Esav was waiting for his father’s death to draw near so that he could take revenge and kill his brother Yaakov for a crime he had not committed, and that day had come. Yaakov feared, and no wonder, since Yitzchak blessed his son Esav with “you shall live by the sword” , and now he was approaching with an army of 400 soldiers. What do you think Yaakov did, what did his survival instinct tell him, run for your life, or he will surely kill you, kill yourself before he comes! Neither answer is correct. Rashi explains that Yaakov thoroughly prepared his strategies: Trying to appease Esav with gifts, preparing for war, and pleading with God to save him from his brother’s clutches. But how to try to appease someone coming to kill him? Yaakov knew that his brother was attached to material things, he proved it when Esav sold him his primojenitura in exchange for a simple plate of lentils, and that is why Yaakov sent emissaries to bring him animals as gifts, but he asks them not to give them all at once, but to have a distance between flock and flock, so that Esav would be delighted with the great amount of gifts. This, in a way, is the antithesis of a basic concept in Judaism: ”Who is the Rich? He who is happy with what he has. King Solomon says that he who loves money will not be satisfied with money. The simple explanation is that, if your life is focused only around the love of the material, you will never be satiated and will always want more, because the fuel for the soul is not matter, but wisdom, however as Esav did not believe in the transcendental, Yaakov tried to appease him with gifts. And indeed it worked, for Esav sees the gifts and later, when he meets Yaakov, he embraces and forgives him. At first Esav does not accept the gifts, telling his brother, “I already have plenty, keep yours. Instead, Yaakov replies, “I have everything”. Let us observe the difference between the two: Yaakov: I have everything! Do you see the difference? We can have a lot, but still not be happy with what we have; on the other hand we can have what we need to live, and be happy.Bronnie Ware, an expert in palliative care and the terminally ill, compiled a book that talks about the top five regrets people have before they die. They were confessions that helped her transform her life. Because according to Bronnie Ware, it’s really sad to go to your grave thinking, “I wish I had done that…”. One of those regrets is: “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard, ” because that, they said, had thrown them off balance and as a result they had lost a lot of things in their life. This was one of the differences between Yaakov and Esav, two visions of seeing what really matters in life. Of course working is indispensable to survive day by day, and in fact there is nothing wrong in wanting to earn money to give yourself some treats if possible, the problem is to lose the course of our primary objective: “To direct ourselves towards the transcendental and connect with God” ; that way we will avoid arriving at the end of our lives regretting not having reached it.






George Deek is an Arab-Israeli diplomat. In 2018, Deek was appointed Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. He is the first Israeli Arab Christian to become an ambassador. Deek grew up in an Eastern Orthodox Christian family in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, in a building where the other tenants included Muslims, Catholics, Jews and a Catholic priest of Jewish ancestry.[2][3] His father, who worked as a tax advisor,[3] was one of the leaders of the Christian community in Jaffa who served as chairman of the Orthodox Association, and was considered a well-known and popular figure in the city until in 2015 a square was inaugurated in his memory in Jaffa in the presence of Mayor Ron Huldai.[4] According to Deek, his grandparents fled to Lebanon for safety when the 1947–1949 Palestine war, having been told that the Jews would slaughter them if they remained in their homes, but expecting to return home once Arab armies defeated the Jews.[3] According to Deek, when the war ended, his grandparents felt that they had been “deceived”, and decided to return illegally to their home in Jaffa rather than remaining in Lebanon as refugees. Since reentering the country was illegal, Deek’s grandfather, an electrician, was arrested and jailed.




















