ABSTRACT
A plausible point of departure for thinking about the issue of nature or nurture is in the sad story of Esau, the firstborn twin son of Isaac and Rebecca. Esau is a paradigmatic antihero of midrashic tradition, though the Torah, quite nonjudgmentally, simply notes that “when the boys grew up, Esau was one who knew hunting, a man of the field, and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents”. From Rabbi Wasserman’s perspective, Esau’s attachment to pagan temples, even before birth, expressed the base instincts inherent in his own constitution. Through the writings of the ultra-Orthodox educators, people might well see Esau as simply natural man. The children of a cultured nation were turned, with dizzying speed, into the spiritual seed of Esau-Edom. Human beings come into the world with innate qualities, perhaps even personalities. Certainly, too, some children present, because of organic problems, sometimes insurmountable difficulties of growth and development.
