1. The starting point: the text of the Torah
The key verse is:
“And it happened that when Yitzjak envejecio, their eyes be darkened to see, and called Esav her older son...” (Genesis 27:1)
In peshat (plain reading), the Torah only says three things:
- Yitzjak was an old man.
- His eyes were dim, to the point of not seeing.
- This blindness is the frame narrative that allows Yaakov be able to enter and receive the berajá intended for Esav.
Nothing more. Everything else comes from the rabbinic literature, midrashica and kabbalistic.
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2. Peshat: old age and human frailty
Several modern commentators stress that, on the simplest level, it is blindness senile: the loss of normal view in the old age; the text asserts with the same naturalness with which outlines that Esav is over or they call it “Red.”
This level is important: even if there are spiritual reasons, the Torah legitimate disability and old age as a human reality, not as a “moral defect”.
3. Explanations midrashicas classic
The midrashim and commentators classic wonder: why precisely Yitzjak, the patriarch who was almost offered a sacrifice, and that he lived a life relatively collection, it ends up blind?
The main answers are these:
3.1. The smoke of the idolatry of the wives of Esav
Rashi quotes midrashim (Bereishit Rabbá, etc) that say that Yitzjak you'll go blind by the smoke of the incense, the wives idolaters of Esav offered to their gods inside the house.
- The text speaks immediately before the blindness of Yitzjak about the wives of Esav and his idolatry (Gen 26:34-35), and the midrash sees there a direct relationship.
- The smoke material, and the pollution of spiritual idolatry “burn” your eyes.
Message: the spiritual environment of the house affects even physically to the tzaddik.
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3.2. Punishment for “close your eyes” at the evil of Esav
Other commentators (for example Sforno, collected in compendiums, of the parashah) point out that the blindness was punishment measure-by-measure:
Yitzjak “closed eyes” at the sins of Esav, because of his love and the food that he brought; for that the Sky will “mountain eyes” literally.
- The blindness physics reflects the blindness moral in front of the beloved son.
- Midrashim speak even of “bribery”: delicacies that Esav offered to his father, that clouded his judgment.
Here we introduce a halachic principle and ethics: the bribe blinds even the wise (Deut 16:19), and Yitzjak is no exception.
3.3. A consequence of the Akedat Yitzjak (binding of Isaac)
Another group of midrashim links its blindness to the episode of the Akeidah:
- Tears of the angels: when Abraham ata to Yitzjak and picks up the knife, the angels cry; your tears fall in the eyes of Yitzjak and, decades later, that manifests as blindness.
- See the Shechinah, or Gehinnom:
- Some midrashim say that, on the altar, Yitzjak he saw the Divine Presence or even the Gehinnom open under Esavand that spiritual intensity “burn” your view.
In this line, the blindness is not a punishment but a consequence of having been too close to the fire of the divine and the vision of judgment.
3.4. Blindness providential to allow the berajá to Yaakov
Another explanation midrashica much quoted: God wanted Yaakov to receive the blessing and that's why it caused the blindness of Yitzjak.
- If Yitzjak had seen clearly, I never would have allowed the deception of Rivká and Yaakov.
- The blindness is an instrument of the hashgachah pratit (providence particular) to ensure that the covenant abrahamico pass to who should happen.
This reading does not negate other causes, and argues that, whatever the immediate origin, the purpose that blindness is the successful transmission of the berajá.
3.5. Readings ethical and psychological consequences later
Contemporary commentators developed the idea that the blindness of Yitzjak is a a symbol of blindness emotional/moral:
- Inability to see who is really Esav and what you need.
- Need to “not see” certain acts of Esav in order to continue loving and maintain the parent-child relationship.
There are midrashim classics, but they are in continuity with the idea rabbinical that his love for Esav “clouded” his discernment.
4. Perspective kabbalistic
The kabbalah, especially the Zóhar in parashat Toldot, it goes beyond the level of historical-narrative, and sees the blindness of Yitzjak as a phenomenon of the sefirot.
