My 9 year old grandson’s teacher described Esau as a “evil” & Jacob as a “righteous” when discussing their birth. When my grandson asked how that could be if there is free will to be good or bad, the teacher complimented him on asking such a good question, but did not supply any answer. No one in our family was able to do so either. Can you reconcile the existence of free choice & the characterization of the twins at birth as evil or good? Thank you very much.

Very interesting question. Actually, I think I agree with your grandson! The Rambam (Maimonides) in the Laws of Repentance says that every human being ever born has the choice to be the most righteous ever, or the most evil. I guess that must include Esau (and Jacob too). Everyone has a choice on what path he’ll take. Doesn’t mean, though, that choices are of equal difficulty for everyone. Some people don’t like pork, or enjoy learning Torah very much, or love to visit the sick, and thus would find those particular issues easy. Another might have a strong desire to do the wrong thing. That doesn’t make it unfair. G-d knows what he’s doing, and he gives reward and punishment according to the difficulty of the task.

That’s how I understand the Midrashim about Esau’s and Jacob’s natures from birth. Esau had certain negative tendencies and desires, and Jacob had certain other ones, as described there by the Torah. Doesn’t mean Esau couldn’t have become great, or that Jacob had to; that was up to them.

Indeed, the Midrash says that when the prophet Samuel first saw David, who he was to annoint king, he was shocked and terrified – what’s happening?! This person is another Esau! G-d reassured him: This one conquered his desires, and will use those same characteristics to do good.

I’ll just add that we have the benefit of looking at the actions in the Torah retrospectively; we know how they turned out. The Midrash tends to focus in on a detail in terms of the ultimate result, and magnify it. Esau did such-and-such, “how wicked!”, that was an indicator of his later downfall. But again it didn’t have to be that way. He could have turned himself good, and his earlier actions wouldn’t have that implication and wouldn’t be described that way in the Midrash. All of our children have good characteristics and more difficult ones, as every parent knows. We hope that the good ones will be the building blocks of our childrens’ later characters, and not the others.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach