18 Nov TOLDOT: THE ETERNITY MINDSET

What is the defining
difference between us Jews
and the surrounding
society?
There are several, but if I had
to choose one, I would say:
the tattoo. The most
significant and fundamental difference
between us and them is the tattoo.
Why do I say that? True, tattoos are
forbidden by the Torah, but so are
cheeseburgers. So why do I see tattoos as
reflecting the defining difference between
us and our society, rather than cheeseburgers
– or the many other things which they do
which we don’t??
The answer is that the tattoo is permanent,
and the young person who gets a tattoo
does so without thinking beyond the
immediate here-and-now.
People get tattoos of the logos of their
favorite sports team – but how do they
know that they will still be rooting for that
team in thirty years? How do they know
that they will even be interested in sports in
thirty years?

People get tattoos of dragons and the like
on visible parts of their body, like the neck.
How do they know that they won’t one day
seek a high position in a major corporation,
where such images are wholly
inappropriate?
Of course, the young people who get these
tattoos aren’t thinking long-term. They like
the idea of the tattoo now, so they get it,
without taking the future into account.
And this might be the most important
distinction between us and them.
We are the eternal nation. This means not
only that the Jewish People are guaranteed
to exist forever, but that we live each day
with an awareness of our future, both
individual and collective. We live with an
understanding that we are part of a story
that began millennia ago with Avraham
Avinu, and will continue forever. We
cannot focus only the here-and-now. We
are always thinking of our future, our
legacy, the everlasting impact that we have,
and our children and our grandchildren.
This “eternity mindset” is one of the
defining characteristics of the Jewish
experience.

We read in Parashat Toldot the story of
Esav selling the birthright to Yaakov. Esav
came in from the fields weary and
famished, and found Yaakov making a
lentil stew. Rashi explains that on this day,
their grandfather, Avraham Avinu, passed
away, and Yaakov was cooking lentils
because it is traditionally a food fed to
mourners. The round shape of the lentil
symbolizes our belief in eternity; just as a
circle has no end, we believe that life does
not end after death, as the soul lives forever.
Esav, however, saw this food and asked
Yaakov to feed him “from this red, red
stuff” (25:30). Esav didn’t see the
symbolism of the lentils; he saw only their
color. He saw everything superficially. He
didn’t look beyond the immediate present.
Yaakov knew at that point that Esav could
not be a part of the process of building Am
Yisrael. He could not be a patriarch of the
eternal nation. And so Yaakov demanded
that Esav give him the birthright.

Part of what makes us unique is this long-
term mentality, the understanding that

there is so much more to life than the
fleeting moment, that so many things that

seem important right now are, from the
perspective of the eternal nation, so trivial
and insignificant.
When we live with the “eternity mindset,”
we see beyond the “red” of the “lentils,”
we see everything on a deeper level. We
are then able to keep our priorities straight,
to know what’s important, what has value,
what deserves our time and our attention,
and what doesn’t. And when we live like
this, we make the most of every day we are
given, and use our time in this world to
have the greatest long-term impact that we
can make.