4.1. Yitzjak as Gevurah / left Column
The Zóhar notes that the patriarchs correspond to the three columns of the Tree of the Sephiroth:
- Abraham → Chesed (mercy, right)
- Yitzjak → Gevurah (rigor, left)
- Yaakov → Tiferet (balance and harmony)
The left column associated with judgment, severity and darkness. The Zóhar says explicitly that the blindness of Yitzjak is the manifestation of this connection extreme left:
“The patriarchs were linked with the Left-hand Column, which represents trial and darkness. This is the secret of blindness in the Torah... Yitzjak, totally connected with the Left, that is why we are told to stay completely blind.” ZOHAR
The idea:
- When Gevurah is not balanced with Chesed, becomes darkness “short” light to the eyes.
- His blindness mark the limit of the trial pure can manifest themselves in the world.
4.2. Eyes, light and excess of revelation
In the kabbalah, the eyes are channels through which flows the spiritual light. An excess of light can “break the pot” (a concept similar to shevirat ha-kelim).
Applied to Yitzjak:
- His experience in the Akeidah and his life of reverential fear put you in a level of Gevurah very high.
- This excess of light-judgment produces, over time, a “burn the spiritual” if in eyes: can not continue to perceive this world as normal.
The result is that Yitzjak is in a flat more inside: see less and less of the physical world and, paradoxically, see more of the spiritual plane; therefore, even blind, discerning by smell, touch and voice to its children, and perceived that Yaakov is no “reset begadim” (smell of paradise).
4.3. Blindness and channeling the blessings
The Zóhar and cabalistic texts later you see the blessings of Yitzjak as channels of divine energy that determine the fate of Israel and Esav/Edom.
From this prism:
- Blindness “disconnects” in part to Yitzjak of the world of appearance and leave it to act as “channel pure” of berajá.
- The fact that bless Yaakov “believing” that it is Esav expresses a mystery: the light of Gevurah (Yitzjak) should be passed to the son of the central column (Yaakov/Tiferet), but without completely negate the role of Esav/Edom in the story.
5. Synthesis: by that Yitzjak is blind, according to the sources
5.1. Levels of explanation
- Natural / peshat
- Old age, human frailty, disability, normal.
- Moral / midrashica
- Smoke from idolatry of the wives of Esav.
- Punishment for ignoring the sins of Esav and left to “bribe” for his delicacies.
- Historical-theological
- A consequence of the Akeidah: tears of angels, the vision of the Shechinah/Gehinnom.
- Instrument of Providence for the berajá pass to Yaakov.
- Mystical (kabbalistic)
- Manifestation of the connection of extreme Yitzjak with Gevurah/left-hand column, which results in darkness and blindness.
- Readings in contemporary
- Symbol of the difficulty of a parent to see the faults of a beloved child.
5.2. Do they exclude each other?
In rabbinic thought classic, no:
- There may be blindness senile and at the same time a reading moral (“God closed his eyes, because the cerro yours”).
- The Akeidah can cause remote, the smoke of the idolatry proximate cause and the Providence final cause.
- For the cabal, all these levels are different levels of the same reality.
6. Relevant topics
- Text-base clear: Genesis 27:1; stresses the relationship between old age, blindness, and the scene of the blessings.
- Minimum of midrashim that are important to know and quote:
- Smoke from the idolatry of the wives of Esav.
- Tears of the angels in the Akeidah.
- Blindness to allow the berajá comes to Yaakov.
- Blindness as a punishment for “not seeing” the wickedness of Esav.
- Point cabalistic central: Yitzjak = Gevurah; blindness is the darkness of the left column and at the same time the mechanism to transfer that energy to Yaakov.
- Applying ethics:
- The danger of loving a child so “dependent of something” (for the likes you give, for the image projected).
- The responsibility not to close our eyes to the evil, even when it comes to our own.
- The acceptance of old age and disability as part of the creation of God, without romantizarla, but not stigmatize it.
