children first, then wives, while Esav put wives first, then children. Rabbi Zweig cites a fascinating Midrash about Rachel's shame before having children. The Midrash explains that a childless woman has no one to blame when things break - she must take responsibility herself. But once she has children, she can say "your son broke it." This doesn't mean she's lying, but rather that her entire focus has shifted to the children, and other things naturally get neglected when one's primary attention is devoted to child-rearing. The fundamental problem in modern society, according to Rabbi Zweig, is that men now define women primarily as companions and partners rather than as mothers. This leads to prioritizing qualities like earning potential, physical attractiveness, and career success over maternal qualities like understanding children, providing emotional support, and building self-esteem. When a woman is evaluated primarily on her ability to earn money or advance professionally, she's competing in an arena where her natural strengths - intuition, emotional connection, and nurturing ability - are often liabilities rather than assets. This creates a destructive cycle: women feel unfulfilled because they're not excelling in areas that don't utilize their unique gifts, while simultaneously not receiving recognition for what they do exceptionally well. When mothers come home feeling beaten down and unsuccessful, they cannot provide the emotional support and empowerment that children desperately need. Children then grow up with low self-esteem because their mothers lack the emotional resources to build them up. Rabbi Zweig argues that much of this is driven not by genuine economic necessity but by artificially inflated lifestyle expectations - spending enormous sums on weddings, bar mitzvahs, and maintaining luxurious standards of living that previous generations would have found shameful. This forces families into dual-career situations that sacrifice what should be their highest priority: properly raising their children. The solution involves realigning priorities to match Yaakov's model: children first, with both parents understanding that the mother's primary role is empowerment and emotional development of the family. This doesn't mean women shouldn't have education or career options as backup plans, but these should be secondary priorities, not primary identity markers. Parents must also model these values for their daughters, emphasizing character development, kindness, and interpersonal skills over purely academic or career achievements. Rabbi Zweig concludes that true mothering isn't about doing everything for children, but about empowering them to feel good about themselves so they can function independently. This role continues even after children marry, as the ongoing emotional support and guidance mothers provide remains crucial throughout their children's lives.