ISAAC’S SENSORY EXPERIENCE

It is well-known that a blind or partially sighted person can develop heightened ability in other senses to compensate for their loss of sight.

We see this clearly in this week’s parasha where the blind Isaac touches, listens, tastes and smells to clarify the identity of the person of front of him.

Isaac sends out his son, Esau to hunt for game so that he may eat his food and bless him. Rebecca overhears and instructs Jacob to pre-empt Esau. He should don his brother’s clothes and bring food that she will prepare so that Isaac will bless him first. Jacob raises the concern that he is smooth-skinned, and Esau is hairy: “Perhaps my father will feel me, and I will be discovered as a fraud.” Rebecca advises Jacob to cover his forearms with hairy goatskins.

Jacob announces himself to his father, and Isaac, hearing his voice, immediately questions his identity. He touches Jacob. Even though he feels like Esau, Isaac expresses his doubt: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

Again, Isaac questions him: “Are you really my son, Esau?” He replied: “I am.” “Then serve me and let me eat of my son’s game so that my soul may bless you.”

So, Jacob served his father with meat and wine. Isaac said: “Come close and kiss me.” Jacob does so and Isaac smells his clothes and exclaims: “The scent of my son is like the scent of a field blessed by G-d.”

The smell of Jacob is the final decider for Isaac. He proceeds to give Jacob the blessing he had prepared.

Rashi, quoting the Sages, remarks that as well as wearing Esau’s special clothes, Jacob is wearing animal skins which normally have a foul odour. Yet, at that moment, a fragrance of the Garden of Eden entered with him. Whatever doubts Isaac had about the identity of the person in front of him were assuaged when he smelled the perfume of paradise.

The question remains, how did Isaac recognize this fragrance? The late Rabbi Elie Munk (basing himself on mystical sources) explains that Isaac sensed the same sublime fragrance that had enveloped him when he was bound as a sacrifice on the altar on Mount Moriah. [The word Moriah is related to the Hebrew word, mor, or myrrh.] It was the same fragrance that he had experienced when he used to pray at his mother’s grave at the Cave of Machpelah. Isaac recognized the perfume he had not sensed for many years and immediately realized that the person before him was holy, worthy of his blessing.