Now the Torah will tell us about the life of Yitzchak. We learn about the birth of Yitzchak’s two children, Yaakov and Eisav.

Yitzchak has children: Yitzchak was the main son of Avraham, since he was the one who continued Avraham’s job of teaching about Hashem!

Yitzchak married Rivkah when he was 40, and Rivkah was three. She grew up in the house of a rasha, but she was a tzadeikes!

At first Rivkah was too young to have a baby, but even after she was old enough, she didn’t have children right away. After 10 years of waiting, they realized it was time to try harder. They decided to both daven very hard! Hashem answered Yitzchak’s tefillah (since he had a double zechus, from himself and from his father) and Rivkah became pregnant — with twins!

It wasn’t easy for Rivkah, because she didn’t know she was having twins. It seemed that her baby wanted two opposite things! She would feel the baby kicking when she passed by the Yeshivah of Shem and Ever, AND when she passed a place of Avodah Zarah! It bothered Rivkah so much, that she went to Shem and Ever to ask them what was happening.

Hashem made Shem understand that she had twins! He explained that they would always be fighting, since one was good and one was not, but the older one would always have to serve the younger one. Now that Rivkah understood what was happening, she felt much better.

Finally, the babies were born! First one baby was born, red all over and covered with hair! Because he already had so much hair, they called him Eisav, like “asui” — complete. Then the second baby was born, holding on to Eisav’s heel. Hashem named him Yaakov (from the word eikev, heel). He was born with a bris milah already!

Eisav sells the bechorah: Their zaidy Avraham spent a lot of time teaching Yaakov and Eisav — and it worked until they were 13. Both boys worked hard to serve Hashem, and Eisav didn’t listen to his Yetzer Hara. But then things changed: Yaakov learned Torah, but Eisav started listening to his Yetzer Hara in secret, and tricked his father into thinking that he was still acting good.

When Eisav turned 15, he was sick of pretending that he was good. He wanted to be able to act the way he wanted, without feeling like he needed to hide it anymore. Hashem made Avraham pass away early so he wouldn’t have to see him doing this. Yaakov was cooking lentils for his father, since it is a minhag for someone who is mourning to eat lentils. At that time, Eisav came in, tired from a long day of doing whatever his Yetzer Hara told him to. He told Yaakov to give him the red lentil soup.

Yaakov saw how Eisav was acting, and realized that Eisav didn’t deserve the special job of being the oldest son of Yitzchak. So he told Eisav he would have to trade the zechus of being the firstborn for soup. Eisav decided it was worth it, and he switched.

Yitzchak moves to Gerar: Now the Torah tells us more about Yitzchak’s life:

There was another hunger in Eretz Yisroel, so Yitzchak wanted to go to a place with more food. Hashem told him not to go down to Mitzrayim, since he became holy when he was brought as a korban during the Akeidah. Instead he should go live with Avimelech, in Gerar, which would later become a part of Eretz Yisroel.

Hashem promised Yitzchak many brachos in Avraham’s zechus!