בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּךֶ אַתֶה חֲוָיָה שְׁכִינּוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדַשְׁתַנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֶיהֶ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ אֱלֹהָתֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קֵרְבָתְנוּ לַעֲבוֹדָתָהּ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
Blessings for learning and studying Torah
Berakhot 11b:
Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Nonbinary Hebrew Project:
B’rucheh ateh Khavayah Shekhinu ruach ha’olam asher kidash’tanu b’mitzvotei’he v’tziv’tanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Feminine God Language:
Brukhah at Ya Elohateinu ruach ha’olam asher keir’vat’nu la’avodatah v’tziv’tavnu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "The Tragedy of Good Intentions," https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/toldot/the-tragedy-of-good-intentions/
How did Rebecca come to do what she did?
There are three possible answers. The first: she loved Jacob (Gen. 25:28). She preferred him to Esau. She knew Isaac felt otherwise. So she was driven by maternal instinct. She wanted her beloved son to be blessed.
This is an unlikely answer. The patriarchs and matriarchs are role models. They were not driven by mere instinct or vicarious ambition. Rebecca was not Lady Macbeth. Nor was she Bat-sheva, engaging in court politics to ensure that her son, Solomon, would inherit David’s throne (see 1 Kings 1). It would be a serious misreading to read the narrative this way.
The second possibility is that she believed strongly that Esau was the wrong person to inherit the blessing. She had already seen how readily he had sold his birthright and “despised” it (Gen. 25:31-34). She did not believe a “hunter” and “a man of the field” fitted the template of the Abrahamic covenant. She knew that this was one of the reasons why God chose Isaac not Ishmael, because Ishmael was destined to be “a wild ass of a man” (Gen. 16:12). She knew that Isaac loved Esau but felt – for various reasons, depending on which commentary one follows – that he was blind to his faults. It was vital to the future of the covenant that it be entrusted to the child who had the right qualities to live by its high demands.
The third possibility is simply that she was guided by the oracle she had received prior to the twins’ birth
“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, "On Deception and Its Consequences: Parashat Toldot 5777," https://rabbituchman.com/on-deception-and-its-consequences-parashat-toldot-5777/
Yaakov, as we know, is a morally flawed character. Indeed, the rabbis are wont to remind us that ours is a tradition that prides itself on our ability to sit with the tensions and complexity inherent in the fact that our ancestors are portrayed in all the realness and messiness that it is to be human.
Yaakov faces a great deal of trickery and deception in his own life and must pay a steep price for that. He is first tricked into marrying Leah, Rachel’s older sister and later still, tricked into believing that his beloved son, Yosef, has died. And it is only at the very end of his life, as he, too, is losing his eyesight, that he learns his son is indeed alive, though a far cry from who he was a boy. Yaakov works fourteen years for Rachel, his beloved, and his marriage to Leah is a less than happy one, Leah always having to live with the knowledge that she is unloved. What a profound tragedy that is all its own. Had Yaakov not deceived his own father, would any of this have happened? Though we cannot answer that question with any degree of certainty, there is a significant lesson for all of us in this, and I believe this is what God is showing us. Our moral and interpersonal actions have consequences. God knows the secrets of our hearts. God knows when we are not living the way God calls us to live. Yaakov’s two experiences of personal deception allow him to viscerally access the pain he has caused, to understand the multiple emotional layers, the vulnerability, the fear, the anger. Hopefully, those experiences caused him to do tshuvah and a cheshbon hanefesh. Hopefully, he grew from those experiences.
Rabbi Shefa Gold, "Toldot," https://www.rabbishefagold.com/toldot/
In the story of Toldot we learn of the tragedy of deception between brothers that results from the narrow belief in the scarcity of blessing. Our family is torn apart because of the conviction that only one of Isaac’s sons can receive his blessing.
This system of limiting blessing and creating hierarchy is born of the belief that love and blessing are finite, that there are winners and losers. This idea is drawn from the well of contention.. [...]
From the well of spaciousness comes the wisdom that our fates are bound up with one another. Your loss, your suffering is also mine, and true blessing is shared. At the well of spaciousness I slake my thirst with the knowledge that the source of blessing knows no bounds, and that we are capable of accessing that blessing directly.