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Why did Yitzchok love Esav in the past tense while Rivka loved Yaakov in the present? The verb tenses reveal essential differences between a father's role (creating and disciplining) and a mother's (ongoing nurturing). When a child chooses emptiness—like Esav at 13—a mother cannot nurture what the child knows is untrue about himself, though parental responsibility to change the environment continues.
This shiur addresses the fundamental question of how two children from the same parents—Yitzchok and Rivka—could turn out so differently: one becoming Yaakov Avinu and the other Esav. Rabbi Zweig rejects the superficial interpretation that the parents simply had favorites or lacked proper parenting skills, calling such readings an insult to our understanding of the Avos. The key lies in the grammatical subtlety of the pasuk. The Torah (תורה) states "vayehav Yitzchok es Esav" (Yitzchok loved Esav) in the past tense, but "v'Rivka oheves es Yaakov" (Rivka loves Yaakov) in the present tense. This linguistic distinction reveals a fundamental difference between the nature of a father's love and a mother's love.
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Bereishis 25:27-28 (Parshas Toldos)
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Why does the Torah separate Avrohom's eulogy for Sarah from his crying for her? The shiur shows that Sarah required a public eulogy focused on the communal loss of a leader, not Avrohom's private grief. This teaches that we must view Jewish tragedies through a national lens first, seeing attacks on Am Yisrael as collective losses that dwarf personal concerns.
