Yaakov and Esav's Dispute Over Avrohom's Death: Building Hashem's Presence in the World

This shiur examines the Midrash about Esav's reaction when Yaakov told him Avrohom Avinu had died. The Midrash describes what appears to be a strange conversation: Esav asks "who is the zaken who died?", Yaakov answers "Avrohom died," and Esav responds "did he die midas hadin?" Rabbi Zweig asks several fundamental questions about this exchange. Why would Esav doubt that Avrohom died? Everyone dies—there has been a gezeiras misos on all mankind since creation. What makes this conversation even stranger is that this isn't something people joke about; when someone says a person died, they mean it literally. The key to understanding this Midrash lies in recognizing that there are different types of death. A person can die through being cut off from the makor chaim (source of life), or through reverse ishtalshelus—just as everything physical descended from the spiritual world through atzilus, beriah, yetzirah and asiyah, so too a person could ascend back through these levels, with the physical becoming increasingly spiritual until returning to olam ha'atzilus. This would be a form of death as aliyah rather than yeridah.